Dan Rooney is a cry baby!!!

He's crying about the Texans taking advantage of the helpless veteran teams & then turns around & states how they're doing everything according to the NFL rules.

HEY, ROONEY! That's called smart business, you idiot!

I think he's just pissed, because he can't afford to match the offer we made to Brown. HA! HA! Looks to me like we're fixing to have our kicker on Monday. Here's some finger pointing for you Rooney. ..l. .l..

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/sports/steelerslive/s_62443.html

Rooney points finger at Texans




By Jerry DiPaola
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, March 21, 2002

Steelers president Dan Rooney acknowledges that the Houston Texans are properly following the rules set up by the NFL for stocking their expansion team, but he does have concerns about the process.

"They are taking advantage of people who think they have cap problems," Rooney said Wednesday afternoon from Buena Vista, Fla., where NFL owners concluded four days of meetings. The Texans started this off-season with almost the entire $71.1 million salary cap to spend and used a large chunk of it in the expansion draft. They selected many players, including former Jacksonville Jaguars offensive tackle Tony Boselli and New York Jets cornerbacks Aaron Glenn and Marcus Coleman, who were exposed to the draft because of their teams' cap problems.

"I'm not saying they're doing anything that's illegal," Rooney said. "But they are taking advantage of people who they think have cap problems, which they (the Texans) don't have."

He also said the Texans' favorable cap situation — they are now about $13 million under it — allows them to make offers to free agents that other teams would find impossible. "They're trying to maneuver in there to take restricted players," he said, referring to restricted free agents. "There again, they have the right to do it, but it's a problem the way they're doing it, what they're putting into contracts."

Buffalo Bills general manager Tom Donahoe agrees with Rooney. "I like their plan," Donahoe told the Houston Chronicle, "but I don't agree with how they've been able to do it. They've done it within the rules, but I don't think it's fair that some teams abused the salary cap, and they were able to eliminate their cap problems the way they did."

The Steelers are currently investigating the feasibility of matching an offer the Texans made to restricted free agent kicker Kris Brown, who also was targeted by the Bills.

Brown signed a four-year, $4.7 million offer sheet that includes a $1 million signing bonus and $750,000 in the final two years of the deal. It would cost the Steelers $1.8 million to employ Brown this season and $1.05 million under the cap. Brown, who has been the Steelers' kicker since 1999, missed 14 field-goal and three extra-point attempts last season.

The Steelers have until Monday to match the offer or accept a seventh-round draft choice from the Texans. Rooney indicated that the Steelers will take all of the allotted time. "I would always wait until the last minute," he said. He refused to further discuss the situation. "We don't know what we're going to do yet," he said.

Rooney said there has been talk about reducing an expansion team's cap in the first year, but he said, "The union wouldn't go for that."

"We predicted exactly what we're talking about (when the Jaguars and Carolina Panthers entered the league in 1995), that they would have a special position because they don't have any players. Therefore, they have almost an unlimited cap."

Rooney said owners discussed several items this week, including the possibility of moving some Sunday games to Monday night in the last four weeks of the season to ensure competitive and meaningful telecasts for the prime-time show. Teams forced to switch may have between three to five weeks notice. "I think it definitely could happen," Rooney said.

The networks carrying Sunday games, Fox and CBS, must agree to lose some of their best games, Rooney said, before the NFL would adopt the plan.

"Monday Night Football is very, very important to the whole idea of NFL football," Rooney said, "and that helps the CBS and Fox shows because if people are watching it on Monday night, they are going to follow up on Sunday and watch again, plus all the special shows that they have."

Owners also discussed playing the 2007 Super Bowl in New York or Washington D.C., in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on those cities.

A committee that includes Steelers vice president Art Rooney II will look into the question. "Personally, I think it would be a tough sell because of the weather," Dan Rooney said.

The plan has met resistance from many owners in warm-weather cities. "They're not going to be for this," Rooney said, "because they're going to think that that particular game that went to New York could have been the game that they got."

On another matter, Steelers coach Bill Cowher coaxed owners to vote against a resolution that would have given teams only one attempt at an onside kick, even in the event of a penalty or a kick that went out of bounds.

The competition committee voted for it 8-0, but Cowher called the onside kick "the most exciting play in football," Rooney said, "and to take that away — we are in entertainment business — would be foolish."

Cowher took that stance even though the Steelers lost a game two years ago when the Philadelphia Eagles were given a second chance on an onside kick, recovered it and went on to force overtime.

"He's the champion of the onside kick," Rooney said.


Notes: Count Todd Peterson of the Kansas City Chiefs among the kickers the Steelers will consider if they don't match the offer for Brown. The Steelers inquired about Peterson, 32, before Brown visited with the Texans. Peterson has met with the Cincinnati Bengals and Minnesota Vikings, and the Chiefs have expressed an interest in re-signing him ... Neil Schwartz, the agent for offensive tackle Wayne Gandy, had a brief conversation with Steelers officials about the possibility of extending Gandy's contract and reducing its hit against the cap. "We let them know we are very happy with the Steelers and we would like to continue the relationship," Schwartz said. Gandy, 31, is due to cost the Steelers $4.4 million against the cap this season, the final year of a four-year deal. "The ball is in their court." The Steelers will continue negotiations today with unrestricted free agent cornerback Deshea Townsend.