by Mark Bowden
This is what pushed Norman over the edge. Keith was one of the triumphs of Buddy’s drafting acumen, a tall, wide Oklahoma tight end with the size of a lineman and the hands and speed of a wide receiver. Buddy picked him first in the ’88 draft, immediately appointed him a starter, displacing the Eagles’ popular veteran John Spagnola (the Pack loudly disapproved), and Keith responded with a hellacious rookie season, catching eighty-one passes for 869 yards (Spagnola caught five for 40 yards with the Seattle Seahawks). Keith finished as rookie of the year and was the NFC’s starting tight end in the Pro Bowl.
In addition to his obvious physical gifts, Jackson was a charmer, a witty dancing bear of a man who played the cello and aspired to become a rap star—among other things. He was a breezy egotist, outspoken and admired, kind of the offense’s more polished answer to Jerome. Everybody liked Keith, from the Pack to the ball boys whom he teased at practice to the receptionists who answered the phone upstairs to Harry to … hell, even Norman liked Keith.
Liking players was a temptation owners indulged at their risk. If a player did well, he would ask for the moon when his contract was up, and if he did poorly, he would ask for the moon anyway. The closer you got to a player, the harder it was to stay objective. This was a common coaching failure. Owners knew and fully expected Coach to grow fond of particular players and try to keep them beyond their usefulness. Business dealings with players had to be hard-edged; there was a lot of money at stake. So Norman and Harry avoided getting too cozy with anyone on the roster. But Keith was hard to resist. He had earned his degree at Oklahoma in just three and a half years (many pro players lacked enough credits to graduate after five years), and shortly after joining the team he opened a retail clothing store in Edgewater Park, New Jersey, called Keith Jackson’s Silk, Leather and You. He was bubbling with talent, energy, and ambition. He played hard with a broad smile. He lit up a room.
Norman invited Keith down to Indian Creek Island after that rookie season. He took an interest in Keith’s family, offering to help them out of a jam once or twice. When Keith suffered painful back spasms in a Monday night game in Chicago, Norman and Irma accompanied him to Northwestern University Hospital and stayed at his bedside until early the next morning. If there ever was an Eagles player destined to enter Norman’s inner circle, Keith was the man.
Except—Keith had this little problem with his contract.
The deal Jackson signed in ’88 reflected that year’s going rate for a first-round draft pick, thirteenth chosen overall. It was a fouryear deal, worth about $2.5 million in all. Keith collected an $800,000 signing bonus upfront, and his salary (with a $62,500 payoff for making the team each year and about $100,000 in incentives) would go from about $350,000 in his first season to $400,000 in ’89, then $450,000 in ’90, to more than $500,000 in ’91. It was a fair salary, and Keith was happy with it until he turned out to be a better football player than anyone expected—including him and his agent, the pugnacious Gary Wichard. By the time he made the Pro Bowl for the second year in a row, happy-go-lucky Keith was feeling disgruntled and underpaid.
And for Gary, this meant failure. It wounded his pride. We’re talking about Mr. Upfront here, the agent who made University of Oklahoma linebacker Brian Bosworth the best-paid, most famous multimillionaire in football with a ten-year, $11 million contract before he even suited up for a pro game! And then, when the Boz flopped big-time (he ended up playing in only twenty-four games, rather unspectacularly, before retiring with a shoulder injury), Gary had neatly segued his career into Hollywood, signing him to a string of atrocious action pictures that were box-office flops but that made Bosworth (and Mr. Upfront) at least briefly famous.
Now comes Keith, an opposite case. Drafted in the same year as the Boz, Keith was already a two-time all-pro, and he’s making less than half a mil per annum? Think what this meant to the image of Mr. Upfront.
When Gary, a motormouth anyway, cornered Harry in Hawaii after Keith’s second Pro Bowl appearance, he should have been wearing a warning sign that said CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE. Armed with stats and projections, fluent hyperbole and a ton of legitimate gripe, Gary launched into the same spiel he would later repeat to any reporter whose phone number was within reach.
Mr. Upfront was all worked up.
