Traveling man

Picked-up pieces on Leg 1 of a whirlwind tour

IN THE AIR TO DENVER -- Bonus snippets from the training camp trail after Week 1:

HOUSTON -- I have come in with an impression: a blank salary-cap check has burned a hole in Charley Casserly's pocket. The Texans' general manager spent real money on nine NFL veterans in the expansion draft and in free agency, rewarding a tackle (Tony Boselli) whose future is in doubt because of chronic shoulder problems, a kicker (Kris Brown) who led the league in missed field goals last year, and a corner (Marcus Coleman) who stunk it up with the Jets last year. I think Boselli will heal in time to play most of this season, but he's $7.55 million on the cap if he plays and $6.1 million if the Texans have to cut him. And so I posed this to Casserly: Have you overspent this year, endangering your ability to sign free agents in the next couple of years? "The expansion draft this year was our best shot at free agency," he said. "We shot our wad, in a sense. But it makes no sense to have a lot of cap money if there's no one to spend it on. I'm reminded of the Chicago Bulls, a great franchise. I read where they have all this cap room and can't sign players to go there. We won't be active in the free-agency market over the next couple of years because we feel there won't be a lot in the market, and having money to spend on players is no good if there are no good players to spend the money on." I suppose. There may be no great players in free agency anymore, but if I were running a team today, I'd be sure to have $8 million every year to spend on upper-middle class players who will get some action and who could make my team markedly better ... as New England did this year with players like wideout Donald Hayes ($1.7 million average salary, but a starting player).

TRAVEL HIGHLIGHT INTERLUDE:

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- I land in Harrisburg Wednesday morning, at the unaptly named hut of an airport called Harrisburg International Airport, and hear this over the main P.A. system: "Your attention please. Will the person who left the Certs at the security checkpoint please return to claim them immediately. Attention please. Will the person who left the Certs at the security checkpoint please return to claim them immediately."

END OF TRAVEL HIGHLIGHT INTERLUDE.

CARLISLE, Pa. -- I have tried unsuccessfully, but not like a bulldog, to get private time with Steve Spurrier, staking out the rotunda at the dining hall and the back way he comes out of the practice locker room. To no avail. The bottom line is this: Steve Spurrier is tired of people writing about Steve Spurrier. As I interviewed Danny Wuerffel after last Wednesday afternoon's practice, he yelled to me good-naturedly, "Peter! Stop talking to people about me! You guys write about me enough! Write about the players!" We will. Just not now. It's hard to watch Spurrier work and watch him correct players and listen to him parry with the media without thinking, This is Jimmy Johnson all over again. I don't know when he'll win -- this year, next year, 2004. But he'll win, and win big.

List of the week The 10 most interesting players I saw last week, with a quick line as to why ...   1. Michael Vick, quarterback, Atlanta. Players I would pay to see any day of any week: Jason Kidd, Nomar Garciaparra, Martin Brodeur (surprised you with that Devilish one, didn't I?), Alfonso Soriano, A-Rod, LaVar Arrington, Brett Favre, Kurt Warner. I'll add Vick to that list if he throws and runs the way he did the other day in Greenville, S.C.  2. LaVar Arrington, linebacker, Washington. See above. What a motor when it counts in the games, and when so few are watching in practice.  3. Alvis Whitted, wideout, Atlanta. I don't mean to rave too much about this guy, but watching him run routes with speed and precision, and watching him catch the ball with surprisingly soft hands, I think he could be a big surprise for Dan Reeves.  4. Jonathan Wells, running back, Houston. The rookie from Ohio State is an inch shorter and 12 pounds lighter than Eddie George, but he sure reminds me of George when he runs. What a force he could be. The Texans will give him half the carries with the first team in camp and preseason tests, and let's see if he wins the job. My money's on him over James Allen.  5. Jesse Palmer, quarterback, Giants. Better arm than I thought, niftier in the pocket than I thought. Maybe Spurrier really did develop a decent NFL quarterback.  6. Jeremiah Trotter, linebacker, Washington. When a guy with nothing to prove dives for an interception, gets up, then runs and darts in a Barry Sanders-esque way as far as he can downfield in a seven-on-seven drill, you sit up and take notice.  7. Chad Hutchinson, quarterback, Dallas. He threw a stupid pick Saturday afternoon in 11-on-11 work, but I watched him over the course of maybe 100 throws in the morning and afternoon, and I was impressed with his accuracy and his arm strength. I can't believe he hasn't worn pads since 1997. "I like him," coach Dave Campo told me, "but I haven't seen enough to know if he's ready. You still see the rust, but I feel like he's got a good chance to help us."  8. Alge Crumpler, tight end, Atlanta. Big. Strong. Fast. Hands. He doesn't have the body flexibility of a Tony Gonzalez, but from what I see, if the Falcons use him right (I can't believe he caught only 25 balls last year; what was Reeves thinking?), he's got a heck of a chance to be one of the better tight ends in the league for a long time.  9. Peppi Zellner, defensive end, Dallas. This is a player from one of the Cowboys' netherdrafts, one when Dallas was going down the toilet, with but six sacks in three years. But he pancaked a poor Dallas rookie left tackle Saturday afternoon and played hard, and with impact, with the pads on. Quick, strong, hard to neutralize. Should hold off Ebenezer Ekuban for the starting right end job.  10. Joey Galloway, receiver, Dallas. I don't mean to over-Cowboy you, but this guy looks like the genuine item, and one of the things Campo is trying to do in this campo (pun intended) is make sure that Galloway will be a huge factor in games this fall. Fantasy alert: No one's going to pick Galloway very high in your league. Take a shot on him in Round 9. He's running like the wind again.

