Mort & Schefter's notebook: Predicting the biggest offseason headlines
-- Topics this week include the biggest offseason stories, nominees for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, what awaits the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons after Super Bowl LI, the Cleveland Browns ties to the big game and more.
Romo, Watson and the quarterback carousel
Deflategate has already been deflated, Peyton Manning has already stepped away, Andrew Luck has already signed his record deal and the central storylines of previous seasons have already been written. Now, new ones await.
Here are five candidates for some of this offseason's most significant headlines:
-- Adam Schefter
Deserving admittance
If the antagonists of former commissioner Paul Tagliabue want to add "concussions" to the reasons he should not be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, they might as well blame Pete Rozelle for an unfettered steroids era that might have also contributed to the concussion crisis.
Rozelle is deservedly cited as the greatest commissioner in sports history. He certainly was deserving of his enshrinement into the Hall of Fame. So is Tagliabue, who has met resistance from voters since he retired in 2006.
Tagliabue and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones are the two finalists as contributors when the Hall of Fame voters decide the class of 2017 on Saturday. They'll each need a minimum of 80 percent affirmative votes to be elected.
A few years back, despite overwhelming credentials for election, a couple of arguments made by the anti-Tagliabue crowd seemed anchored to the commissioner's inability (it was categorized by some critics as indifference) to resolve the stadium crises among California franchises, which included the vacated market in Los Angeles. Really?
There was also criticism Tagliabue left the owners with a bad labor deal before he retired because he was too "friendly" with then-NFL Players Association executive director Gene Upshaw. That criticism was laughable and rang hollow, because no one was losing money in the NFL, which gained unprecedented labor peace among pro sports without a work stoppage that had resulted with Rozelle, whose own leadership allowed the disgrace of replacement players for three regular-season games during the 1987 NFLPA strike.
To paraphrase what someone close to Rozelle said several years ago: Tagliabue inherited and rolled up his sleeves to help resolve and fix many of the messes that drove Pete into retirement ... the constant litigation, franchise movement and labor unrest, just to name a few.
This is not to denigrate Rozelle; he was a pioneer who helped lead the NFL into an era where football surpassed baseball as the nation's most popular sport. He was incredibly popular with the media because he was accessible and used his experience in public relations to effectively become a teflon commissioner.
Tagliabue? He was a lawyer. A darn good one that Rozelle and NFL owners retained for some intense court battles. He didn't have an ounce of Rozelle's charisma. He never tried to be somebody he was not, but he was a man for the times who was in the commissioner's chair when television contracts surpassed the billion-dollar thresholds, the league expanded from 28 to 32 teams and, yes, he forged a healthy relationship with Upshaw -- as did a few influential owners -- that led to labor peace and a salary cap that worked for all despite a federal court ruling in favor of the players. Oh, and new stadiums were constructed under this umbrella of labor peace.
Tagliabue might not have made all the right calls, as he has admitted, but he also served with integrity and had a discernible social conscience.
When Art Modell did the unthinkable by moving the Browns out of Cleveland, Tagliabue made certain Cleveland would get an expansion franchise and the "Browns" moniker and team records would remain with its franchise.?When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Saints owner Tom Benson was well on his way to moving the franchise to San Antonio, but Tagliabue saw the devastation and wouldn't allow it.?Several owners did not see New Orleans as a market worth salvaging, but Tagliabue did; he saved the franchise and is credited by state leaders for the resurgence of the Crescent City.?Then there's the Rooney Rule, where Tagliabue and Steelers owner Dan Rooney created a policy that required interviews of minority candidates for head-coaching vacancies.
As for the concussion issues, even leading neurosurgeons will tell you that understanding concussions were in infantile stages as recently as 2000. It's probably one reason Tagliabue admitted this week he regretted minimizing concussions as far back as 1994, when he suggested it was a journalism issue, not a football problem.
But, again, blaming concussions on Tagliabue would be like blaming Rozelle for the steroids era during the 1970s and '80s that few seem to acknowledge or remember, and really was a journalistic issue, until Atlanta Falcons guard Bill Fralic took it directly to the media, the commissioner and the NFLPA in 1986 -- a year after Fralic was the No. 2 overall pick in the draft.
Under the transparency and forceful will of Fralic -- who took his fight to the Senate Judiciary Committee as an active player -- Rozelle did eventually move to ban steroids and tested once a year for it.
