Salary cap?
What salary cap?
That seems to be the attitude of the San Francisco 49ers, who are operating this year as if it's business as usual.
Noted for their free-spending ways while winning four Super Bowls in the 1980s, the 49ers were supposed to be one of the teams hit hardest by the new $34.6 million salary cap.
Instead, it looks as if they're spending more than the rest of the teams.
"We've been accused by half the league already," owner Edward J. DeBartolo Jr. said last week. "Some are trying to find out how we're cheating."
It's not supposed to be possible to cheat under this system. Every dollar spent is tracked by the league.
The 49ers, though, are certainly creative. When Pro Bowl linebacker Rickey Jackson was released by the New Orleans Saints last week after he refused a $500,000 offer, the 49ers signed him.
They gave him the $162,000 minimum, but wrote in clauses that if he reached certain incentives and they win 11 games, he gets $500,000. If he reaches the incentives and they win 12 games, he gets $1 million.
The risk in all this is that the 49ers will have to count the money against their cap next year if Jackson hits the incentives this year. But the 49ers will worry about next year when it comes.
"I've said it before and will continue to say it," DeBartolo said. "We have the best organization in football. Teams that win and are [always] competitive have a certain aura about them. It helps the organizations such as ours to attract [top free agents]."
Of course, aura will get you only so far. Money is still what counts the most. The Washington Redskins learned that last year when they still had a Super Bowl aura but Reggie White spurned them for a better offer from the Green Bay Packers. A 4-12 disaster followed.
The 49ers, though, keep finding ways to come up with the money.
During the regular free-agent signing period, only 11 Pro Bowlers changed teams. The 49ers got three of them -- defensive lineman Richard Dent, linebacker Ken Norton and center Bart Oates. They added another valuable defensive player in linebacker Gary Plummer.
The 49ers are even talking about finding a way to sign Deion Sanders if there's a baseball strike, but that may be tough even for the 49ers' accountants to pull off.
One of their techniques is gambling their starters can stay healthy. They're not worried about depth, and they're not going to pay $900,000 or $1 million for a backup quarterback.
They dumped Steve Bono and they're spending $140,000 this season on second-year player Elvis Grbac. They're keeping their fingers crossed that Steve Young can stay healthy. Tom Rathman, Bill Romanowski and Guy McIntyre were among the others to depart.
All this could backfire if the 49ers get a couple of key injuries, but they're doing their best to stay on top despite the cap. Other teams will be watching closely to see if it works.
Going for three
With the Dallas Cowboys attempting to become the first team to win three straight Super Bowls, there was a reminder last week of the potholes a team can hit on the way to that goal.
When the 49ers signed Roger Craig for one day so he could retire as a 49er, he talked about all the great times he had with the team.
"I was on three Super Bowl championship teams, and I was able to compete in 11 consecutive playoffs, but all of that doesn't compare to coming back to retire as a 49er. It's definitely a dream come true for me," he said.
Amid all that good cheer, it was inevitable that one subject came up -- his fumble in the 1990 NFC title game against the New York Giants when they were running out the clock with a 13-12 lead. The Giants recovered, Matt Bahr kicked a field goal and the 49ers were foiled in their bid for a third straight Super Bowl trip.
Craig mentioned he was still hurt that the play cost some of the younger 49ers a Super Bowl trip.
"It's one play," he quickly added. "One thousand other plays I had were outstanding."
But it took just one play to kill the team's shot at a third straight Super Bowl.
The team that had the chance before the 49ers was the 1976 Pittsburgh Steelers, who crushed the Baltimore Colts, 40-14, in their first-round playoff game that year.
During the game, Rocky Bleier injured his foot and then Joe Ehrmann fell on Franco Harris' ribs and bruised them. Neither played the next week in the 24-7 AFC title-game loss to the Oakland Raiders that ended the Steelers' Super Bowl run at two.
Even without Jimmy Johnson, the Cowboys have to be favored to win it a third time. But they have to wonder if there's one play out there somewhere that will be destined to haunt them.
Setting goals
Jerome Bettis, the Los Angeles Rams' second-year running back, says he's going to become the third player in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards this year.
He says that means if Emmitt Smith of the Cowboys plans to get a third straight rushing title, he's going to have to surpass 2,000 yards.
