The Oakland Raiders look like winners and the New England Patriots look like losers in the first week of the free agency-trading period. Since it’s early, first impressions often don’t last.
Fast start
– Raiders: By trading for Minnesota receiver Randy Moss and signing Jets backup running back LaMont Jordan, the Raiders bolstered their mediocre offense and 32nd-ranked running game. But they probably will be forced to unload cornerback Charles Woodson and must address their 30th-ranked defense.
– Panthers: After losing top receiver Muhsin Muhammad to the Bears, Carolina quickly added Green Bay guard Mike Wahle and Seattle cornerback Ken Lucas, both ascending players who will help immediately.
– Vikings: Losing Moss is a victory for locker-room “chemistry” that nevertheless will require a serious offensive overhaul.
This isn’t all bad because coach Mike Tice would like to get back to some serious running. Stopping the run is a problem Minnesota fixed by signing big Buffalo defensive tackle Pat Williams, which unleashes tackle Kevin Williams to make even more plays. He and Detroit’s Shaun Rogers are the best defensive linemen in the NFC North.
The Raiders didn’t think linebacker Napoleon Harris was much of a loss, but the Vikings hope to revitalize the former Northwestern and Thornton athlete.
Minnesota quarterback Daunte Culpepper wanted to make it clear he had nothing to do with encouraging the trade of his friend Moss, even though Culpepper had conceded a trade was likely because maybe “enough is enough.”
Minnesota could add Pittsburgh receiver Plaxico Burress, who will help.
Slow start
– Patriots: After losing coordinators Romeo Crennel and Charlie Weis, they released receiver-defensive back Troy Brown, cornerback Ty Law and linebacker Roman Phifer and lost guard Joe Andruzzi and receiver David Patten to Cleveland. They also are preparing to lose linebacker Tedy Bruschi, who suffered a post-Super Bowl stroke.
They spent a third-round draft choice to obtain cornerback Duane Starks from Arizona, a strange move considering they won a Super Bowl without either of their starting corners. They had other teams rethinking the importance of the most expensive position in football. Apparently, they decided cornerbacks are necessary after all.
– Titans: In salary-cap purgatory, they had to jettison six players and still can’t afford to add anybody of significance.
– Packers: Most people figured they would lose one of their guards, but when Wahle went to Carolina and Marco Rivera to Dallas, it was not a good sign. The news is bound to reach Brett Favre somewhere on his lawnmower in Mississippi.
Familiar name
Stanley Wilson was only 5 when his father, Cincinnati Bengals running back Stanley Wilson, suffered a cocaine relapse the night before Super Bowl XXIII in January 1989 and missed the game.
Now the younger Wilson is a cornerback from Stanford expected to be a first-day draft pick. He stood up at last week’s scouting combine in Indianapolis and spoke of his dad, currently serving 22 years in state prison in Lancaster, Calif., for stealing $130,000 worth of property from a Beverly Hills home to feed his drug habit.
“I’m happy to represent my dad. I think it’s a blessing and tribute to him,” Wilson said. “A lot of people who might have a path like I do could have fallen by the wayside. It shows he’s a great dad, and I’m here.
“I talk to him all the time. As a matter of fact, I just talked to him two days ago, before I came out here. He wished me luck and all that good stuff.”
Wilson remembers the Super Bowl experience:
“I remember being in the hotel. I was 5. And my grandparents came to me and said my dad was kind of in trouble or something like that. [My grandfather] asked me if I still wanted to go to the game. I didn’t quite understand what was going on, but I told him I still wanted to go. It’s awkward and surreal because I remember it like it was a game right now. I remember being there. I didn’t know what happened until a year later when he wasn’t there anymore.”
Wilson said his dad hasn’t talked about that incident.
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“Not specifically about that night but about his whole addiction problem and things like that,” Wilson said. “He talked about drugs, so I stay away from them.”
Warner tribute
Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi was impressed by quarterback Kurt Warner.
“It’s a better organization because he passed through it,” Accorsi said. “I don’t know that anybody eight years later is exactly the same, but he can still make the throws. He’s such a quality person. We were 5-4 and he did nothing but be supportive to Eli Manning. Never complained. He’s everything you want in an NFL player. Great person.”
Bad stretch
The end of David Terrell means the Bears batted .250 in top draft picks between 1998 and 2001. Only Brian Urlacher remains as Terrell joined Curtis Enis and Cade McNown on the failure list.
There are other teams with similar poor averages. The Arizona Cardinals have only Leonard Davis to show for those four years. The Buffalo Bills have only Nate Clements. The Green Bay Packers have only Bubba Franks. The San Diego Chargers have only LaDainian Tomlinson. The Carolina Panthers have Dan Morgan.
Two teams are worse. The Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins have no players left from those four drafts when most good teams collected their nucleus. The Indianapolis Colts selected Peyton Manning, Edgerrin James, Rob Morris and Reggie Wayne, for example. The Philadelphia Eagles picked Tra Thomas, Donovan McNabb, Corey Simon and Freddie Mitchell.
If Marc Colombo can’t come back from injury, the Bears’ five-year record between 1998 and 2002 puts them with the Chiefs and Dolphins at the bottom of draft futility–one in five.
The Bears, however, have done a better job of collecting recycled top picks from other teams. They have the 1998 No. 1 pick of the San Francisco 49ers, R.W. McQuarters; the 1999 No. 1 pick of the Chiefs, John Tait; and the 2000 No. 1 pick of the Cardinals, Thomas Jones.
At last
A Draft Encyclopedia has been published by Sporting News Books listing every draft of every NFL team since the first one in 1936. Especially useful is the overall order of the drafts, something even old NFL record books ignore. You can see the Bears picked Dick Butkus third, Gale Sayers fourth and Steve DeLong sixth in the first round of the 1965 draft. They also picked Jim Nance 45th. The big running back opted for the AFL Patriots, robbing Chicago of watching Nance and Sayers in the same backfield.
Butkus was picked after the New York Giants took running back Tucker Frederickson and the San Francisco 49ers selected running back Ken Willard. In a separate list Butkus is called the best No. 3 pick ever, ahead of Detroit’s Barry Sanders, Cincinnati’s Anthony Munoz, the Los Angeles Rams’ Merlin Olsen and the Bears’ Bobby Layne. All are in the Hall of Fame.