But it was Tagliabue who implemented random steroid testing even before there was a new collective bargaining agreement without strong objection from Upshaw, a Hall of Fame guard himself who also was persuaded by Fralic and some of the evidence he had seen and experienced during his own playing days.
No commissioner is perfect. It's a relay race, of sorts. Tagliabue ran his 17-year leg with historic success, integrity and social awareness.
Jones, meanwhile, dared to butt heads with Tagliabue and owners, but he was almost always right. Jones was the most influential voice who changed the landscape of NFL marketing, revenue and other owners enjoyed the unforeseen boon of franchise valuations. And players made their fair share, too.
If you want to blame Jones for firing Jimmy Johnson, you also might want to credit him with hiring Johnson in the first place. Jones replaced a Hall of Fame legend like Tom Landry and hired a college coach who soon constructed one of the greatest teams in NFL history. Jones drove "America's Team" into prosperity when it had been losing money ... and his NFL partners made money, too.
Bottom line? Tagliabue and Jones deserve to be welcomed to Canton with election on Saturday and enshrinement in August.
-- Chris Mortensen
Other offseason business ahead
Both Super Bowl teams have players on expiring contracts who figure to make some headlines this March. The Patriots' most notable free agents are on the defensive side of the football: defensive lineman Alan Branch and Chris Long, linebacker? Dont'a Hightower, and defensive backs Logan Ryan and Duron Harmon, who are all?scheduled to become free agents in March.
But there are offensive starters and standouts also scheduled to become free agents, including running back LeGarrette Blount, tight end Martellus Bennett and offensive tackle Sebastian Vollmer. Running backs Brandon Bolden and James Develin?will also join them.
Atlanta players scheduled to become free agents include linebackers Paul Worrilow, Courtney Upshaw, Sean Weatherspoon and? Philip Wheeler; defensive linemen Jonathan Babineaux and? Malliciah Goodman; tight ends Jacob Tamme and Levine Toilolo; wide receivers Aldrick Robinson and Eric Weems; fullback Patrick DiMarco; offensive linemen Chris Chester and Tom Compton?and quarterback Matt Schaub.
Both teams will have plenty of business to address this offseason. But first, there's the matter of finishing off this season.
-- Adam Schefter
The Browns have their prints all over Super Bowl LI
Cleveland is the unofficial sponsor of Super Bowl LI. This game doesn't shape up as it does without the Browns and the decisions they've made.
It started when they fired Bill Belichick in 1995, allowing him to join the Patriots as their assistant head coach and defensive backs coach in 1996. Two men who worked under Belichick in Cleveland, Thomas Dimitroff and Scott Pioli, now run the Falcons -- Dimitroff as their general manager, Pioli as their assistant general manager.
The Browns allowed Kyle Shanahan to get out of his contract after the 2014 season, at which point he joined then new Falcons head coach Dan Quinn in Atlanta and has become one of the NFL's hottest young assistant coaches, slated to become the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers.
Former Browns assistants coaches Bryan Cox, Jerome Henderson and Mike McDaniel also have found a home on the Falcons' coaching staff after the Browns let them go. Four years before Shanahan signed with Atlanta, Cleveland traded the fifth pick in the 2011 NFL draft to Falcons, allowing them to select wide receiver Julio Jones. Cleveland used the picks they got in return for Jones on Phil Taylor, Greg Little, Owen Marcic, Brandon Weeden?and Trent Richardson. Last year, the Browns allowed center Alex Mack to leave as a free agent for Atlanta, then six months later cut wide receiver Taylor Gabriel, allowing the Falcons to claim him on waivers.
Cleveland cut running back Dion Lewis, who went on to shine in New England. Patriots defensive reinforcements in this Super Bowl include former Browns? Jabaal Sheard?and Barkevious Mingo. It's a startlingly high number of moves over the years that weakened the Browns and strengthened this year's Super Bowl participants. Cleveland never has played in a Super Bowl, but its influence is all over this one, as much as any other team in the league not in this game.
Meanwhile, Cleveland just made former Patriot Jamie Collins the NFL's highest-paid inside linebacker with a four-year, $50 million contract that includes $26.5 million guaranteed. Cleveland can only hope it works out better than some of its former moves.
-- Adam Schefter
Emptying the notebook
-- Adam Schefter