Thursday, September 12, 1996

Cowboys' Teague Aims To Show He's Regained Rookie Form
By JOSIE KARP
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
(Sept. 12, 1996)

IRVING, Texas - George Teague left the still unpacked boxes in an Atlanta. When he arrived in Dallas last month, two days before the Cowboys final preseason game, arrangements had been hastily made.

Even so, the 25-year-old safety came equipped with baggage, the psychological kind that accumulated in a two-month span that saw the three-year starter traded by the team that drafted him and released by the team that traded for him.

He saw his salary cut by more than half a million dollars, from $765,000 to $192,000. And even he still has trouble answering the question that has likely popped into your mind? How did he fall so far, so fast?

"I guess I'm doing the same thing you are, trying to figure out how that happens," Teague said as he sat in the Cowboys' nearly empty locker room.

It is easier for him to contemplate his immediate past from his new environment. It is reassuring to him that his free fall was not so complete that he landed out of professional football. Instead, his circuitous route took him from a starting role with the Green Bay Packers, perhaps the second-best team in the NFL last season, to a backup role with the only team that was better.

Teague is the Cowboys' nickel defensive back. He goes into the game when the Cowboys replace two of their linebackers with two extra defensive backs. His job is not entirely secure (the Cowboys are always looking for better players at backup positions), but Teague has quickly become accustomed to that fact.

"He's done everything we hoped he would," Cowboys secondary coach Mike Zimmer said.

Today, Teague is thinking about using whatever opportunity the Cowboys are giving him to restore his faith, and the faith of those around the league, that he is still a football player. As much as he tries not to, Teague knows he has something to prove.

"I think that lays back in my head a little bit," Teague said. "I really don't want to think that way because I know how I played, and a lot of people know how I played the last three years. At the same time, I wish I could have a really good year, because now there is a lot of doubt in a lot of people's minds, in a lot of other teams. I still only have a one-year deal with the Cowboys. Who knows? I might need another job at the end of this season."

At the very least, Teague has learned to take nothing for granted. It might have been easy to do so before. He earned a scholarship to a top college (Alabama), forced a key turnover that helped the Crimson Tide win the national championship in 1992, was a first-round draft pick of the Packers and started as a rookie, and recorded the longest interception return (101 yards) in NFL playoff history.

Teague's life was taking on the look of an NFL success story until early July, when the Packers, who selected him 29th overall in the 1993 draft, traded him to the Atlanta Falcons. The Packers' off-season acquisition of veteran safety Eugene Robinson had made him expendable.

Teague said the Falcons never gave him a legitimate shot to make their ballclub, and he knew even before it happened that he would be cut. Two days after acquiring Teague from the Packers, the Falcons were already trying to trade him. They contacted Cowboys director of college and pro scouting, Larry Lacewell, who was not interested in giving up a draft pick for Teague.

But when the Falcons released him, and he cleared waivers, the Cowboys went looking for Teague.
With Roger Harper's arm broken in training camp, the Cowboys were looking for a healthy safety to plug into their nickel scheme.

Lacewell said he was "baffled" by Teague's off-season free fall.

The way Teague sees it, what should have been one of the high points of his career might actually have led to his quick turnaround. When Green Bay offered him the highest possible tender in February as Teague became a restricted free agent, it put Teague at the Packers' mercy. No other team was willing to give up a first-round pick to wrestle Teague from Green Bay. He signed a one-year deal.

But when the Packers acquired Robinson, it made Teague a high-priced backup, a luxury few teams can afford in the age of the salary cap. Thus he was traded to an Atlanta team that did not really need him either, but was perhaps looking to pick up a draft pick by acquiring Teague and then trading him.

After all of this activity, Teague's new teammates and coaches had questions when he arrived in Dallas. They wanted to know if he angered the coaching staff in Green Bay, or if he was accused of loafing when he got to Atlanta. What, they asked, were his health problems?

No, he answered, he had no problems with the Green Bay coaches, and no, he was not loafing. His lower back had hurt him during the off-season, but hey, doesn't everybody's in the NFL? Yes, he had his thyroid removed after his rookie season, but didn't he start for two years after that with no problem?

As a result of his trade-release-pickup, Teague is poorer but wiser.

"You always hear people talking about the football business and how dirty it can be," Teague said.

"After this happened, my outlook on the NFL kind of changed in a negative way because of the way players can be tossed around and treated without everyone knowing the whole story. Players, we're just like pawns. That's how I felt. To me, coming into this off-season, before all this happened, I was kind of looking forward to free agency and all that kind of stuff. Now, I don't know what's going to happen."

Teague plans to rent an apartment in the Dallas area. Just in case, he will probably keep some of those boxes packed.

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