Panthers, Jaguars Seek the Best of the Worst : Pro football: Today’s draft pool to stock the NFL’s expansion teams will include six castoffs from each franchise.

The two newest NFL teams, rounding out a 30-team league, would go broke in a hurry if they had to play games with the players they will get today in a special one-day allocation draft.

But it’s a start.

And for expansion clubs, starts are important.

The party will begin at 9 a.m., PST, when representatives of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Charlotte-based Carolina Panthers help themselves to some of the 168 castoffs the NFL is making available.

The 28 established clubs have each contributed six players, presumably their most undesirable, to the pool.

And under league rules, the Jaguars, with first choice, and the Panthers must each draft at least 30 of the 168, but no more than 42.

“If 12 to 15 players (from) this draft make our roster, we’ll be doing well,” said Carolina Coach Dom Capers, a former Pittsburgh Steeler assistant to Bill Cowher.

Said Jacksonville Coach Tom Coughlin, “We know who it is we’d like to have (from) this limited number of (good) players.”

The NFL’s first expansion teams since 1976, when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers finished 0-14 and the Seattle Seahawks 2-12, Jacksonville and Carolina will begin regular-season play this fall after their franchise-launching matchup July 29 in the Hall of Fame exhibition game at Canton, Ohio.

That afternoon, it is possible that some of the following members of the 1995 castoff pool will be in uniform: Raider backs Tom Rathman and Ty Montgomery, Ram quarterback Chris Miller, Arizona quarterback Steve Beuerlein, New York Jet quarterback Jack Trudeau, Atlanta linemen Chris Doleman and Irv Eatman, Cleveland lineman Michael Dean Perry, San Francisco safety Dana Hall, Washington receivers Desmond Howard and Ethan Horton and three Green Bay Packers, defensive end Sean Jones, cornerback Terrell Buckley and back Reggie Cobb.

Although all are available in today’s draft, some may be too pricey to be chosen.

The problem is that every NFL player’s 1995 salary and signing bonus, if he is already under contract to his 1994 employer, must be incorporated into the new clubs’ $14-million payroll caps--unless he renegotiates.

It’s a mystery whether either Jacksonville or Carolina has lined up such volunteers.

Even if they have not, both teams, in the free-agent era, still can contemplate a better chance for early competitiveness than most NFL predecessors.

“These are the first expansion teams (with access to) extensive free agency,” Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said, explaining the small size of the castoff pool.

In the 1976 allocation draft for Tampa Bay and Seattle, the league’s established clubs were each allowed to freeze only 32 veteran players. This time, with an average roster size of 50, NFL teams are in effect freezing 44 veterans.

The record that Coughlin and Capers are going for is John McKay’s. The first to lead the Buccaneers, McKay fell one game short of the Super Bowl in 1979 when he became the first to coach an expansion team into a conference title game in only four years.

During the ‘80s, Tampa critics said, McKay was sandbagged by his own front office, which let his best players get away--launching a Buccaneer trend that has never ended. But of his quick parade to the top in the ‘70s, McKay said:

“It was easy. We did it with two things--talent and my play calling--not necessarily in that order.”

NFL Notes

For Jacksonville, Carolina or both, this could be the start of something big. In addition to free agents, allocation picks and priority waiver-list selections, both will get more help in the NFL’s college player draft in April, choosing 1-2 in each of the seven rounds--with the Panthers drafting first. Both will also get bonus selections at the end of every round.

In today’s draft, at New York’s Marriott Marquis Hotel, the NFL will give each club five minutes to select the veteran it wants. An established team losing a player will be given two minutes to recall one of its other listed players before the draft proceeds. Thus, no established team can lose more than three veterans.

It will be open season, beginning Friday, on NFL free agents after the coaches name their franchise and transition players Thursday.

The Panthers will play at Clemson, S.C., this season, the Jaguars in Jacksonville’s Gator Bowl.