The Aikman Sweepstakes: Anatomy of a Deal

During the early morning hours two days before Christmas, attorney Leigh Steinberg lay in the television room of his Southern California house, his 2-year-old son sleeping on his chest. On Steinberg’s feet were a pair of black cowboy boots, a recent gift from a client, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman. Wear them for good luck, Aikman told Steinberg; maybe they will be the difference in our negotiations with the Cowboys.

Those talks, concerning a contract extension for Aikman, had been going on for nearly a month and had reached a critical point. The two sides already had agreed to the astonishing sum of $50 million, to be paid over an equally astonishing eight seasons. Those figures would make Aikman the highest-paid player in football history. But Steinberg and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones couldn’t agree on how the money should be parceled out and how much should be guaranteed. The Aikman side wanted $11.5 million as a signing bonus and the rest guaranteed; Dallas was willing to pay an $8 million bonus but wanted the other $3 million allocated as part of future salaries, which would not be guaranteed.

A stalemate over those issues had led to a break-off in talks hours earlier. “The feeling was that there would be no deal,” Steinberg says. One of the key negotiators, Cowboys Vice President Mike McCoy, left for Tulsa, Okla., for the Christmas holidays. Jones and Steinberg went home. But both knew it was imperative to continue talking. The National Football League had set a deadline of Dec. 23 for teams negotiating new contracts for veteran players. Any increased salary for the 1993 season contained within those deals would not count against the start of the salary cap in 1994, but only if the contracts were signed by Dec. 23. Aikman’s 1993 income would grow in a new deal, so it made sense to agree now instead of later, leaving the Cowboys with more 1994 cap money to sign other players.

Jones waited until mid-evening on Dec. 22 to call Steinberg at home. “The problem is guarantees,” he said. “We are not going to guarantee the contract.” It was a theme that Jones had maintained throughout the negotiations. It was important to Aikman that as much money as possible be guaranteed. He had back surgery in the off-season and the operation reinforced how vulnerable he felt to injury. If he got hurt later, he wanted to know the money still would be there. But Jones was convinced the salary cap made large guarantees obsolete. Under the cap, the Cowboys would have a maximum amount of money for salaries every season. If Aikman got hurt and his paycheck were guaranteed, they would have to replace him and still carry his salary, without the benefit of extra money for a new player. In Jones’ mind, that was a no-win situation for the team.

The two men hung up and Steinberg called Aikman in Dallas. “They just aren’t going to guarantee the contract, it’s obvious,” Steinberg said.

“OK, then get as much money in the signing bonus as you can,” Aikman said.

Steinberg told Jones they were dropping their demand for a guaranteed contract. He also told him it was not Aikman’s intention to put a financial stranglehold on the Cowboys, that he would accept less salary in 1994 to give Dallas the flexibility to sign others, particularly offensive linemen. But in exchange, Aikman wanted the $11.5 million signing bonus. What Jones didn’t know was how strong Aikman’s feelings were regarding the salary-cap problems. “I’m willing to sign and then give some of my (1994) salary back to the team, so they can use it to sign other guys,” Aikman told Steinberg before the negotiations started.

Jones and Steinberg realized a solution was near. Jones wanted to think about the bonus size. “I’ll get back to you,” he said. At 4 a.m. Dallas time, Steinberg’s phone rang. “Let’s do it,” Jones said. Aikman would get his $50 million, including $11 million as a signing bonus; the Cowboys would pay him $1.75 million in 1994 salary, about a million less than Aikman had been demanding earlier Dec. 22. Aikman, 27, would be a Cowboy the rest of his career. And for the NFL, the era of the $50 million man had arrived.

When negotiations between Aikman and the Cowboys began in late November, neither side conceived of a $50 million contract. Aikman was focused on the guarantees; Steinberg wanted him to become the game’s highest-paid player, and Jones wanted to pay his quarterback a market-value wage while not destroying the team’s ability to sign other players under the cap. But interviews with the involved parties show how a combination of Jones’ showmanship and business acumen, the unexpectedly hefty new NFL television contract and Steinberg’s dogged determination to obtain a huge signing bonus combined to break new salary ground. What follows is the tale of how Aikman became that $50 million man.

No one will ever know, but Jones might have cost himself millions of dollars by waiting until December to come to terms with Aikman, who still had 1994 left on his original six-year contract signed in 1989. A year ago, Jones had indicated to Steinberg that he wanted to extend Aikman’s contract in the off-season. But in mid-July, he put off talks until December, in part so he could get a better feel for the new television contract he would help negotiate for the NFL. And he also had to first sign running back Emmitt Smith, a restricted free agent who wanted a significantly higher salary. Quarterback Steve Young, another Steinberg client, had just signed with the San Francisco 49ers for $26.75 million for five years; Steinberg maintains that his goal in the summer would have been to obtain at least $1 more for Aikman than he got for Young, so Aikman could assume the “highest-paid” label.

“We didn’t want to negotiate during the season; it’s too distracting,” Steinberg says. “And you are always fearful of injury. My hope was to finish with Steve, begin immediately on Troy’s contract and have it wrapped up in a week. As it turned out, Troy played very well from the start of the season and then the television contract was stronger than expected. We were helped by waiting, but it was something we didn’t want to do.”

