Lawyer Says Young Is Free If Express Folds

If the Express franchise is dissolved when the United States Football League owners meet in New York Monday, quarterback Steve Young will be a free agent, as far as his lawyer, Leigh Steinberg, is concerned.

“I don’t recognize the right of any other team in the USFL or any other city in the USFL to have Steve,” Steinberg said. “He’s been contracted to play for the Los Angeles Express of the United States Football League operating somewhere in Southern California.

“He did sign a standard USFL contract, but there are all sorts of agreements and understandings, many of them in writing.”

Young’s National Football League rights are held by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who claimed him in a special supplemental draft of USFL players last June.