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Sunday, November 18, 2001

Compiled by Ed Bouchette

The Jacksonville Jaguars shot out of nowhere in 1996 to surprise the NFL by reaching the AFC Championship game in their second year of existence.

Today, they drag a 3-5 record into Heinz Field, a team going nowhere fast.

The Jaguars are the poster boys for how not to work the salary cap. They worked it virtually by giving players whatever money they wanted at Coach Tom Coughlin's behest. By doing so, they found themselves $37 million over the salary cap going into this year and with no Super Bowl appearance to show for it.

They shaved players and renegotiated contracts in the off-season.

Now they are a team on the decline, their record 10-14 since their loss to Tennessee in the AFC championship game following the 1999 season. They are a projected $20 million over the cap for next season, so the cutting will continue.

The Steelers, in the meantime, are back atop the AFC Central Division by following a much different salary cap philosophy. Instead of buy-now, pay-later, the Steelers have taken a more conservative approach. They were a little more aggressive signing their own players to contract extensions this year because of more income from Heinz Field, but they are an estimated $12 million under the cap for next season.

"I think there are some different approaches to it, obviously," said Art Rooney II, the Steelers' vice president/general counsel. "We have elected not to, say, shoot all the marbles in one year like some other teams may have tried to do."

Rooney wasn't pointing fingers at Jacksonville, but the Jaguars allowed their coach to virtually dictate contracts with tacit approval from owner Wayne Weaver. They overpaid in 1999 to keep what they thought was a championship team together, except the team never won a championship.

"I would hesitate to criticize any particular team because they make their own decisions on how they approach it," Rooney said. "I just wouldn't want to be overly critical. I would say that our approach is that we'd like to be successful over the long haul and have a team on the field every year that we feel can be successful.

"In addition to that, if we have a team that wins the Super Bowl, we'd certainly like to feel like we're in a position next year that we could repeat."

Dallas took a similar approach as the Jaguars, and the Cowboys have declined, but at least they won three Super Bowls in four years.

"We'd like to think we put a team on the field every year that has a chance to succeed over the long term," Rooney said. "That's not to say in a given year you may do something different because you feel like you're a little closer than other years.

"Again, I don't think you want to put yourself in a situation where you shoot all your marbles for one year and then have to almost collapse before you make a comeback."

The Steelers refuse to negotiate with potential free agents before the end of the season. They learned their lesson in 1993 when they talked with some players and not with others, and it divided their locker room.

Two prominent players, linebackers Jason Gildon and Earl Holmes, are in their final contract years, but they won't hear from the Steelers until the end of the season.

"We believe in that pretty strongly," Rooney said. "There's no question in our minds it can be a distraction, and a big distraction. We've seen it at times on our team and we've seen it around the league."