KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Kansas City Chiefs and Dick Vermeil
are working out final details of a three-year, $10 million contract
that would make him one of the NFL's highest-paid coaches.
The Chiefs will introduce Vermeil as their coach Friday at a 1 p.m. ET news conference.
|  | | Dick Vermeil is going to have to trade in his blue shirts for red. |
A source with knowledge of the situation and speaking on
condition of anonymity confirmed the size of the package.
Gunther Cunningham, who was fired last week to make room for
Vermeil, was getting only $600,000 a year as the Chiefs' head
coach.
Kansas City pried Vermeil out of his consultant's contract with
St. Louis, and the NFL ruled Wednesday it will cost the Chiefs a
second- and third-round draft pick and Vermeil the $500,000 he got
from the Rams this season.
Chiefs president Carl Peterson said it's fair compensation for
"the premier football coach in the National Football League."
"Dick Vermeil's record speaks for itself," Peterson said
following NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue's ruling. "I think it
was appropriate for a Super Bowl coach. This man has been
successful at everything he's ever done."
Vermeil, who retired after coaching the Rams to last year's
Super Bowl title over Tennessee, said he, too, was pleased.
"I thought they made it fair. I feel good about it. I'm glad
the Rams got something," Vermeil said from his home in the
Philadelphia area. "They were good to me for three years. This is
a way of paying something back to them."
Asked when the Chiefs would begin working out contract
particulars with Vermeil, Peterson said, "When does the next plane
from Philadelphia get in?"
The contract, first reported in the Kansas City Star, would be
among the biggest for an NFL coach. Mike Holmgren of Seattle makes
$4 million a year, while Minnesota's Dennis Green makes $3 million.
Both have formal front-office responsibilities in addition to
on-the-field coaching.
Peterson and Vermeil were coaches together at UCLA more than two
decades ago. Their friendship deepened when Vermeil led the 1980
Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl while Peterson was director
of player personnel.
Peterson tried to talk his buddy out of retirement when he was
first put in charge of the Chiefs in 1989. He wound up with his
second choice, Marty Schottenheimer.
Gunther Cunningham, after a 7-9 season, was left dangling for a
week until Peterson persuaded Vermeil to come back "to doing what
he loves."
It's the second time Vermeil, 64, has come out of retirement. He
stepped down after Philadelphia's Super Bowl and worked as a TV
commentator for 13 years before joining the Rams three seasons ago.
"I guess it was just meant to be," he said of his reunion with
Peterson. "We were together at UCLA and the Eagles and now we're
together again in Kansas City. I'm appreciative of how the
commissioner ruled. It allows me to do what I'm best at, with
people I admire and respect."
The Chiefs will give the Rams their second-round pick this year
and the 2002 third-round choice they acquired from Washington after
the Redskins signed Schottenheimer.
Besides the draft picks, Tagliabue also said the Rams were due
the $500,000 they paid Vermeil as a consultant. Peterson said
Vermeil would "make the Rams whole."
Rams president John Shaw said when Vermeil left the team he was
given a $2 million bonus as a thank-you for the Super Bowl
championship, but that it was not intended as a payoff for the
remainder of the contract.
Tagliabue found that, although the agreement did not prohibit
Vermeil from seeking a coaching position with another club in 2000
or 2001, "the clear purpose and effect of the agreement ... was
that Vermeil would remain retired from coaching through the 2001
season."
Peterson said publicly that he did not believe the Chiefs owed
the Rams anything. But he said Wednesday the Rams might have made
out even better had they been willing to deal with him and not take
the matter to the commissioner.
"If John Shaw and the Rams had decided to negotiate, we could
have come to the same conclusion, perhaps even a better decision by
the St. Louis Rams. I consider this individual the best coach in
the National Football League," Peterson said.
Shaw appeared to be satisfied.
"The Rams feel vindicated that commissioner Tagliabue has
awarded us significant draft compensation," he said.
"This decision protects and upholds the NFL's anti-tampering
policy and the integrity of a coach's contract. This matter is now
closed. We will focus our efforts on completing the Rams' coaching
staff, free agency, the upcoming collegiate draft and preparing for
the 2001 season."
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