ALBANY, N.Y. -- The Giants did the right thing. Kerry Collins did the right thing. And so Collins will have the inside track on the Giants' quarterback job for the next three years. Notice I didn't say "will be the Giants' quarterback for the next three years." After his shaky (and that's being charitable after he led all NFL quarterbacks in mistakes committed -- a league-high 23 fumbles to go with his 16 interceptions) 2001 season, Collins looked to New York for a long-term, big-money deal. Giants GM Ernie Accorsi, wisely, did not show him the money. Rather, Accorsi gave him a contract that is smart for both sides. In essence, he paid Collins $2.5 million in bonus money to extend the contract through the 2004 season when it was due to expire at the end of this year. I say there's a 45-to-55 percent chance that by the end of this year the Giants will want Collins back. If so, they have him for reasonable, middle-of-the-road NFL starting quarterback money. If not, they cut him June 2 and cost themselves $1.9 million on the cap in 2003 and $1.9 million in 2004. Why is this good for Collins? He just got married and is putting down roots in North Jersey. He's a bit of a nervous-Nellie type who would be thinking about the contract and worrying about it as this season went on, so obviously he won't have to worry about it now. "I can be loose. I can be free. I can be worry-free," he told me.

Oh, and one other Giants note: Big Blue has a rookie in camp, linebacker Wesly Mallard out of Oregon. Mallard, then, is an ex-Duck.

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- With all the beautiful campuses of American colleges out there, why is Furman never mentioned? What a place. Nineteen spots on campus could be cover shots for Better Homes and Gardens. I've never seen nicer and not-overdone athletic fields, all looking like fairways, together at any one college. The soccer stadium is tiny and pristine, a Fenway Park of soccer fields. Neat, neat place. Sorry I didn't discover it until age 45.

Nice to see Bobby Beathard here. Arthur Blank, the Falcons' new owner, hired Beathard a few months ago to be his "senior adviser." That means "man who tells Arthur Blank how to be an owner who knows football without being an owner who runs the football team." Beathard is happy as a clam. Instead of flying in and out of Atlanta, he's taken a place there and has left only a few times for his California home. He loves to surf, which you probably know. When he took this job, he told Blank he felt bad, but he'd have to leave the third week of August. "For a body-surfing competition," he told me. That's Bobby. Two things he can't stay away from: surfing and looking at football players. He seems to be enjoying himself, smiling and joking easily with Blank. The new owner is concerned about first-round holdout T.J. Duckett's altercation at a Nelly concert a couple of nights earlier, which resulted in Duckett getting one of his front teeth knocked out. "Bobby," Blank says to him late in the morning practice I watched, "when Duckett finally gets in here, you've got to tell him that never would have happened if he'd have been in camp on time." Chuckles all around.

