Stories of the '87 Off-Season 3: The Imperial Plans of Irsay, or, The Art of the Deal

The goodwill from Bob and the Colts' arrival in 1984 was no longer; three bad years, high ticket prices. Eleven wins total years. Calling them Indianians didn't help. Spring was here in ‘87 and all the talk was about Bobby, Smart, and Alford. The Pacers had the start of something with Kellogg, Tisdale, and the Rifleman. Throw in Alford and woo boy. Razor Shines with the Indians and Governor's Cups. The USFL settlement. Jim was sweatin.'

 He was going to get Vinny, that was a start, at least, but he also wanted to, needed to, make some big signings, something. 

He almost didn't get Vinny, but couldn't remember how he was almost not going to get Vinny until Luther Nightingale, on behalf of the Raiders, called to inform Mr. Irsay the Younger that the incomprehensible contract written on Pan Am stationary would not be honored. 

After their discussion at the end of the Colts' 38-35 overtime win against LA, Davis asked Irsay for what he would want for the top pick. Jim was at the "even-ing" out stage of the day; he was jubilant too. Vinny was coming! And they won! He wasn't sure what he asked for.

But Nightingale did. Davis took in Luther when he was a teen hoodlum in Oakland, stealing equipment and flipping it on the emerging sports memorabilia markets, often with forged signatures. He caught Al’s attention when he keyed George Blanda’s Javelin after the old man screwed him on a deal. Al saw the kid as the embodiment of Raider Greatness. 

Luther had a knack for reading people and became a sort of fixer for the club. In an attempt to maintain conspicuousness, he slicked his hair back and dressed in all black; this, and the amber big circular glass frames, made him resemble any shallow LA yuppie (he also thought he looked cool, like someone in a high-class thug in a Verhoeven film). He was kept off the books but given the Shadow Personnel Analyst title because Davis, for all of him, did like pomp and ceremony, but in that Catholic way (to create mystery and wonder; slightly different than authority and control). Al was a genius—Luther wondered how his son could be such a dipshit—but very wayward; like Nightingale's, Al had keen intuition, the best and most dangerous kind.

So when Al came back from his talk with Jim, and told Luther to prepare to deal Howie, Marcus, et al for the pick, Luther freaked. He had spent weeks orchestrating the Doug Williams trade. This would gum up the works; plus, who wants to see Howie Long in a Colts jersey?

Al obsessed over Vinny all year. He seemed like a Raider: big arm, swarthy, absurd Italian name. Plunket hit two of these, Pasterini one of them. Davis' office was the inverse of Howard Hughes: all wood paneling and crush velvet furniture to absorb the cigarette smoke. One of those Mitsubishi rear projection TV's rigged to a beta player, cords everywhere (the fire department on speed dial). LA would use three different quarterbacks in ‘86; Al got so desperate he signed 37-year-old Brian Sipe mid-season (Luther's pick over Greg Landry and Tim Riordan). Christ, he called Burt Jones too with an offer to fly him to Havana (Jones, who had built up a small real estate empire in the guise of steak restaurants in Northeastern Louisiana, declined). Davis spent hours watching Vinny tape in between screenings of Krull, the cyclops who could see his whole future and death fascinated him. This kid was it, Raider Greatness.

Luther always formulated options and he was monitoring Williams all year. He wanted to get him before the season, but Tampa made a deal with Washington for his rights. He put it aside, Sipe looked good in an OT loss to Miami, until Morenov's comments on Monday Night Football got him thinking about Doug again. 

Now Davis, his face looking like a gold bust in the dusk light, tells him to execute probably the most disastrous trade in league history. Luther nodded and excused himself, before donning a fake mustache and rushing to a catatonic Irsay, asking him, in a wildly inappropriate Italian accent (remember, he’s a fixer by NFL standards, not anyone else’s) to please put your demands in writing for the Papa. Irsay, with half open glassy eyes wrote everybody down in big loopy cursive on a piece of paper Nightingale provided. After a gratsi, Luther rushed back and slipped the "contract" into his files.

He sidetracked Davis for the next week, said trade talks were stalling out—Jim is a real pain. The footage of a dejected Williams on the bench as Gary Reasons returned a fumble 60-plus to kill Washington affected Davis. Why isn't the son of a bitch not on the field? The one sticking point for Gibbs wasn't the draft pick—a 2nd rounder in 88—but the loss of a veteran qb. Nightingale brought up Danny White's pending release, he seemed a better fit for them anyway. Gibbs agreed but he wanted something else now, Howie or Millen. Luther said Millen. The deal was done, the first big postseason trade. White signed with Washington on March 1st at 12:01 am. 