“You are not going to get a Rolls-Royce and pay Honda prices,” reaching for a Bramanesque metaphor. “And don’t tell me my guy isn’t as deserving of a new deal as Randall was [Norman had renegotiated Randall’s contract in midseason ’88, locking in the quarterback with a five-year, $12 million deal], and don’t tell me it’s because Randall is a quarterback and deserved it—I find that to be very discriminating to a football player … Keith Jackson has done things that no other player in the history of the game has done at that position … third-highest vote getter in the all-NFL, great guy in the clubhouse, great guy off the field … what are we talking about here? You talk to me about the sanctity of a contract? In the NFL? Let’s talk about that every cutdown day! There’s no such animal! That’s pie-in-the-sky nonsense. There is no contract. Go talk to some of these guys who are down and out, who have been cut. Contracts don’t mean crap in this league. These guys are interchangeable parts. But you can’t interchange anyone with Keith Jackson, not anyone in the game….”
Somewhere in here, Gary paused to take a breath, and Harry said something crisply responsive, like “No way.”
And that was that. Keith showed up for minicamp in May, and then again in July for Buddy’s annual voluntary camp, but on day one of the ’90 training camp, the team’s Pro Bowl tight end was missing.
“I don’t know where he is,” said Buddy, adding, predictably, “We need him in here though.”
And the standoff began.
From Keith’s perspective, there was no excuse for him to be underpaid. Things had never looked better for the NFL. Under the league’s new TV contract that year, the Eagles were guaranteed $28 million before they sold a ticket. That income alone was $5 million more than the team’s total player payroll and was up from just $17.8 million the year before, a lump $10 million increase in revenue that profited Keith not one penny. The Eagles would earn another $23 million in ticket sales. Add $6 million more for skybox rentals (under a sweetheart deal with the city designed to keep the Eagles in town), another $1.2 million in program and yearbook sales—the grand total, when you added in concession income, royalties, insurance proceeds, and other revenue sources, was just about $61 million. When you subtracted the team’s expenses, it turned out the Eagles were the NFL’s most profitable franchise—one would expect nothing less from BramanMan, whose firm grasp on a dollar was legendary.
The trick to profitability (if not Super Bowl victories) was holding down expenses. Norman’s execs, scouts, and coaches were making some of the lowest salaries in the league. Scouts scouring the hinterlands for talent weren’t allowed one penny of entertainment expense; they wooed college coaches out of their own pockets. Richie Kotite, in his year as offensive coordinator, was called on the carpet by the folks upstairs for making daily phone calls to his ailing parents in Miami. “Take it out of my paycheck!” Richie fumed. The Eagles’ locker room, training room, and weight room (in contrast to the snazzy practice and training facilities other teams built for themselves) were shoehorned into the basement of the Vet, plagued by moisture, bugs, and rats. Players arriving from deep-pocket Big Ten college programs, used to state-of-the-art facilities, indoor and outdoor practice fields, arena-sized gymnasiums, gleaming training rooms with mirrored walls and separate high-tech machines for seemingly every muscle and sinew in their bodies, were appalled to discover that a gloomy closet-sized weight room with—get this— barbells and a few antique early-generation Nautilus machines was the destination of their life’s ambition. This is the big league?
They were even more shocked when the Eagles’ equipment manager, Rusty Sweeney, demanded payment for their practice cleats or an extra pair of white socks. Players who could obtain boxfuls of su
ch athletic accoutrements gratis from the sporting goods manufacturers—salesmen vied for their endorsements—found themselves bargaining to replace a worn-out jock.
“Where’s the old one?” Rusty would ask.
“Jesus, I threw it away!”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. In the trash!”
“If you want another one, you have to return it.”
And off the young millionaire would go to root through the bin.
Well, Ebenezer Bargaintown Braman might think he was one tough old boot, but he hadn’t yet matched wits with Mr. Upfront.
The owner, of course, was going to eat Mr. Upfront like an afterdinner mint. Norman had always been very, very good at knowing exactly where he stood in a negotiation, and, in this case, Keith didn’t have a prayer. He had signed a contract, and that was that. The rules, so exquisitely weighted in favor of the League, were clear. Keith could honor the original deal, or he could carry bags for the Boz and watch football on TV.
“We’re not going to renegotiate, and that’s all I have to say about it,” said the Guy in France, polite but more than a little miffed to be disturbed by a reporter at his villa that summer about something so trivial.
