[revrew]

On February 27th, justice was finally served to Jeffrey Davis. He agreed to give up control of the Rebels. Somewhere in the strange world inside his head, he rationalized that he had achieved all his goals and victories, and control of the team wasn't necessary any longer.

On February 28th, however, I received a visit from Commissioner Tagliabue. It seems the NFL ownwers were not entirely satisfied by my documented objections to the way the Rebels had been run. As majority owner, I was still under suspicion, even probation. Tagliabue then clarified yet another ultimatum: "So long as you renounce the 'South Shall Rise Again' agenda, and so long as you immediately bring in players from a variety of colleges, including Northern and Western colleges to start for your team, the NFL will throw its 3% ownership behind you. But should you carry on the Southern agenda, the NFL will extract Jeffrey Davis' 48% and use its combined 51% to oust you from power. Do we have an understanding?"

"Of course," I replied. I considered the ultimatum fair, though unnecessary. Among my peers in the NFL G.M. pool, talk had already turned to how twisted, undeserved, and really invalid my SuperBowl victory had been. The only way to restore my credibility, my record, and my pride was to win another SuperBowl, but this one with a roster that could pass any scrutiny. I inteneded to show not only the other G.M.s, but now my fellow owners, that I was the architect of one SuperBowl winner, and I could do it again--even if I had to do it with all Northerners.

I didn't need such a stipulation upon me, however. No, I would be fair in my construction of the team, but that doesn't mean I wasn't presented with some problems.

For starters, Jeffrey Davis had made a good point about my financial situation. I had 7 million dollars left from that first year of profit sharing. If the team lost any more than $14,285,714.28, I would be broke. My 49% share of the losses would break me. With a 3-year track record of losing $50 million a year, my projections weren't good. But so long as I could financially stay afloat, I could continue my quest for a second SuperBowl.

My other big problem was my relationship with the other G.M.s. Most of them felt scorned, used by my frequent trades. With each trade I had hidden an underlying agenda: get Southerners. Now every manager looked on me with suspicion. Was I still garnering Southerners? Would I overpay for Northerners now? What other agendas was I hiding? I discovered early, when I made a call to Baltimore about trading away a Rebel who was costing us too much in salary, that other GMs weren't going to let me keep trading away. For every offer I made, the other GMs either flatly refused or demanded outrageous compensation in return. In essense, I had been blacklisted by the NFL managers. Not until the Rebels won their second SuperBowl was I ever able to make a trade with any other NFL G.M.