As if the Chicago Bears didn't have enough problems these days, they may now have to cope with a religious split on their team.
The Bears, who come to Baltimore on Saturday night to play the Ravens in their first game at the new football stadium at Camden Yards, are coming off a 4-12 season and don't have a Pro Bowl Enis player on their roster. On top of that, their first-round pick, Curtis Enis, not only is holding out, but also is facing a sexual-assault charge.
A woman in Irving, Texas filed the charge against Enis on May 29.
His lawyer describes the charges as "hogwash." Enis was married on July 4, says he has been born again and has joined an Austin-based athletic ministry called Champions For Christ.
But this new affiliation is the center of another controversy.
The CFC has provided a new agent for Enis, Greg Feste, who has never negotiated an NFL contract. Enis fired former Raider Vann McElroy of Team Sports, Inc., who was hired after his previous agent, Jeff Nalley, caused him to be suspended for the Citrus Bowl by illegally buying him a suit.
CFC's procurement of an agent for Enis has raised some eyebrows.
Sports psychologist Don Beck said, "It's certainly possible they're serving a genuine purpose, but you become suspicious of those who hide behind a clerical cloth when big bucks are being traded."
Some of Enis' future teammates who belong to CFC feel the organization is being unfairly maligned.
Defensive end Mark Thomas said, "This whole thing is blowing me away because if someone said Curtis started going to church, no one would say anything. Champions For Christ is just a group of believers. It is not a cult."
Thomas and two teammates, Greg Huntington and Jimmy Herndon, said they'd like to see the whole team join CFC.
"We want everybody to know the truth that we know," Huntington said.
But some of the Bears who don't belong to CFC are apprehensive about the situation.
Jim Flanagan said, "You just want to feel it's a normal situation, just a work environment. You wouldn't have that in another office."
Huntington said when Enis does sign, he's going to be a positive role model.
Meanwhile, Enis hasn't signed and Feste wants a seven-year, $45 million deal.
It's uncertain how all this will play out, but the bottom line is the Bears are without the rookie running back who was supposed to give them a jump-start this year.
Dollars and cents
Did you see how thrilled the 13 Powerball lottery players in Ohio were to win $12 million each?
In the real world, people are thrilled to get $12 million. In the fantasy world of sports, $12 million isn't enough to get anyone excited.
For example, the top two picks in the draft, Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf, each signed deals last week that will bring them around $12 million for three years, but that fact was obscured by the publicity over the deals.
After three years, both deals will void. If the two quarterbacks don't play well and the teams don't exercise a buyback, they'll likely play for the one-year tender in the $1.1 million neighborhood the way Kerry Collins is this year in Carolina.
If the teams buy back, Manning gets $38 million for six years and Leaf $24.5 million for five years.
Even those figures weren't enough to satisfy their agents. The deals were announced at $48 million for Manning and $31.5 million for Leaf. That's because some incentives were added to inflate the deal even though the players may never earn those incentives.
Another example of inflating Davis deals is the nine-year $56 million deal that Denver announced for Terrell Davis that supposedly makes him the highest-paid running back in pro football.
He actually gets $14 million for the first three years, which trails Robert Smith's $15 million, Curtis Martin's $15.5 million and Barry Sanders' $18.1 million in the first three years.
With the short shelf life of running backs, no one can be sure they will be effective for more than three years.
The inflated figures, though, accomplish one thing. They get the players signed even if the announced figures will never be reflected in their W-2 statements.
Rubber stamp
The owners are still rubber-stamping commissioner Paul Tagliabue's designs for expansion teams.
Remember all the complaints about Jacksonville and Carolina getting 28 draft picks their first two years? Well, the owners rubber-stamped Tagliabue's plan to give Cleveland the same number of picks, although they're not quite as high as some of the Jacksonville and Carolina selections.
But 28 picks in two years should be enough to give Carmen Policy, armed with that Al Lerner cash, a chance to get the team off to a good start.
Tagliabue seems to take a personal interest in his expansion teams. It will be interesting to see which team Cleveland will play in its home opener in 1999.
Just a guess, but don't be surprised if Cleveland doesn't have to play Pittsburgh in its regular-season home opener as the Ravens will next month. It will be no surprise if Tagliabue gives Cleveland an easier opener.
Tagliabue, though, may not automatically be able to deliver the team to Policy and Lerner.
A group of owners, led by Dallas' Jerry Jones, Tampa Bay's Malcolm Glazer, San Diego's Alex Spanos and Oakland's Al Davis, are promoting the idea of a $1 billion price tag for the Browns.
It's hard to imagine a pro football team being worth $1 billion, but Jones, ever the salesman, says that owning the Browns would be "like owning a piece of Americana."
If one of the other groups decides to bid anything close to a billion, Lerner would have to decide if he wants to make a bid that makes no fiscal sense just to get the team.
Name game
The Tennessee Oilers say they did a lot of market research before deciding to change their nickname. They will "retire" the Oilers name, and Houston supposedly can't use it if it gets a new team.
But they shouldn't have had to do much market research after they checked ticket sales. They've sold only 29,000 season tickets this year at Vanderbilt, which seats 41,000. They have about 45,000 PSLs sold for their new stadium, which opens next year.
When they put single-game tickets on sale this year, they sold only 1,609 for Denver, the Super Bowl champion. They also sold just 372 for Cincinnati and 160 for the Ravens.
They sold 6,082 for the Pittsburgh game, but Steelers fans bought those.
The result is that Tennessee owner Bud Adams decided he had to appease the Nashville fans by changing the nickname.
Names in the news
Former Ravens quarterback Vinny Testaverde, who always looks better in practices than in games, is outplaying first-stringer Glenn Foley in the Jets' camp.
New Minnesota owner Red McCombs did nothing to calm fears he will move the team to San Antonio when he said, "They [Minnesota fans] should be concerned about that. I don't expect that issue to go away."
Running back Dorsey Levens, who has the franchise-player tag in Green Bay, is threatening to sit out the season if he doesn't get a new deal.
Nathan Davis, the Atlanta Falcons' second-round draft choice last year, is the latest Dan Reeves draft pick to be a bust. He quit the Falcons last week, tried to come back and then was waived.
Jason Sehorn, the New York Giants' standout cornerback, is going to be tried as a kick returner because the Giants' 18.9-yard kickoff-return average was the lowest in the league last year.
Quotable
"Yeah, it would be a dream come true playing in the Super Bowl in Joe Robbie, er, what is it now, Pro Player Stadium?"
-- Quarterback Dan Marino on the possibility of his Miami Dolphins becoming the first team to play a Super Bowl at its home stadium.
Pub Date: 8/02/98