NFL Tightens Belt as Only 3 of 27 Top Choices Signed

If 24 first-round draft choices are still waiting to sign with National Football League teams, it must be training camp time.

They are and it is.

Again this year, NFL owners are trying to work the salary spiral downward for rookies.

And, again, the players and their agents are resisting.

With most of the clubs due in camp by this weekend, only 3 of 27 first-round choices have signed.

They are second-drafted Tony Casillas of the Atlanta Falcons, a 277-pound Oklahoma nose tackle; cornerback Roderick Jones of SMU, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ second first-rounder, drafted behind outfielder Bo Jackson, and the Raiders’ No. 1, Bob Buczkowski.

One of the league’s 28 teams, the Cleveland Browns, went without a No. 1 this year after trading for quarterback Bernie Kosar in the 1985 supplemental draft.

“The NFL is trying to roll salaries back to 1983,” agent Leigh Steinberg said.

Jim Miller, director of administration for the owners’ Management Council, agreed that the clubs are indeed being more careful with their money.

He declined, though, to say how careful.

“There has been no conscious effort to roll anything back to anywhere,” Miller said. “But, yes, the owners are taking a hard look at what they invested for draft choices in the last two or three years.”

And they don’t like what they did when, in competition with the United States Football League, they dealt out million-dollar packages to many unproved candidates.

M.J. Duberstein, director of research for the NFL Players Assn., said: “Our information is that the owners are trying to sign rookies for 10% under 1985.”

Then, checking his files in his Washington office, Duberstein added: “If that’s their goal, they’ll fail. The average package for the first 135 (draftees) signing is less than 10% below last year’s. And most of the 135 went in the lower rounds. Higher choices are getting closer to last year’s numbers. The rollback has fizzled.”

In the top rounds so far, it has been more of a logjam than either a rollback or a fizzle.

A total of 333 college men were drafted last April. Only 11 of the first 63 picked in the first three rounds have been signed.

And only 4 of the first 36 selected have been signed, including TCU running back Kenneth Davis, the second-round choice of the Green Bay Packers, who had traded away their No. 1.

“It has been a very slow year, and it’s going to stay that way,” agent Jack Mills of Boulder, Colo., said. Management’s view is that its hard-earned money should, at the least, be saved for veterans. The clubs balk at wasting it on untested rookies.

It was different, of course, during the 1983-85 war against the USFL.

“Any time there’s competition, the price will go up,” Miller said. “No one denies that.”

So what happens in a noncompetitive year?

Mills, who represents Iowa quarterback Chuck Long in his battle with the Detroit Lions, said: “We’re substantially apart. Initially, we asked $3.3 million for four years. They’ve offered $1.35 (million) for four, but they aren’t really negotiating.”

Few NFL clubs are negotiating, according to Steinberg, who represents the top three Southland players, UCLA wide receiver Mike Sherrard and kicker John Lee, drafted by Dallas and St. Louis, respectively, and USC tackle James FitzPatrick, San Diego’s No. 1.

The Cowboys offered Sherrard $1.2 million for four years, his representative said.

Sherrard’s counterproposal, $1.6 million for four years, “was based on the average of what the four top receivers got 12 months ago,” Steinberg said, naming Jessie Hester of the Raiders, Jerry Rice of the 49ers, Al Toon of the Jets and Eddie Brown of the Bengals.

In 1983, a USFL year, John Elway and five other quarterbacks were drafted in the first round, and most signed for a bundle, starting the ball rolling for others, veterans and rookies alike.

The owners held things down a little last year, but the agents seemed to regain some momentum a few days ago when Casillas and Jones signed. It began to look as if the owners might not cut their top choices, after all.

The Buccaneers paid Jones about as much as a low first-rounder got last year.

The Falcons paid Casillas $2.3 million for four years and also agreed to lend him $1 million at 3 1/2% below prime. The package was comparable to the one Bill Fralic got from Atlanta as last year’s No. 2 overall pick.

Lately, however, owners show little indication of budging. The logjam figures to be broken when five or six more first- or second-round picks sign.

Everyone knows everyone else’s salary today. If management can bring in the next group for, say, 5% under last year’s average, most of the others probably will settle for that.

Just when that will be, however, remains the question.