USFL '84: Notable Transactions

Boomer Esiason -- Washington. The Feds made a play for Boomer in early January '84, but that didn't seem to advance beyond wishful thinking, like everything interesting in this new, terrible era. "It would be great to sign him," was the extent of their efforts. The acquisition of Reggie Collier from Birmingham at the end of the month seemed to signal a moving-on, but then came Valentine's Day and a sweetheart deal: 3 years, $10 million. Both Trotsykites and Birchers floated a fairly similar theory: the Trilateral Commission, largely Skins fans, wished to punish Washington for the loss of Grimm, Riggo, and Hart (see below--ed.). David Rockefeller found springball gauche, but also saw it as another symbol of "true choice and negative freedom" and wanted to find ways to aide the project's continuation (this would lead to conspiracies that took shape around disappearance of fall football advocates Donald Trump and prospective Blitz owner Eddie Einhorn off the Connecticut Gold Coast in late April; Trump's yacht was last seen docked at Gary Trudeau and Jane Pauley's house--ed.). Both sets of kooks made the same argument--Rockefeller wired the entire amount of cash to Fed owner Berl Bernhard--but both came to different conclusions for the reason.

Trotskyites suspected the USFL as a "psy-op" (psychological operation--ed.) to keep the bourgeois labor class asleep all year--this all done in coordination with the Soviets to maintain detente. Birchers thought the Boomer signing was an attempt to open a third front on Donny, salt of the earth yeoman, further amping up an already tough Atlantic Division. Boomer was suspicious of the club--it was basically just Craig James--but the offer was straight cash and paid out over three years, as opposed to the 40 year distribution of Steve Young's contract. There was also a very cheap buyout clause, just $50,000. The Terapin thought “why the hell not”: if it sucked shit, he could always bail with his future ahead of him, and if he signed his draft status might fall to a legitimate NFL team (after Fouts’ departure, new Chargers owner Alex Spanos planned to maneuver, as did half a dozen other clubs--ed.). Curiosity finally piqued around the Feds, so much so that Tony Kornheiser's bosses at the Post told him to lay off the league in his columns.

Dan Fouts -- Arizona. Another personal best in '83 was blighted by poor defensive play and austerity measures that left Dan with tired targets or none at all; a four game swoon starting in mid-October took it out of Don Coryell, who stopped calling plays by the third. "Just fling it, who cares." It all felt like the end. Fouts had a USFL contract in his hands in '83 but flashes of Kellen and Charlie, the Epic in Miami, begged him off. Maybe he should have landed in Baltimore, my god; he'd be in a luxurious dome in '84.

"Steely" Dan always made sure to witness the sunset from the beach every night--a ritual to the Sun God who plucked him from dreary Oregon and dappled him in His light. So when Arizona Wranglers' coach George Allen cold called him in mid-January, he took it as a sign. Walter, Earl, and Billy all jumped; Christ, Sipe and Vince Evans were making more than even his new deal. "How about it?" pressed Allen, himself in a locale. He flew down to Phoenix and had a "try before you buy" deal in his hands--1 year, $2 million for '84, a 3 year, $7.5 million deal locked and loaded for '85 (4.5 guaranteed over those years, the other 3 in an annuity--ed.).

Fouts asked to be directed to a good view of the sunset, and was escorted to the dead center of Sun Devil stadium's parking lot. "How about it old boy?" he asked the Giver of Light. The sun didn't bleed into the water like He did all of '83, but rather shifted to a deep red, formed an orange ring that briefly flashed turquoise. He nodded, straightened his beard. Gene Klein's right eye fogged up in rage, but Fouts' 750k fell off the books and made negotiations with Spanos a little easier. San Diego fans wept; "Ed Luther?" they cried. Supplanted, Greg Landry nearly signed with the Breakers before taking a modest offer from the Bears. 

Irving Fryar -- Chicago. The Nebraska star had bubbled up to number one on some NFL draft boards, but he liked to think of himself as a Pioneer, an Army of One, and his curiosity in the USFL went beyond just leverage. Unfortunately, Blitz owner James Hoffman sketched him out, leading Irving to consider sitting and waiting. Constantine Ortega, a Wrigleyville resident and season ticket holder who also had a 1% stake in the club, would intervene. When Irving's brother Charles needed wheels and booster money was tapped out, "Mr. Ortega," gifted him a Yugo--"No [NCAA] Hawk will circle over this--O." The letter read. When the Fryar matriarch faced eviction in April, Mr. Ortega not only paid her back rent, he bought the house (suspiciously from the estate of the Landlord, who was found face down in a puddle in a Giant Eagle parking lot; cops cited it as suicide by drowning--ed.) Moved by this, Irving agreed to meet with Constantine in his modest bungalow. George Plimpton, in his profile of O., said he resembled a member of French Parliament during the Dreyfus affair. Constantine also looked a little like the fast-talking guy from the FedEx commercials--bald, diminutive, just 5'1, with a luxurious, manicured mini-handle bar mustache. He always wore black turtlenecks, even to the June games. After two hours of negotiations, Fryar walked out with $100k on the spot, and a 4-year, $1.6 million deal. 