SAN ANTONIO -- On the first day of Cowboys camp, there were more members of the media on hand (124) than there were fans at the start of the second day of Falcons training camp (47). That says something, though I'm not sure what. I have never seen a camp like this one. The intensity of interest is one thing. The intensity of the fans is another. Camp is inside, in the air-conditioned Alamodome, 30 degrees cooler inside than out, on the comfy turf (comfy, but those tiny rubber pellets keeping the ground soft also litter your shoes after one walk across the field). There will be some workouts on a field just built outside the dome, but the field is going through some growing pains and the Cowboys are rethinking how much they'll practice on the pasture. Otherwise, the surroundings are unlike any you've seen for a training camp. Fans chanting for Jerry Jones as if he were a rock star. Forty minutes after Saturday's late-afternoon practice ended, I'm sitting in the press box, with a view of the whole field, and there's Jones in the end zone, signing every last autograph. Hundreds. Literally hundreds. "Love you Jerry!" one fan yelled. "You the man Jerry!" said another. Here's what a nutty scene this is: You don't even notice all the Hard Knocks cameras everywhere.

"I'll tell you what this is like," Kevin Hardy told me on the field after the second practice of the day, which drew 12,173 Cowboyniks. "This almost feels like the Super Bowl, with the crowds and the enthusiasm."

"Just like Jacksonville's camp," I said with a chortle.

"It's a little bit different than Jacksonville," he said. Just a little.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Sunday night. The Ballpark at Arlington. A quick respite from footballville to watch my rotisserie ace, Barry Zito of Oakland. Texas up 2-1. Top eight. Two on, two out. In comes old hand Dave Burba to face Miguel Tejada. Burba faces nine hitters. The A's homer, double, fly out, single, single, single, single, single and get hit by a pitch. By the time Tejada batted around with a three-run double off Todd Van Poppel, Burba had the worst line of his life: a third of an inning, seven hits, eight runs, eight earned, no walks, no strikeouts. ERA for the night: 189.00. My glee over Zito being the beneficiary is tempered in the car afterward, when my third closer, Antonio Alfonseca, personally hands the Cardinals a 10-9 win with his 946th blown save of the year. I'm benching him for Octavio Dotel this week. Alfonseca is in my personal Siberia now.

Now comes Denver, Kansas City, Cleveland, St. Louis, Tampa Bay and Philadelphia -- in Greeley, (where I expect to do a week's worth of laundry because after some luggage debacles on camp trips of the past I have learned to pack incredibly light), River Falls, Berea, Macomb, Orlando and Bethlehem ... Colorado, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, Florida and Pennsylvania, respectively.

I have engaged in some very interesting football and non-football discussions over the past week. I am amazed to be recognized once or twice a day, and I am further amazed at the affection you show for this column. A guy in Atlanta said to me, "Take care of that hamstring. I've had that happen to me, and it's awful." I wrote about the pulled left hammy last Monday, deep in the column. A guy in the Albany airport told me to be nice to his Vikings; Mike Tice will turn it around, he said. "Tice is the perfect guy for that team right now," I said, "but he can't play defense."

At the airport in San Antonio, a fellow recognized me and asked: "Don't you get tired of all the travel this time of year?" Except for the sleeping part (the lack of sleeping part, I mean), no. Never. The players are relaxed, the coaches unhurried, the conversations mostly good, the practices revealing. The day I complain about getting up at 5 a.m. to make the flight to Denver and the 70-mile ride to Greeley is the day is the day I want you readers, en masse, to boycott me forever.

Somewhere Pete Is Smiling Dept.: The likely left guard of the New York Giants this year is a hard-trying free agent from Western Illinois named Rich Seubert, who has come out of the post-draft scrap heap in 2001 to battle onto the starting line of one of the game's storied franchises. His hometown: Rozellville, Wis.

1a. I think I expect ESPN to announce the hiring of Bill Parcells this week to be a full-season studio analyst on its two-hour Sunday pregame show. My money is on Parcells to say more newsworthy things than Steve Young or Sterling Sharpe.

1b. I think I would not be surprised to hear, if it happens five months hence, that Arthur Blank has put a call into Parcells to see if he's interested in getting on the coaching carousel one more time ... in Atlanta.