So no deal, Jim was taking Vinny. But Irsay needed more. There wasn't much out there and he didn't have a lot of assets. He outbid the Raiders for Buddy Curry. The still sort of mobile linebacker was set for $450,000 for a year with LA, but Jim swooped in, offering 1.2 million over 2 years. He still seemed to have something in the tank; speaking of which, his booming aquarium business seemed like a good opportunity. Indiana was so flat, the grass always yellow somehow even in April. People needed exotic fish and the chemicals to keep them going. Plus, hydroxychloroquine had pharmaceutical applications. There was money to be made.

The trade of the decade sort of fell into his lap (one must remember the unfathomable conditions of history that pull at us, place us in "lucky" and "unlucky" situations—ed.). Gary Hogeboom, not wanting to go through another season of backing up and "developing" a rookie, wanted out. The ‘86 season was deeply depressing, to be yanked around all year; Gary wanted to be traded to either a team where the job was clearly his, or "at least send me to a title contender where I can warm the bench." 

Jim kept pressing. There was a near deal with Seattle: Jack Kemp's son, 6th and 9th rounder (nice--ed.), but Irsay pressed for Skansi, so no dice. Shula sounded interested (Don Strock was getting up there) but bulked at a deal for Overstreet's rights, Davenport, and Pruitt. Dallas, Hogeboom's first home, looked likely—were they really going with Collier and Pelluer in ’87—but Irsay got too cute asking for Walker 1-1 or Newsome and Ed Too Tall Jones; Landry harrumphed. There was talks with Cleveland for Pagel, but then the Chip Banks trade happened and Accorsi and Keinath killed all deals and took Modell's phone away. 

Dickerson was frustrated by his performance in the Super Bowl and while he was fine with the offensive adjustments in the back-half of the season, he set a personal record for receiving, the endless public sniping of Frontiere over his contract, set to expire at the end of ‘87, was getting too much. "I am still paying him for stuff he did in ‘84." Eric thought Robinson misused him, insisting on "trick" runs from shotgun that work in October but not in January, especially against the Body Bag Browns. 

For all the bluster, when Jim made the phone call he was quite timid. Frontiere hated pops for the swan incident at the last owner's meeting. Also, ED was untouchable, right? They made the Super Bowl. The lower fruit was Charles White and Mike Young (a real villain for that kick off fumble) and maybe Henry Ellard if he gave up picks.

It was Frontiere who made the offer: Dickerson for Hogeboom, three number one picks—’88 through ‘90, you can have Vinny, and, someone else. Wayne Caspers, she finally said after she finally stopped banging her pen.  

"Holy shit," Irsay exclaimed, as reported in The Star. Eric would use his only leverage—holding out until he got an extension. Because Ersay didn't go on the spending spree he hoped, Dickerson got paid. 5 years, $15 million all guaranteed (if he was cut, the rest of the money would be dispersed over 20 years). 

Irsay's decision to promote Testaverde and Trudeau as "TnT" was a disaster quickly holed—scores of unsold t-shirts would choke Odd Lots bins in Kokomo and elsewhere. After the draft, he would outbid Dallas by $50,000 and a 2% stake in the hydroxychloroquine business to land Tommy Kramer—to think he threw for 4,186 yards and 47 touchdowns as recently as ‘85! He would also sign 29-year-old USFL star Jackie Flowers for 2 years at only $600,000 to fill in for Caspers. 

The moves endeared him to The Real Hoosiers: red-blooded Delco middle management, church investment portfolio analysts, corn future traders, HR specialists at Jacuzzi rental outlets, jet ski designers, Children's Palace Regional Logistic Engineers, Masonicare Actuaries. Americans, who, like Captain of Industry Big Jim, just wanted to cruise in their Fiero GTs to James Dean's grave with their special lady. It gave them solace—Real Solace—after New York Donnie Walsh would pick gangbanger and showboater Reggie Miller over Native Son Steve Alford. Vinny, one half of the pony express, and one fourth of the Gritz Blitz. Mayne an NHL team down the line, maybe a real baseball team. Let's go!