Russ Grimm -- Pittsburgh. The Maulers offered Grimm ahead of a disastrous Super Bowl XVIII, but the softie and Most Favored Hog decided to wait and see what the only organization he knew would do to match. Grimm recognized to the Post that Washington likely wouldn't match but at least get close enough. The Pittsburgher and native son, however, hoped for more than $125,000 a year with no guarantees. At one of Joe Theismann's famous "Salon Cookouts,"  Milton Friedman explained to Russ that he wasn't worth anything and that he should bask in the gentle light of his superiors; the next day, Russ jumped. William F. Buckley constantly referring to him as "Rusty" didn't help either. Grimm and Riggins' departures (below--ed.) became of great importance to the Imperium.

John Grimsley -- Denver. John was one of a number of Blue-Gray game players pressed by The League to "wait" and "show patience for the draft." Tell that to his Pacer in the shop, his dad laid off from oil field work. The Gold didn't offer much--$75,000 for '84, with another $55,000 waiting in bonuses, plus a base salary of $93,000 in '85--but it was there for him in February when he needed it.

Jim Hart -- Denver. Hart would call back the Gold in late February after wasting an afternoon in Joe Thesiman's backyard, where he was introduced to William F. Buckley and Robert Bork. He didn't really know either of them, but their ruminations on how Rhodesia was the closest humanity ever got to the Platonic Republic really bored him. That Buckley kept calling him "Hartsy'' was the final straw. Prince McJunkins was already entrenched in training camp, but at least Jim could wake up to the sight of mountains. In addition to $300,000, Gold owner Ron Blanding paid for his fishing and hunting license, a rare opening of hands from notoriously tight fists.

Jeff Hostetler -- Pittsburgh. Jeff, according to a New York Times article, expressed interest in the Maulers, but a low ball offer killed the deal. That all changed when the Mountaineer boarded the People Mover in Morgantown and discovered two big duffle bags--one purple, one orange--containing a combined 70.5 million yen, or about $300,000 US given the exchange rates. He would be met at his final stop by Robert Mitchum, who held out a samurai sword, the Maulers bright orange logo embossed on the blade's purple sheath. "How about it Hoss?" asked the star of Paul Schrader's 1975 cult classic, The Yakuza, a film Hoss frequently fell asleep too while studying playbooks. Incredibly moved by the gesture--Giants GM George Young offered nothing material, just empty platitudes--the hurler decided to stay local. (The Post-Gazette would later report this final gesture was actually orchestrated by an Osaka Steel concern that had drawn local ire for purchasing a string of mills, crushing the unions, cutting benefits, and requiring morning exercise routines to "build up their guts." Helping club owner Ed DeBartolo Sr. was both a reciprocal backscratch and their contribution to the circus--ed.). With Mike Rozier already signed, the future looked bright. 

Greg Kragen -- Oklahoma. Greg showed up to training camp in mid February and coach Woody Widenhofer tried to cut him but kept misspelling his name--he thought it was "Kraken," like the horrible sea beast. When he saw Greg knockout Rick Neuheisel in a preseason game, he kept asking who this Kragen kid was. No one knew. Woody kept him on. 

Wilber Marshall -- Tampa Bay. The two things the star linebacker and top 10 sure-thing wanted--$1 million and to play in the NFL--stood in contradiction. Bandits minority owner Burt Reynolds hoped to overcome them, rolling up to Wilber's mom's in a black and gold trans am, sporting a deep unbuttoned western shirt and a white cowboy hat. "What would it take your son to be a Bandit and for me to take you to the world premiere of Cannonball Run II?" That he personally intervened for a Florida Gator--he played for the 'Noles, did honor mean anything?--added dramatic weight. The pitch: your son would anchor a historic defense in a rebel league and not get yelled at by a gum chomping blockhead like Ditka. Bandits coach Steve Spurrier gave Wilber a Reaganite vibe--the combination of golf visor and skinny arms displayed a different type of viciousness--but his mother had a good time and the money looked real. Already strong ticket sales surged. Marshall's 3 year, $3 million contract was completely financed by points Burt made on Sharkey's Machine.

Johnny Meads -- New Orleans. Like Grimsley in Denver, Meads couldn't wait. Though not Catholic, Meads' decided to jump when Father Metairie--a professor-priest from Loyola College in New Orleans--delivered $25,000 in cash to Mead's mother, claiming the Archbishop of New Orleans, a Breakers’ season ticket holder, collected the amount for her family out of a desire to perform Good Works. Johnny seriously considered converting. 

