For sake of a Super Bowl season -- pay him!

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By DARRELL FRY

© St. Petersburg Times,
published July 30, 2001

TAMPA -- We interrupt this Super Bowl ride to bring you this: Derrick Brooks didn't show up at camp Sunday.

Are you still convinced the Bucs are bound for New Orleans?

Think about all the things that could go wrong on the opening day of training camp. Think about one of the last things this team needs right now.

And then think about the last person you'd expect to be involved, and then you've pretty much summed up Sunday's start to the Bucs' 2001 season.

The Bucs may ultimately live up to all of their preseason hype, but this isn't the way you want it to start. Not with your three-time team MVP going AWOL. Not with one of your defensive cornerstones unhappy. Not with your greatest humanitarian looking mistreated.

Forget about Brooks missing any practices and falling behind. This is about a team's focus. This is about setting a tone and establishing a mind-set from Day 1 and sustaining it throughout the season. This is about avoiding distractions that might scar a team's title quest before it gets going.

When you've had as many promising seasons fizzle as the Bucs have, why risk starting this one on the wrong foot?

Here's some free, unsolicited advice for the Bucs. Pay the man. Don't break the bank on him, but pay him. Pay him what he deserves. Pay him and get him into camp.

Now.

The Bucs don't want to budge because Brooks has two years left on his contract and typically the Bucs don't re-up unless the guy has a year or less left.

But so what?

If there's a guy who's worth an exception, worth bending the rules, wouldn't it be Brooks? The guy is only a four-time Pro Bowl player and the reigning co-NFL Man of the Year.

Plus, have the Bucs forgotten they eagerly renegotiated Brooks' rookie contract at the end of the 1997 season with two years remaining? They did it because it was in the team's best interest to pay him before his stock skyrocketed.

Has it slipped their mind that they boosted Keyshawn Johnson's contract after they traded for him even though he had two years left on his deal?

You don't do that for every player, but you do it for the special ones. You do it for the few who, season after season, make your organization look good.

You'd have to be an idiot to think Brooks doesn't qualify.

The question then becomes, how much do you pay him?

Brooks is scheduled to make a little more than $3-million this year. Granted, that's some pretty good jack. In fact, he'd be the league's fifth-highest paid linebacker.

But you don't always pay a player based solely on his position. Nobody should have to tell that to the Bucs. When they gave Mike Alstott his new deal, they paid him far more than a typical fullback. Look it up. It's not even close.

So, why not do the same with Brooks? The Bucs are bound to get more of their money's worth from him than they have from Alstott, right?

"We haven't had (a veteran holdout) in a long time," general manager Rich McKay said. "We hope it resolves itself quickly."

Count on this, Brooks won't cave. Those close to Brooks say he's ready to see this thing to the end. They say, in Brooks' mind, this is not about greed but rather principles. That is, principally he was led to believe his contract would have been sweetened by now.

"If they (the Bucs) were in the same position," linebacker Shelton Quarles said, "where somebody promised them to do something then didn't do it in their job, they'd be upset, too."

Could Brooks drop this whole holdout thing and just be a little more patient? Sure.

Could he live with his current $3-million deal and still live high on the hog? Of course.

Now ask yourself this: Should he, if he sincerely believes he deserves more? Should he, if he was told he'd have a new deal by now?

Would you?

With all disputes of this nature, there has to be compromise. Maybe Brooks should come down a little on his asking price. Maybe the Bucs should bump up their offer. Somewhere there's common ground. Both sides just have to find it.

After all, there's a season at stake. A promising one. And Sunday is not the way you want it to start.

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