THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 19, 1995 TAG: 9511190463
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: JIM DUCIBELLA
LENGTH: Long : 132 lines
Will Jimmy Johnson ever coach again?
Those closest to the former Dallas Cowboys coach will say probably, especially if the Dolphins job is offered. But a Miami Herald writer recently spent a day with Johnson on his boat. Near sunset, Johnson looked out over the ocean and wondered aloud, ``Would you leave this for a film room?''
He and girlfriend Rhonda Rookmaaker spend a lot of time on Johnson's 42-foot boat - The Three Rings - though during off hours.
``We don't go out here on weekends - too many people,'' Johnson says. ``We come when we have the ocean to ourselves. This is my version of paradise. Paradise used to be going to campus and preparing to beat somebody in the Orange Bowl. Then it was going to Texas Stadium and beating the Giants. Now it's getting in the boat, looking at fish and . . . God, look at this. The water is like glass.''
But Rookmaaker says that when she observes Johnson watching games on TV, ``he gets so obsessed, watching games on TV, and I can tell he's getting the itch to go back. But then I push him out to the boat and everything is OK again. I honestly don't know what he'll do because he's so hard to know.''
Ocean or no ocean, football seems to give Johnson highs and lows like nothing else. He got up every workday at 4:30 a.m., never needing an alarm. He walked off the distance between hash marks and sidelines at away games to make sure it wasn't an inch off. He carried photos of referees in his pocket on game day so he could refer to them by name.
He can't do that with the fish in the mammouth fish tank in his home.
``People make it harder than it is,'' Johnson says, walking into the backyard, watching the waterfall flow into the pool. ``What I'd go back for is a third ring. I don't need money and prestige. I've got those things. An offer would have to be perfect - the location, the responsibility and the contract - because I'm happy. People who assume I'll come back, when they come out here they say, `I can see why you'd be reluctant to leave this.' ''
How reluctant, no one really knows. Even after nearly two years.
HUDDLING WITH ... Rams cornerback Torin Dorn
A touchdown scored off a Kerry Collins fumble and a baby born on the same Sunday. Guess you'll forever have good thoughts about the Carolina Panthers?
I'm going to have to send Kerry some of my bonus check.
I understand you saved the game ball and presented it to your wife.
What a day, huh?
The story goes that you went to a hotel in St. Louis Saturday night before home games with the rest of the team. As usual, the team cut off the phones at 11 p.m. in all players' rooms. But you had a cellular phone and your wife Rhonda called you throughout the night with updates. You also tried to help your wife with her breathing over the phone?
I can't wait to see that bill. But it was worth every penny. I got maybe an hour. I'm really thinking about my son. Touchdowns come and go, but he'll be here for a lifetime.
DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE? After last week's results, both the Cowboys and Bears must address a severe psychological hurdle - the inability to beat an archrival.
The Cowboys can't beat the 49ers, having lost three in a row the last two seasons. The Cowboys can no longer beat the 49ers - home or away, healthy or otherwise.
And Chicago can't beat Green Bay. The Packers completed a two-game sweep of the Bears with a 35-28 victory last Sunday. Green Bay has now won the last four meetings and five of six since Dave Wannstedt took over as head coach at Chicago in 1993.
The sweep by the Packers deadlocked the two teams for first place in the NFC Central with 6-4 records. If the Bears had merely split with the Pack, they would have a two-game lead in the division right now and a soft closing schedule. Chicago plays only one team with a winning record the rest of the way (Philadelphia at home in the finale).
The Bears are still a team capable of winning the division and reaching the NFC title game. But so are the Packers. So a third meeting with the Packers could be awaiting the Bears in the postseason.
Guessing, the Bears probably would rather play the Cowboys or 49ers than the Packers. Green Bay outscored the Bears 73-9 last season. This year, only 10 points separated the two teams, 62-52. But a loss is a loss, and the last one was particularly painful to Wannstedt.
His offense mustered 444 yards, 26 first downs and 28 points. On most Sundays, that's good enough to win, especially on the road. But not this Sunday. Wannstedt's forte is defense, and it was his defense that let the Bears down. Brett Favre threw five touchdown passes to sink Chicago.
THE MAN'S A PSYCHIC: Nearly 15 years ago, former commissioner Pete Rozelle made a prediction that sadly has come to pass. On the eve of the Raiders' case in Los Angeles, he said that if the NFL lost - and the Raiders were allowed to move to L.A. through the courts and not a league vote - ``we will have football free agency and clubs will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.''
The NFL lost not only the verdict but also $50 million fighting the case in court, where, in essence, it was ruled that the franchise-relocation rules were useless.
The fallout? There is no way that NFL owners are going to vote against the Cleveland Browns moving to Baltimore - unless they want to lose more than $100 million, collectively, while losing in court again.
Why? Look at St. Louis and the Rams. The league voted against it 21-3-6 (six teams, potential movers themselves, abstained). The next day, John Shaw, president of the Rams, threatened a $2.25 billion lawsuit. The day after that, Jay Nixon, attorney general for the state of Missouri, said he would file a multi-billion-dollar antitrust suit against the NFL for restraint of trade.
Within 60 days - before those suits had a chance to get to court - the NFL voted again, this time approving the Rams' move.
``I voted against the first time on the principle of the thing,'' said an AFC owner, ``but when they came at us with the antitrust stuff I could not take the hit financially. I would have lost my team and couldn't risk it. So I had to vote for it the next time even though in my heart I hated to do it.''
The second court case that changed the way the NFL would do business forever was the Freeman McNeil case in Minnesota. In that case, named for the former Jets running back, the players won free agency, sending payrolls skyrocketing and forcing owners to look for more revenue from their stadiums.
In the last five years, the higher-end teams, or the ones with great stadium deals, have gotten richer at nearly three times the rate of lower-end teams, which are basically those stuck in older, smaller stadiums. And the high teams, of which Dallas is tops, have just about doubled the increase of average teams over the same period.
This means that a Jerry Jones has nearly $40 million more to spend than the bottom-revenue teams such as Cincinnati, Houston, Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh.
Some fans might wonder: Where is the salary cap, which is supposed to control all of this? Answer: Blown apart with loopholes.
The salary cap has actually hurt some teams in a backhanded way.
Even if they don't want to, some teams have to spend more. For example, Cincinnati has had to double its player payroll over the past three years even though it did not want to. The salary cap contains not only a ceiling but also a floor, so no matter how much a team may be hurting financially, it has to spend to that floor.
Modell and Houston's Bud Adams are not the last to move. At the recent owners' meeting in Dallas last week, those who had stadium problems were asked to stand and inform the group where they stood. Houston, Arizona, Seattle, Chicago, Cincinnati and Tampa Bay all spoke. MEMO: Complied from The Virginian-Pilot wire services. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Jimmy Johnson
by CNB