Rhodes trying to bring Reggie back
Posted: Sunday January 24, 1999 11:28 AM
Interesting news filtering out of Green Bay: A source close to Reggie White tells me that the defensive end has had two conversations with new coach Ray Rhodes about returning for one more year. This wouldn't be a full-time role. It's likely Rhodes would want White to be his nickel pass-rusher and play about 25 snaps a game.
Green Bay's chances of getting White to return are certainly less than 50-50, but the source tells me Rhodes knows exactly who he has to convince to get White out of retirement -- Reggie's wife, Sara. There's no rush here, because the Packers don't need a decision out of White until July. Rhodes just wants to plant the seed with a player who he really likes and who really likes him. I hear Rhodes will meet with Sara White, who is hugely influential on her husband, sometime before spring to try to talk him back into playing.
Bear cupboard
On Saturday, the Chicago Bears finally did offer Arizona defensive coordinator Dave McGinnis a fair-market, four-year, $4-million contract to coach the team. But by that time it was too late. McGinnis, rightfully, said to himself: "If I can't trust the management of this team about the basic tenets of a contract, how can I go to war with them?"
That's why Jacksonville defensive coordinator Dick Jauron is the Bears' coach right now. When I spoke to McGinnis from his car phone in Arizona late Saturday, he was emotionally distraught, still feeling the sting from hearing on the radio a day and a half earlier that he'd been named coach of the Bears even before he had negotiated a deal. Evidently, Bears president Mike McCaskey felt McGinnis would want the job so badly that he'd take the first contract thrown at him. When I asked McGinnis about his emotional state, he said: "It's sadness. Overwhelming sadness."
Tough road ahead
In Cleveland, don't let anyone with the Browns fool you, or try to. Jacksonville offensive coordinator Chris Palmer may turn out to be one heck of a head coach, but the fact is he was the Browns' fourth choice, if that high. Club president Carmen Policy wanted Mike Holmgren first; the league had a prohibition from Cleveland trading draft picks for an established coach. Then he wanted San Francisco's Steve Mariucci, but he re-signed with the 49ers through 2003, although deep down Mariucci felt he'd fit in better with a building team than a doddering one.
Then Policy dispatched owner Al Lerner's private jet to Minneapolis after the Vikings were eliminated by Atlanta last Sunday night to bring back Brian Billick, Minnesota's ace offensive coordinator. Not so fast, Billick said. He wanted to talk to Baltimore first, because he was intrigued by the Ravens' defensive readiness for the playoffs. There went Billick. So there will be pressure on Palmer to prove that just because he was fourth in line doesn't mean he can't succeed as a head coach in this league.
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