Like an ant trying to move a house, Gary huffed and puffed.
“Keith’s prepared to sit out the whole season,” he warned.
So Keith sat. All through the Eagles’ five-game exhibition season and training camp, Keith sat. The week before the Eagles’ first regular season game, the club signed former Pro Bowl tight end Mickey Shuler, who had just been released by the Jets. Shuler was penciled in as a starter. For weeks the club wouldn’t even talk about Keith until Norman, reluctantly, agreed to address the issue once more before the season opener against the Giants. Just in from the villa, looking cool and unflappable in a dark blue business suit, he stood on a chair, squinted into the klieg lights, grimaced, and calmly upped the ante.
“Keith’s contract basically states, in fact it actually states, that his $800,000 signing bonus is based on $200,000 for each year of the four contract years. We feel that if Keith Jackson is not going to fulfill his end of the contract, then a portion of that money for each game that he is not present should be returned to the Philadelphia Eagles.”
Norman wasn’t just going to let Keith sit. He was going to sue his young pal. But he left the door open for Keith to come home.
“I find the situation particularly regrettable,” he said, looking genuinely sad. “I’ve had a close association with Keith. When Keith was hurt in Chicago last year, Irma and I spent the whole night till five o’clock in the morning at his bedside. It was as though my own son or daughter had been injured. And I think that Keith has been victimized by bad advice, and I’m hoping that he will come back into the fold, join the Philadelphia Eagles, and contribute to what we think will be a very successful season.”
The Eagles lost to the Giants that night (Shuler caught five passes for fifty-four yards) and then lost their second game of the season to the Cardinals (Shuler caught six passes for sixty-three yards).
Still Keith sat. The Eagles didn’t call. Philadelphia Eagles, Inc., versus Keith Jackson was set in motion. Not only was Keith receiving no paycheck, and pissing away his chance of posting the kind of numbers he would need to make the Pro Bowl and his other contract incentives, but the Sit was now in danger of costing him. The lawsuit contended he owed Norman $12,500 per game. It’s harder to give something up than to turn something down.
“As far as I’m concerned, there is no Keith Jackson,” said Norman the day after the second loss. “We are not going to renegotiate the contract. We are very happy with the job being done by Mickey Shuler.”
Mr. Upfront began to panic. Earlier in the summer, he had stayed coolly aloof, neglecting to return phone calls from the Pack for weeks at a time. Now, unbidden, he started phoning selected newshounds and columnists. He’d call right on deadline, and you couldn’t get him off the phone.
“After the game Sunday, Keith was shocked,” said Gary, in a call after the Phoenix loss. “He’s starting to panic for the team. Keith’s not sitting back and saying, ‘I told you so.’ He’s really concerned about Buddy and about Buddy’s job and his teammates. Norman and Harry are a bunch of tough guys. When they take a stand they mean business. They sure put me in my place and they sure put Keith in his place and they’re sitting there watching an 0-and-2 team go down the tubes. They sure know how to take care of business. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. They’re not talking to the right people. If you talk to the right people maybe you can get something done. My attorney doesn’t need to talk to their attorney, what do they have to do with the Philadelphia Eagles? Norman says there is no Keith Jackson? I know there’s a Keith Jackson. I think last year there were twelve catches and three TDs the second game of the year. I know there’s a Keith Jackson. If they don’t want to acknowledge it, that’s their prerogative. It certainly is reflected in what’s going on over there. I don’t understand what the whole deal is. Norman has skillfully, in an astute, businesslike way, painted himself into a corner.”
Well, one thing was right. Norman wasn’t going anywhere. At this point, people were starting to feel sorry for Keith and his agent.
Two days later, the holdout cracked. Gary announced that Keith was coming back. Mr. Upfront had just been kicked in the ass, hard, and was he mad.
“Keith’s decision to come in doesn’t have anything to do with that egomaniac Norman Braman,” he whined. “Braman may know how to hustle cars in Miami, but he doesn’t know a thing about professional football. A smart businessman would never paint himself into a corner the way that Braman did. I should include Harry Gamble in this— they’re the Abbott and Costello of professional football.”
That was all well and good. Norman and Harry would get a good chuckle over the Abbott and Costello line.
