| One of my occasional lunchtime routines here at the
luxurious Pro Football Weekly offices is to bring my lunch back to my desk, turn on
Court TV and get to work on my turkey sandwich. While I am intrigued by the legal system
— heck, I’m intrigued by anything that features competition, from the NFL
to a courtroom battle to Roller Derby to "The Price Is Right" — I am no
expert. But I know this much about the way things work: A deal is a deal.
So when the NFL’s ruling on Belichick vs. Jets came out around lunchtime Friday, I
immediately went into Court TV mode. And if a deal is a deal, then the NFL did the right
thing.
Let’s nut-shell things: Belichick’s defensive-coordinator contract with the
Jets called for him to become the head coach whenever Bill Parcells stepped down. On the
Monday after the Patriots’ season finale, New England canned Pete Carroll and sent a
fax to the Jets requesting permission to interview Belichick for its recently opened
head-coaching job. Belichick wanted to talk to the Pats and was apparently ready to get a
deal done quickly. But the Jets didn’t want to lose Belichick, so Parcells retired as
head coach, making Belichick the Jets’ head man and preventing the Pats from speaking
with him about their opening.
The next day, Belichick says he doesn’t want to coach the Jets and resigns
himself. His second tenure as Jets head coach lasts one day (four days less than his first
tenure, which was in the middle of the Parcells-Patriots-Jets mess). But Belichick is
still under contract with the Jets through the 2002 season, which means he’s still
Jets property. Belichick decides to challenge in arbitration. Friday, he lost.
Put aside all the tabloid headlines in this saga (Parcells won’t let Kraft pay
‘Little Bill’; Patriots want freedom for Belichick; Belichicken [my personal
fave]), and it boils down to this: Belichick had a deal with the Jets. It was unorthodox,
and the Jets used it against him when an opportunity that looked better came along, but it
was a deal.
If Paul Tagliabue and the NFL had set Belichick free, all heck would have broken loose.
Once one deal is ignored, then none is sacred.
It’s not impossible that Belichick will still end up in New England. The Patriots
would have to compensate (that’s another Court TV word) the Jets, and Parcells, still
playing a role in the Jets’ front office, is looking to gouge Pats owner Robert
Kraft, with whom he is on none-too-friendly terms.
The Jets were right. That’s not to say they were doing the right thing in this
dispute. Often there is no one worth rooting for in a court battle. But they had a deal,
and they should be allowed to hold Belichick to it, no matter how unfair or unscrupulous
that may be.
A deal is a deal, even if it is a raw one. |