2. I think it's very hard for me to think Jeremy Shockey won't catch 75 balls for the Giants. Everything the organization is doing points that way, and the two offensive schemers/play-callers, Jim Fassel and Sean Payton, are both in love with the kid's potential after watching him in minicamps.

3. I think -- and I know I'm late in coming to this realization -- there is not a bigger baby in sports today that Colin Montgomerie. This elitist golfing snob was born with both a silver spoon and a pacifier in his mouth, and it appears they're both still there. THE MAN ACTUALLY SKIPPED A TOURNAMENT THIS WEEKEND TO PROTEST THE PRESS CRITICIZING HIS POST-THIRD-ROUND BRITISH OPEN SNIT. In America, Colin, that's called Rabbit Ears. And you lead the league, all leagues, in them.

4a. I think if these idiots in baseball strike now, they'd better be sure the system is fixed by the time they get back. I don't care if they take two years off. Just make sure, like the NFL is doing, that labor peace is on the horizon for a generation.

4b. I think the best thing I heard all week on the baseball front came on the sidelines at Giants camp, with rookie NFL beat man Buster Olney from The New York Times. Buster, as some of you might know, was one of America's best baseball writers until opting for the more sane life of the football beat last offseason. "In 1991, 19 of the 25 teams in baseball other than the Yankees spent at least 75 percent of what the Yankees spent on player salaries," Olney told me. "Now two of 29 teams other than the Yankees spend 75 percent of the Yankees. The Yankees payroll is at least twice as much as 17 of the 29 other teams in the league. It's a joke." Now that's some fine knowledge right there.

5. I think these are my personal thoughts of the week, many of them travel-related on this training camp odyssey:

a. When you take a two-week jaunt like this one, one of the biggest dilemmas you face is the nail clipper issue. Because I carry my rolling bag on about half the flights I take, I don't pack the clippers; they're supposed to be confiscated at the X-ray checkpoint. I clipped the night before I left, and now I'm going to have to clip again. So I'll have to buy some clippers, then dispose of them because I can't very well take them on planes. What a funny (and unsubmittable) item that would be on my expense account.

b. Goose Gossage sat across the aisle from me on the Newark-to-Houston flight last week. Slept the whole way.

c. I'm used to paying all kinds of taxes at hotels and rental-car agencies. But the tariffs in Houston last week, collectively, beat all. A 54-cent phone call was taxed two cents because the Texas Legislature has put a 3.6 percent surcharge on all hotel phone calls. It's called the "Texas Universal Fund Surcharge." My Hyatt room was $215. The 6 percent state occupancy tax was $12.90, the 7 percent city occupancy tax $15.05, the 2 percent county occupancy tax $4.30, and -- get this -- the sport occupancy tax another $4.30. That, my desk clerk said, was to help pay for Minute Maid (nee Enron) and Reliant stadiums. Glad to do my share, I guess. But an extra $36.57? Just for the privilege of staying in downtown Houston for 16 hours?

d. On a 20-seat sort-of-a-balsa-wood plane from Harrisburg to Albany with just two other passengers, I found myself thinking, "If this thing goes down, so few people will have died that I won't even get a good obit." And the flight was smooth as silk.

e. On a one-hour, 53-minute flight from Albany to Atlanta last Thursday, I was asked if I wanted something to drink nine times.

f. Larry Holmes. Butterbean. I have no comment. It deserves none.

g. Coffeenerdness: On Atlantic Southeast Airlines, a minor-league Delta carrier, civilization is served cold. Starbucks Frappucino drinks are sold by the bottle for $3.

h. Montclair Sports Illustrated Bears Note of the Week: You may have read about the 10-and-under travel team slugging its way through the first season in its history. Coach King has abandoned the Bears in their hour of playoff need. One of the sub coaches is parent of the year Mike Goldstein (attention WFAN listeners: Mike Goldstein is "Mike from Montclair" and the father of our cool and steely starting pitcher, Emma Goldstein) for the playoff opener against pesky Cedar Grove. Gametime is 6 p.m. tonight at Mount Hebron Field in Upper Montclair. Easy to find. Right down the street from the old Bellevue Theater. Three miles off Routes 3 and 46. The girls would love to see you.

i. Memo to feisty Baltimore outfielder Gary Matthews: In baseball, when the other team's star gets hit by a pitch, someone from your club is going to get hit. What are you getting all lippy about and starting a brawl Sunday in Beantown?