And the episode would have ended right there, except for Buddy. All through the holdout, Buddy made it clear he wasn’t buying this Mickey Shuler bullshit. He pined publicly for his tight end every chance he got. When Keith abandoned the Sit, Buddy sent a white stretch limo to the airport to pick him up. And when the prodigal son got to the Vet, Buddy sat down beside him for a highly unusual press conference (Harry and his staff didn’t even find out about the little séance until it was over).
Keith’s theory was this: Norman wasn’t just indifferent to whether his team won or lost, he actually wanted his team to lose. See, there was this conspiracy …
And Keith, the loyal soldier, wasn’t going to let that happen. All that was missing was Keith’s cello to provide a dramatic sound track.
“I’m back for the team and for Coach Ryan,” he said. “I heard rumors that there was some conspiracy going upstairs to get rid of Coach Ryan, and I figured if I come in and we win, there’s no way they can get rid of him.”
Knowing Keith’s importance to the team, see, Norman and Harry had deliberately refused to come to terms with him, anticipating that the team would then lose, and they would have the excuse they presumably needed to fire Buddy. In other words, Buddy and his boys were the only ones in the club interested in winning, and they would continue to try despite the efforts of management to thwart them.
“Have you learned anything from this, Keith?”
“Yeah, it’s a big difference between the first floor and the fourth floor,” he said knowingly, arm around his head coach.
Buddy beamed.
This time, Harry knew as he threw himself in front of Norman’s wrath that it would be the last time he could get away with it. One of Norman’s star players had sat there with the coach and announced he, Norman Braman, was conspiring to lose football games? When Harry confronted Buddy about the impromptu press conference and the conspiracy theory, Buddy played innocent. He was just trying to welcome his boy home, he explained. He didn’t know what Keith was going to say, for God’s sake. It wasn’t his fault. Who believed that shit anyway?
That’s how it was wit
h Buddy. The Eagles’ president would feel the kick from behind, but when he’d turn around, Buddy was all innocence— Hey, Harry, that wasn’t me done that … leastways, not on purpose. For all his legendary toughness, Harry found Buddy decidedly nonconfrontational off the field.
Well, a confrontation was coming. After this one, Harry wasn’t even sure a Super Bowl would save Buddy’s job.
ON JANUARY 5, 1991, the Redskins crushed the Eagles 20-6 in the first round of the NFC play-offs.
After the game, as sixty-five thousand disappointed fans exited the Vet, Norman stood tall at the center of the Eagles’ basement locker room with his long arms folded, shoulders slightly stooped, head high, chin thrust forward and slightly off center. Norman had a look of bemused discomfort on his face, like a man having a wart removed from his heel. His crossed arms exposed a heavy gold watch on one bony wrist. There wasn’t a whisper of wrinkle in the smooth blue fabric of the suit coat that stretched across his back. Under soft fluorescent lights, the back of his neck was crimson between silver curls and stiff white collar.
He had nothing to say. For such a notorious hard loser, the Eagles’ owner seemed to be taking this latest play-off loss pretty well.
The first had been a disappointment, the second a surprise. This time, to all but those whose lives were caught up in the quasi-religious fury of this game, it had a faint aura of comedy. Buddy’s team was like one of those early NASA rockets that kept toppling off the pad at launch, going poof! Around Norman was scattered the wreckage. Dirty, sweaty players peeled off layers of blood-specked padding and tape, lost in the first stage of grief—spacey, disbelieving. Maneuvering fiercely around them was the Pack, swelled with out-of-town reinforcements, elbowing like scavengers on a giant carcass, vying to ask all the obvious painful questions.
Norman had, of course, already decided to fire Buddy. As if losing alone hadn’t sealed it, Buddy disgusted his boss one last time by deciding, late in the game, to yank Randall (whom Norman considered one of the premier players in all football) and replace him with McMahon, a move guaranteed to rattle and demoralize the emotionally fragile starter, whose nightmares about being replaced by the former Bears star were well known. The dramatic gesture was made especially pointless when, after Jimmy Mac flopped in one clumsy series, Buddy stuck Randall back in. This accomplished three things that Norm could see: (1) blew an offensive series; (2) sent a clear signal of Buddy’s desperation to the Redskins; and (3) fatally jarred what little poise Randall had left, aborting any slim chance of a comeback.