Bit of Free Agency May Be Enough : NFL Might Have Solved Problem, but Union Wants More

When the National Football League’s Management Council implemented a free-agency plan for the marginal players on each team’s roster nine weeks ago, the Minnesota Vikings’ scouting staff figured that 134 of the 619 available players might be able to make their team. Might.

Now, in the wake of an unexpectedly high 229 players changing teams by the end of the free-agency period Saturday night, pocketing signing bonuses of a stratospheric $9.2 million, according to Chicago-based agent Frank Murtha, the question is this: Will it matter? Will it matter in the standings to the Green Bays who signed 20 of these living-on-the-edge-of-the-roster players, and will it matter to the union, which continues to oppose the limited free agency. And, most importantly, will it matter to the judge who must decide if the freeing of 619 players is enough freedom of movement for the league?

Quick looks at each question:

The Teams--The bottom line on the field is that Green Bay isn’t going to gravitate to the top of the league and Cincinnati won’t fall to the bottom because of the players those teams gained and lost in free-agency.

“I don’t see this as being an earthquake on competitive balance,” Indianapolis Colts General Manager Jim Irsay said.

The Union--The National Football League Players Assn., whose representatives have been telling some agents that they deserve some credit for getting the marginal players freed, still thinks the current free-agent situation isn’t good enough.

“What disturbs me is that the players have no say in who is a free agent,” NFLPA Executive Director Gene Upshaw said. “What this proves is that your reward for being a good player is you can’t have freedom.”

The union is interested in a much more liberalized form of free agency, more resembling baseball’s.

“If we get that,” Bengals assistant general manager Mike Brown said, “this franchise is out of business.”

The Judge--U.S. District Court Judge David S. Doty ruled last year that the Management Council has a right to have some sort of restriction on player movement, but he implied that the owners needed a system that would make some movement possible.

The current plan--Freezing the top 37 players on each team and freeing the rest--was handed to the owners by the Management Council’s lawyers. Doty doesn’t comment on the case when he’s out of court, but some club officials obviously hope he’s been impressed by the movement of players so far. In all, 37 percent have changed clubs. The owners also hope Doty has been impressed by the fact that 146 of the 229 who moved (64%) have gone to teams at or below .500 last year.

“Sure, our people have seen the movement as an aid to our case,” Brown said of the Bengals. In fact, some of the more skeptical players and player agents view the massive movement as a way to influence Doty when the case is being heard.

“I’m not sure the system hasn’t been artificially skewed by the court case,” said Murtha, who nonetheless lauded the system. He had five clients change teams.

The general reaction to the system is that the marginal players love it, the established players covet it, the coaches hate it and the owners hope it prevents any more movement.

“It’s created a bonanza for the bottom 10 players,” Colts Coach Ron Meyer said. “They started feeling like unwanted stepchildren. Now they’re coming up to me thanking me for putting me on the list. And I have established players in our weight room coming up to me and saying, ‘Why didn’t you put me on the list?’ ”

“We got gutted,” Oilers Coach Jerry Glanville said. The Oilers lost a league-high 15 players. “The thing that bugs me is that this thing totally changed the makeup of our team. We lost our chemistry. The upheaval from this thing will be felt for five years, in depth, in chemistry, in the draft.”

Not so, say the Bengals, who lost eight and signed none. “We think the market was overpriced,” Brown said. “In our judgment, most of these players will be released by their teams, either at the final cut this season or next year (if) we cut to 37.”

The pursuit of the players was “like college recruiting,” said tackle Mike Ariey, who went from the New York Giants to the Packers. He had “recruiting” lunches with coaches Joe Gibbs of Washington and Lindy Infante of the Packers.

In fact, Infante said he gathered his coaching staff at the end of January to plot their course of free-agent signings.

“OK,” Infante told his staff, “we’re back in college recruiting.” He had to tell the coaches he wasn’t kidding. The Packers spent about $900,000 in the system, hoping to reverse a losing trend in the ‘80s, and signed 20 players.

The Packers had to outbid four teams for Ariey, who didn’t play in a single regular-season game for the Giants as a rookie last year and wasn’t drafted. Still, they paid him a $60,000 signing bonus, with salaries of $150,000 in 1989 and $175,000 in 1990 and an extra $15,000 per year for making the active roster.

Ariey is a prospect, and every team lost a few Arieys in this new pool of freedom.

“For the Green Bay Packers, it’s been a good thing,” Infante said. “But I think the movement tells you what would happen if there was total unrestricted free agency. It’d be a disaster for teams.”