6. I think how sad it is that Fred Edelstein will begin serving 21 months in the minimum-security slammer in early August. Many of my peers do not like Fred because of the rumor-mongering nature of his newsletter. (If it is so full of trash, peers, then why do so many of us read it?) I have never had anything against him, though obviously this scheme of taking money from football types and agents and former players and trying to parlay it into big money is greedy and indefensible. It reminds me that all of us in this business are just former ink-stained beat men and we're not supposed to get rich. Live well, maybe. Get rich, no.

7. I think old buddy Gary Myers of the New York Daily News had this interesting observation about Emmitt Smith chasing the rushing record: Bruce Coslet coached the Jets when they passed over Smith in the first round of the 1991 draft to take Blair Thomas. And now Coslet, Dallas' offensive coordinator, will call the play to get Smith the record-breaking yards to push him past Walter Payton sometime this year, probably in October.

8. I think the sight of 42-year-old Darrell Green riding a mountain bike down the main drag of the bucolic classic American town of Carlisle, Pa., late last Wednesday afternoon -- shirt unbuttoned and flying in the breeze, no hands on the handlebars, waving and calling to me, causing the small crowd at Massey's Frozen Custard to stop and stare and gawk at the Ripken-esque hero -- is a sight I'll remember for a long, long time.

9a. I think the dumbest holdout of the year is Patrick Ramsey in Washington. Here's a late-first-round pick who has as good a chance as anyone in camp to win the opening-day QB job. I'm sure there's a very logical reason for him to be out of camp, because his agent is Jimmy Sexton, one of the best in business. But what overrides any such logic, in my opinion, is that if Ramsey is any good he'll make his real money on the second and third contracts, not the rookie deal. Akili Smith says the biggest contributing factor to his awful career in Cincinnati was missing three weeks in training camp because of a rookie holdout. Ramsey should have been in camp yesterday. He can win that job. I saw the other candidates, and stealing and screwing up the words of Lloyd Bentson, you, Sage Rosenfels, are no Sonny Jurgensen.

9b. I think, speaking of rookie quarterbacks, David Carr is an example of how things go well when you get in early. Last week, as the heat index at the Houston Texans practice field hit 112 degrees, Carr would not wilt. An hour into a mid-afternoon practice, he faded back in a seven-on-seven drill, held the ball with two hands up by his right ear, scanned the field quickly but with no nervous feet or jerky motion, waited for wideout Jabar Gaffney to dart over the middle on a 20-yard incut past cornerback Jason Suttle, and threw an overhand strike right into Gaffney's hands. Piece of cake. But a lot of work went into that throw. In college, Carr, though wildly successful (42 touchdowns, seven interceptions, 64.8 percent accuracy at Fresno State last year), dropped down to a three-quarters and sometimes sidearm delivery. Offensive coordinator Chris Palmer, thinking that was a recipe for deflected passes and bad mechanics in the NFL, ordered Carr to carry the ball up next to his ear on his dropback, to make it easier for his to throw overhand; Palmer also stands on six-foot ladders on the line of scrimmage during passing drills so the 6-foot-3 Carr can continually practice throwing overhand. "It feels more natural," Carr told me. "I'm going to back to the way I was taught to play quarterback in fourth and fifth grade. It's good for me. In college I could get away with throwing three-quarters and some bad mechanics. If I'm off six inches here, it's incomplete."

10. I think I would like to send 100 yards of best wishes to Stefanie Kaufman, nee Krasnow, the long-time editor of this column, who is leaving CNNSI.com this week to seek the proverbial new challenge (though she doesn't know what that is yet). I have never worked with a more professional, efficient, smart and caring person than Stef, and there will be a hole in Monday Morning Quarterback -- and in the extended Sports Illustrated family -- without her. Good luck, Stef. The real world is lucky to be getting you.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Monday Morning Quarterback appears in this space -- no kidding -- on Monday mornings.

 

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