Although the NFL’s new $4.43 billion TV deal should increase each club’s 1994 cap maximum by $6 million, Jones maintains once he realized the league would not take a revenue cut--and long before actual figures were negotiated--he had decided on salary parameters for Aikman. “I just didn’t feel it prudent to do Troy’s contract in the summer,” he says. “But we knew for a long time the extent we would go with his salary.”

Jones’ refusal to begin early negotiations frustrated the Aikman camp. Then, when Dallas couldn’t come to terms with Smith, who sat out two games before signing a new deal, Steinberg worried that Jones no longer was the “guy who could think outside the conventional NFL square. He had the kind of vision that was attractive. He could see football as an entertainment business, too. But I wondered if his close involvement with the league hadn’t changed him, that maybe wanting to be able to say Troy was the highest-paid quarterback wasn’t attractive to him as it might have been in the past.”

There also was concern that Jones would wait until late December to push for a resolution. Both sides wanted a deal before the end of the regular season, so Aikman’s 1993 salary of $1.17 million could be increased. But Steinberg knew that if the Cowboys offered a substantial raise below what he thought was Aikman’s market value, he might be forced to accept it anyway if time was running out. “You can’t in all honesty say no to a $2 million raise because you think he is worth $4 million more,” Steinberg says. “No rational person would do that. But we wanted to avoid being in that position, so we pushed hard to start negotiating.”

Aikman was coming off a season in which he was MVP of the Super Bowl and made the Pro Bowl. He easily was the best young quarterback in the league and, along with Dan Marino, John Elway and Steve Young, among the best at any age at the position. But the onset of free agency had disrupted the salary structure, and by November, he was one of the lowest-paid quarterbacks in the NFL. His public frustration was growing, and the war of words between Jones and Steinberg was accelerating.

Finally, soon after Steinberg had said Jones’ failure to negotiate with Aikman was akin to dropping napalm on his own troops, the Cowboys called and said they were ready to talk. But the rift between Jones and Steinberg had intensified so much that initial talks were between McCoy and Jeff Moorad, Steinberg’s partner. And even those had to be delayed 10 days. Why? The Aikman side had spent so much time lobbying to start negotiations that it had failed to prepare a specific offer. When the parties sat down at the end of November, it was apparent their views of Aikman’s worth were quite different: Aikman wanted $36 million guaranteed over six years, the Cowboys were offering $25 million over six, none guaranteed.

Dallas ultimately counteroffered with a four-year, $26.5 million proposal. That’s where the talks stalemated. Jones had proposed a deal longer than six years, but Steinberg didn’t want to tie up his client for an extended period. But, during a brainstorming session in mid-December, Steinberg and his associates played with the idea of an eight-year agreement. That would allow Jones to spread out a signing bonus, which for salary-cap purposes is averaged over the length of the contract, over more years. If the Cowboys wouldn’t guarantee money, then an alternative might be a huge signing bonus, which represented immediate funds in Aikman’s pocket.

Jones immediately liked the eight-year idea and the ballpark figure of $50 million made sense if you added two seasons onto the original six-year proposal. “We already had decided that the contract was going to make Aikman the highest-paid player,” Jones says. “We were using contracts like Young’s as parameters for our offer. By going eight years, it would give us flexibility under the cap. And teams would recognize it as justification for increasing the signing bonus.”

To protect Aikman, the sides agreed to a salary escalator clause for the final two seasons. If in those final years, when he would be paid $6.75 million and $7.5 million, he makes the Pro Bowl, leads the Cowboys to the conference championship game or finishes among the NFL’s top five passers, his salary will be adjusted to reflect the incomes of the five most highly paid quarterbacks in the league. He was granted a no-trade clause, and money was to be deferred for four years beyond the contract’s conclusion.

But the parties remained stuck on the issues of guarantees, bonus and early-year salaries, a situation that didn’t change until the evening of Dec. 22, when Aikman dropped his demand for a guaranteed contract. Steinberg, boots still on, finally called his client just after 4 a.m. Dallas time on Dec. 23. “We’ve got a deal,” he told the sleepy Aikman, who was talking to girlfriend/country singer Lorrie Morgan on the other line. Aikman was so tired that when he woke up a few hours later, he wasn’t sure if Steinberg’s call was a dream. So he waited a while and contacted his attorney.

“Was I dreaming?” he said. He wasn’t. During an early-evening news conference Dec. 23, Jones presented Aikman with a $10.75 million check. The rest of his bonus and 1993 salary--in all, $2.75 million--was deferred. Aikman can only shake his head. “When I came into the league, I never ever expected to earn this kind of money,” he says.

Later, in Jones’ office, the Dallas owner brought out champagne glasses and had the official contract signing filmed. Everyone autographed footballs and uniform jerseys. It was a momentous occasion; after all, Jones had paid just slightly more ($65 million) for the team in 1989. In 30 years, he had never missed being in his parents’ home in Missouri on the 23rd to help decorate the family Christmas tree. He wondered if he would make it this time.

He didn’t quite make it, but he was there by the wee hours of the morning. “It was a great Christmas,” Jones says. “The Cowboys have the best quarterback in the league for the next seven years, and we have flexibility under the cap. And Troy has security. It couldn’t have worked out better for any of us.”