September 17, 1992

THE EDELSTEIN PRO FOOTBALL LETTER

THE Newsletter for Pro Football’s Sophisticated Observer

Vol. IX, No. 32

Holdouts best friend? It was NFL Properties

Wonder why this year’s first-round picks were able to hold out for so long? Why kids like Desmond Howard, Terrell Buckley and David Klingler were able to drive such hard bargains late into the summer? The reason was NFL Properties. Properties, hot to keep the blooming stars away from the NFLPA, lured high-profile rookies into lucrative deals during the spring. According to our sources, summer-long holdouts Howard, Buckley and Klingler each got between $500,000 and $700,000 to sign licensing deals. Crazy, huh? While clubs were trying to get these kids to sign for short cash, the league’s licensing arm was giving them the financial security to hang tough. Anyway, now that the No.1 choices have signed, it’s time to pick the best and worst deals.

They are:

BEST DEAL -- The winner is Terrell Buckley. Buckley, the fifth pick, and his agent Carl Poston had guts to hold out on the Packers until last week… but their wait was worth it. Buckley may not have gotten the four-year, $7.1 million deal that was reported, but it was close. About $1.7 million per year. Which was more than third pick Gilbert got from the Rams ($1.5 million a year), or fourth pick Howard got from the Redskins ($1.485 million a year) or sixth pick Klingler got from the Bengals (about $1.6 million a year).

WORST DEAL – Rams execs John Shaw and Jay Zygmunt should have their mugs hung in the Hall of Fame for getting Sean Gilbert to sign a five-year, $7.5 million deal just hours after Colts gave first pick Steve Emtman and second pick Quentin Coryatt four-year deals in the $9 million neighborhood on Draft Day. The agents would like to put Gilbert’s guy, Gutsy Sunseri, in the Hall of Shame.