by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
When Wayne Weaver found out in 1994 that he would be running an NFL football team, one of his first recruits was Paul Vance. Vance isn’t a coach or a rocket-armed quarterback, but his contribution to the team is equally important.
As general counsel and senior vice president of football operations for the team, Vance sets the team’s salary cap strategy and oversees contract negotiations in the off season. During the season, he’s in charge of the team’s travel logistics and oversees team training and medical functions.
“My job is pretty consistent in terms of workload,” said Vance. “There’s really no off season.”
Vance joined the Jaguars after 21 years of private practice in Connecticut where he represented Weaver during the NFL’s expansion process. Since arriving in Jacksonville, he has worked with the team and worked of counsel with Foley & Lardner, the team’s law firm.
Much of Vance’s work with the team is dedicated to solving the league’s salary cap. The team’s approach is to first establish a foundation of elite players at the right positions. The current foundation is formed by defensive tackles Marcus Stroud and John Henderson, safety Donovan Darius, quarterback Byron Leftwich and running back Fred Taylor.
The team is willing to spend for top talent, but Vance said the team has to be careful not to lose control of its checkbook. The salary cap limits how much each team can spend, so spending too much on one player means the team would have less money to surround that player with teammates.
“The important thing is, we can’t be competitive unless we have room under the salary cap,” said Vance. “You have to keep some money in reserve to keep flexibility and plan for disaster.”
A salary cap disaster is just what many local and national observers said the team was facing in 2002. The roster was laden with aging players earning high salaries. Vance helped former coach Tom Coughlin overhaul the team’s approach to the salary cap.
Three years later, the team has unchained itself from those contracts and now has about $3 million in cap money in reserve. Vance said the team learned a valuable lesson from signing aging veterans like Bryce Paup and, most recently, Hugh Douglas to big-money deals.
Douglas is probably the most notorious recent signing. The defensive end signed with Jacksonville for $27 million, after three consecutive Pro Bowl years with the Philadelphia Eagles.
Douglas reported to camp admittedly out of shape and never played near Pro-Bowl level while wearing the Jaguars’ teal and black. After one season, he was released and publicly criticized coach Jack Del Rio.
Vance doesn’t regret the decision to sign Douglas. He was the Jaguars best chance to add a pass rusher and the team took a chance, said Vance. But Douglas was in the back of Vance’s mind when the team took a look this past off season at Ty Law, another veteran with a Pro Bowl resume.
Vance said the team talked to Law’s agent 25 times, but couldn’t come to terms. Law wanted Pro Bowl money, but the team countered that his age and history with injuries had to be factored into his salary range. Law eventually signed with the New York Jets. Vance said the Jets paid Law twice what the Jaguars were offering.
“It just didn’t make sense for us with the money involved,” he said.
One area where the team has the decided upper hand in negotiations is dealing with draft picks.
“Our leverage is, quite frankly, that he’s got no place to go. Either he’s going to sign with us or sit out the season,” said Vance.
Still Vance would like to see a system for signing draft picks similar to the National Basketball Association’s. The contracts for NBA draftees are largely decided the second they’re drafted. Their contracts are based on the player who was drafted in the same spot the previous year, meaning the No. 9 pick in 2005 earns a little more than the No. 9 pick in 2004.
The system makes holdouts much less likely and keeps rookie contracts reasonable. In the NFL, Vance said rookies are almost always overpriced.
“Unless they’re Hall of Fame players from day one, just about all of them are really overpriced,” he said.
One exception is this year’s first round pick, wide receiver Matt Jones. The No. 21 pick in the draft signed a five-year deal worth about $8.5 million. But the deal could earn Jones up to $11 million if Jones performs well enough to trigger incentive clauses in his contract.
Jones held out for four days before the deal was done, but Vance characterized the negotiations as productive throughout.
“Matt wanted to be here and we wanted him here,” he said. “He essentially ended up signing the deal we offered him June 1.” (Jones signed Aug. 2.)
With that much money being spent on young players, teams leave no stone unturned researching their investments. The Jaguars are happy to spend money to make sure their draft picks and free-agent signees are sound mentally and physically.
“The Jaguars and the NFL have some of the best medical people and facilities. There’s really nothing we won’t spend on the medical side to ensure a player’s health,” said Vance.
The Jaguars also subject potential draft picks to psychological screenings. They take tests to measure intelligence and emotional stability. Some questions are benign: Where did you grow up? Some are more intrusive: Do you love your parents?
Contract negotiations usually end up as a learning process for rookies as well, said Vance, particularly when they receive their first paycheck and learn the meaning of income tax.
“It’s always interesting to see a 21-year-old, thinking he’s about to get a check for $4 million and instead open a check for $3 million,” he said. “They learn about taxes quickly.”
Not that the players need too much sympathy. Vance said a player making $3.4 million — a representative salary in the NFL — would be paid in 17 annual installments of $200,000 each.