Bettis, who rushed for 1,429 yards last year even though he injured a shoulder early in the season, said, "If someone can get 2,100 yards, they are going to lead the league, but if they don't get 2,000, they are going to be behind me."
A former Ram, Eric Dickerson, set the 16-game record of 2,105 yard in 1984. O. J. Simpson rushed for 2,003 in a 14-game season in 1973.
Smith, meanwhile, is thinking about more than this season.
"I'm playing for something else now. I'm playing for Canton [Hall of Fame] now," he said.
He'd also like to break Walter Payton's all-time record of 16,726 yards. In his first 62 games, Smith has 5,699 yards. Payton had 5,846 in his first 62 games.
"From this point on, I need to average some ridiculous amount of yardage to think about even coming close to him [Payton]," Smith said.
Getting noticed
The busts of former Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm and former Redskin Wayne Millner are getting a lot of notice at the Hall of Fame.
That's because they happen to flank Simpson's bust.
Although Hall officials don't have any special security at Simpson's bust, they say that a lot of fans ask about it when they enter the hall.
Hall officials say there is no mechanism for taking anybody out of the Hall of Fame no matter what he does off the field and have no plans to try to remove Simpson even if he is found guilty of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Simpson, and waiter Ron Goldman.
Postcard wars
While Baltimore fans have started a campaign to send postcards to Rams owner Georgia Frontiere and vice president John Shaw, asking them to bring the Rams to Baltimore, a Los Angeles group called "Save the Rams" is distributing printed postcards that read: "Dear Georgia, I/We think the Los Angeles Rams should stay in Southern California and P.S. (fill in the number) my friends agree with me."
The Baltimore fans aren't printing the postcards. They're asking the fans to write their own personal message.
Suburban stadiums
It's just a coincidence that while the Redskins are arguing in a zoning hearing that they should be allowed to build a new stadium in Laurel, they're playing their two road exhibition games at Rich Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y. and Foxboro Stadium in Foxboro, Mass.
Both were built about two decades ago when it was popular to build suburban stadiums with huge parking lots and they are two examples of why suburban stadiums are no longer in vogue.
They're both plagued with terrible traffic problems that can be avoided in downtown stadiums because traffic comes from different directions and mass transit is available.
The Redskins are arguing they're going to solve the traffic problems by limiting parking and forcing fans to take the bus. Instead of taking the bus, the fans are likely to just drive around the Laurel area looking for parking, which will create more traffic problems.
The hearing, meanwhile, is taking on a "Saturday Night Live" atmosphere.
Walter Lynch, the project manager, actually testified last week that, "If the stadium is not built, the team's existence is in jeopardy."
Is he really trying to suggest the team might go out of business? Huh?
Stadium problems
The Seattle Seahawks will play both of their home exhibition games -- on Oct. 13 against Tampa Bay and on Aug. 20 against the Minnesota Vikings -- at the University of Washington's Husky Stadium because of the ceiling damage at the Kingdome. The Seahawks still hope they can play their regular-season games at the Kingdome.
In Los Angeles, Coliseum officials have been given permission to tear down the press box at the quake-damaged stadium and build a temporary replacement for this season.
Parts of it may be retained and re-enforced for this year, but a new one will be built for the 1995 season that will include luxury boxes.
The cost of renovations has now risen to $58 million and will probably rise again with the costs for the press box. With that much money being spent, they probably would have been better off building a new stadium.
The Houston Oilers are lobbying for a new downtown dome stadium. They figure the Astros can stay in the Astrodome. Its 59,905-seat seating capacity isn't ideal for football. City officials, though, are lukewarm about the idea.
Debate
It's unusual for a coach to spark a controversy by a call in an exhibition game, but Wade Phillips of the Denver Broncos did when he went for the one-point conversion and a tie at the end of regulation against the Los Angeles Raiders. He then lost in overtime.
His critics -- including Arizona coach Buddy Ryan, who called it "dumb" -- felt he should have won or lost the game at the end of regulation and gone home since it was an exhibition game. He also was knocked for leaving in his defensive starters in overtime, although he said they needed the work.
Phillips, who had failed twice earlier on two-point conversion attempts, had no second thoughts about sending the game into overtime.
"To me, you have to be an idiot to think you should have gone for two at the end of the game. I don't know where anybody could get that . . . Anybody who gambles knows percentages," he said.
This is why coaches don't like the two-point conversion. It opens them up to the second guess.