Prince McJunkins -- Denver. McJunkins nearly signed, but he wanted to graduate on time. He went with the CFL in '83 instead, but after spending the year behind two very similar quarterbacks--J.C. Watts and Chris Isaac--he wondered if he should've just finished at Wichita State via correspondence. Gold coach Craig Morton, tired of watching Penrose huff after every wind up, signed Prince behind the back of the stingiest ownership group in professional sports, unbeknownst Jim Hart just got inked for more than triple what he signed the scrambler. Hart showed up to camp a week late, and by then McJunkins was already booking it on the still frozen half-grass half-gravel patch behind Albertsons that served as the team's training camp field.

Walter Payton -- Chicago. Milwaukee surgeon and new Blitz owner James Hoffman did the Tony Randall nervous collar tug when Walter signed the 3 year, $6 million offer made in January--the well was deep but it took forever to hear the splash. Mr. Ortega of Wrigleyville guaranteed Sweetness' salary. The John Birch Society would claim the money came from a combination of long hidden funds from the old Southside Crown gang and a KGB slush account in Liechtenstein in order to sew "cultural discord." Payton figured that: (a) this wasn't that much worse of a situation than with the Bears, (b) he was now one of the highest paid players in professional football, (c) Mary Levy seemed much more cordial than Ditka, and (d) if this team shit the bed, he could always return in the fall to break Jim Brown's record. The Birchers' claims went ignored. Walter, using his same locker at Soldier field, would also find a $2 million check made out to Cash, though not from Mr. O.

John Riggins -- Michigan. Riggins regretted using the Cats as leverage in '83, and was tired of being called "Riggy" by Theismann and William F. Buckley at the weekly BBQ Salons. With his new deal really a series of contracts, John called the defending champs up. In a fight with star back Ken Lacy, Michigan owner A. Alfred Taubman jumped at the chance to sign the galloping ghost to an already strong team. Lacy moved on to the Chiefs.

Billy Sims -- Houston. The '83 season was ecstasy and agony for #20; Bobby Lane did it to them again, psychically shanking Murray’s kick against the Niners in the divisional playoff. Too much, Billy thought, ice cold. When he got confirmation that the Gamblers were in fact not the USFL club with Greg Landry, Sims signed. William Clay Ford mysteriously dropped his lawsuit--Billy signed a contract with Houston a few weeks after signing a new deal with Detroit, prompting legal action. Birchers would claim it was due to the favorable election of Konstantin Chernenko to General Secretary in February, opening the door to collaboration between the auto giant and Soviet state manufacturer AutoVaz.

Jack Thompson -- New Orleans. Despite a strong '83 with Johnnie Walton, the Breakers would ink the Throwin' Samoan--a one-time Next Thing now cut by Tampa Bay--as insurance. The move came the same day as the Dupree signing, buried deep in UPI's semi-daily transaction lists. Walton was given a secondary salary as a coach. He had Thompson throwing literal rocks to strengthen his arm and improve his accuracy--he read somewhere that Zukov did something similar with greenhorns on the Manchurian front early in the war. It worked, but Jackie broke Nolan Franz's hand in practice, opening the door for Frank Lockett. 

Earl Campbell -- San Antonio. His knees going out on the green concrete of the Astrodome--and Bud Adams' refusal to renegotiate his contract--led Earl to call back San Antonio owner Clinton Mange and accept his offer. When he saw Alamo Stadium's field--the same thin carpet but with thick industrial paint for the end zone and lines, paint that hardened over in even the mild late-winter sun--the big back nearly bailed. A fiasco was brewing: The Gunslingers were cheap but guaranteed Campbell's 2 year, $2 million deal and couldn't deal; the sunk costs not an option. When Vasily Morenov, a "cultural attaché" from the Soviet Consulate in Dallas took a tour of the stadium as part of a "friendship" exchange with the Soviet Studies program at Texas State, he offered to replace the field with a new synthetic grass called "Cosmo Green."

Developed as a joint effort among East Germany, the Soviet Union, and Libya, Cosmo Green was made from spent cotton seeds and other polymers to stay cool and soft in the harsh suns of Tripoli and Benghazi, during the summer soccer season, a time when everything was dead. The installation would be free of charge, a gesture of fraternity from the Socialist World. Earl would claim it felt like "running on a cloud." Local media and a few liberal outlets praised the success; there was consideration for a local commendation by the Mayor and city council--that the contribution also benefited high school players helped quell even the most ardent anti-communists. However, when they contacted the consulate and then the embassy, the Soviets said they had no one named Morenov posted anywhere in the US. The State Department had no record of him, neither did the CIA. An angel perhaps?