Chargers Tell Seau ‘No’ Again
The agent for Junior Seau, the Chargers’ first-round draft choice, said he thought the Chargers had drawn a line in the sand they would not cross.
That line was the reported five-year, $6-million contract the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had awarded linebacker Keith McCants, the player taken one spot ahead of Seau in the NFL draft. Get below that, he thought, and the Chargers would get serious.
But Steve Feldman of Newport Beach said he thought he had crossed onto the Chargers’ side Tuesday, only to find they had moved the line. And he said he doesn’t know where it is.
Feldman said Charger General Manager Bobby Beathard rejected his offer of $1 less than the deal signed by McCants, saying he had to come “considerably” below the average $1.2 million per year McCants will receive.
“It turns out when they said we have to come in under Keith McCants, they left out a word,” Feldman said. “That was ‘considerably,’ and at this point, we just can’t accept that.”
Feldman said he was surprised and upset that Beathard did not make a counter offer during the 40-minute meeting “because we agreed to do what they said.”
But Beathard said he was sorry if recent statements misled Feldman and Seau to think that if they made an offer just under McCants’ contract, a deal could be struck.
“I really didn’t mean a penny or a dollar,” Beathard said. “But I didn’t say the word ‘considerably.’ So if there is a misunderstanding, I take the blame for it.”
The late afternoon meeting at the team’s UC San Diego training camp, also attended by Seau, was the first discussion between the parties since a week ago, when Feldman proposed a four-year deal averaging $1.35 million per year.
But Beathard said Tuesday was not the right time for the Chargers to make a counter offer or reveal the figure at which they might settle. The Chargers have not made an offer since proposing a five-year deal averaging about $850,000 per year 2 1/2 weeks ago.
“When we feel it is appropriate to make our offer, we think it is a very fair figure,” Beathard said. “But right now, we don’t think it would have helped our position or made any difference doing it.”
But Seau said he thinks it would help talks if the team would reveal its best proposal.
“They have their set figure, and they’re not letting it out,” Seau said. “I want to know. We can’t even judge on anything until they give us their figure.
“If they would come out and say, ‘This is all we’re going to give you,’ then we have something to work with. Now we don’t we don’t have anything to work with.”
Seau said the meeting gave him further reason to believe that his contract holdout, which today enters its 27th day, could go on considerably longer.
“I finally can grasp that it is going to be longer than I expected,” Seau said. “I’m upset because I miss football. It is pretty sad the business is the way it is. I didn’t make the market. I know I’m not going to break the market with the contract I get. I just want a fair contract and let me be Junior Seau.”
In the meantime, Seau said he would continue to work out on his own.
“All I can do is train and dream about the day I get in,” he said.
Beathard also said a meeting with holdout linebacker Leslie O’Neal was canceled Tuesday and rescheduled for this morning and that he plans to meet later today with O’Neal’s agent, Marvin Demoff of Los Angeles.
O’Neal is the only Charger veteran still unsigned.
Charger Notes
The Chargers concluded two days of practices with the Dallas Cowboys Tuesday. The Cowboys will continue to train at UC San Diego in preparation for an exhibition game Saturday against the Raiders, but the teams will not practice against each other again. . . . Coach Dan Henning said he probably will start Billy Joe Tolliver at quarterback in Saturday night’s exhibition against the Rams at Anaheim Stadium. He said the plan would be for Tolliver to play about a half, with Mark Vlasic and Friesz splitting the rest. . . . Henning said he has not heard the results of his team’s drug tests from the NFL but that he does not expect there to be any positive tests. The NFL announced Monday that it had suspended two players after they tested positive for steroids. . . . J.J. Flannigan, the eighth-round draft choice from Colorado, was released Tuesday morning, leaving the Chargers one under the NFL limit of 80 active signed players.