It's his party

Steve Spurrier won't go changing any time soon

If you saw new Washington coach Steve Spurrier hold court -- which he did for the media, owners and coaches for the first time at the NFL meetings this week -- you'd be watching a master at work. If he's half as good on Sundays as he is handling people and deflecting the tough questions, it won't take the Redskins long to win the NFC East.

Spurrier was humble and non-confrontational, even when peppered with questions about his tendency to be a golfaholic. He bowed to the brains he respects in the NFL game, like St. Louis offensive maven Mike Martz. But he was his own person. There was one great scene at the party for owners, coaches, media and their families Monday night. An eyewitness told me that when Redskins owner Dan Snyder was getting ready to leave the party, he tugged at Spurrier's shoulder as if to say, "I'm leaving. Let's go." But Spurrier wasn't leaving. He was still talking to someone. Snyder left by himself. Here's what's going to be very interesting about Spurrier: He's not going to change one bit from being the iconoclast he was at Florida. He will enjoy being an outsider, and nothing will change that. In many ways, he's so much like Jimmy Johnson -- his own guy who no one, not even a rich owner used to getting his own way at everything, will be able to change.

On the field, there's one major adjustment Spurrier will have to make and he knows it. In college, his scheme wasn't much for "hot" receivers, the alternate choices a quarterback has when blitzed and has to make a split-second dumpoff. Why? Because in Gainesville, his receivers were so often in the clear that even when his quarterback got blitzed, the passer could still dump it quickly to a speedy wideout. As one general manager who is a big Spurrier fan told me, "Steve's going to learn in his first game that 'open' in the NFL would be 'covered' in college. The corners are going to be better across the board. So if he's facing a good blitzing team, he'll have to learn how to dump it to the back or to the tight end or risk getting his quarterback killed."

Somehow you get the idea that Spurrier will figure this out.

Giant problems

The Giants have a problem on their hands. They're in cap jail, basically, unable to improve their team all that much because they refuse to push some heavy contracts further into the future to ease their cap burden now. They have the highest-paid defensive player in the game, Michael Strahan, saying that, in order to re-do his contract now, he'll want the biggest signing bonus in NFL history. They have no quarterback of the long-term future; Kerry Collins is coming off a lousy year and now has to prove himself for the long term as he enters the last year of his contract. And now they have a key player, Tiki Barber, ripping Strahan in the New York Post for being selfish.

Bottom line: If the Giants pay Strahan, which I think they must try to do because he's the defensive player with the biggest impact in the game, they're going to have next to nothing left to build the rest of the team. The sins of the recent past, like paying a declining Jason Sehorn $36 million over six years, are coming home to roost, and Strahan's not helping.

A cornerstone

With the draft a month away, the top of the lottery is coming into focus. And the one player with no holes, the player who could go as high as No. 2, to Carolina, is Texas cornerback Quentin Jammer. He'll work out for the NFL masses on April 1 in Austin, but there's not much he can do to hurt himself. "He's the perfect NFL cornerback," said a GM with a pick in the top 10. "He's big enough (6-feet, 204 pounds) to jam the biggest receivers at the line, and he'll run well enough to keep up with almost any receiver." Detroit loves him at the third spot, as does Dallas at No. 6. And don't be surprised if the Raiders, with all their extra picks this year and next, try to move up and make a play for Jammer as well.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Check out his Monday Morning Quarterback column every -- and you should see this coming -- Monday morning.

 

Related information
Stories
Peter King's Insider Archive
Multimedia
Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video
Search our site	Watch CNN/SI 24 hours a day
	Sports Illustrated and CNN have combined to form a 24 hour sports news and information channel. To receive CNN/SI at your home call your cable operator or DirecTV.