Lachey-Clay Deal on People’s Minds : Questions Over Precedent Set, Whether Trade Is Complete

SAN DIEGO — The Jim Lachey-John Clay trade between the Chargers and Raiders has suddenly this summer become professional football’s hottest new soap opera.

So hot that general managers and personnel bosses around the league are focusing on the deal with a mixture of sympathy, scorn, anger and morbid curiosity.

Bill Polian, the general manager of the Buffalo Bills, said Tuesday that there may be more to the deal than meets the eye.

“I find it ironic that two players who squawked moved,” Polian said, referring to the Lachey-Clay deal and the trade that brought Chicago wide receiver/sprinter/actor/bobsledder Willie Gault to the Raiders. “I think you have to ask yourself: Is the union perhaps trying to get something in practice that they couldn’t get at the collective bargaining table? Or wouldn’t get at the bargaining table and didn’t get in court? I wonder about that.

“The fact that Gault and Lachey moved causes me to wonder whether or not they are two isolated instances, or maybe it is something else.”

De facto free agency?

“Call it what you want,” Polian said. “But I wonder about it.”

Jerry Vainisi, vice president in charge of player personnel for the Detroit Lions, says his sources told him that Lachey would have been a Chicago Bear if the Bears had been willing to part with an offensive tackle. Vainisi also says he has heard that one of the two picks the Chargers received from the Raiders in exchange for Lachey may be as high as a No. 2 in 1989.

This all started when Lachey, the Pro Bowl left tackle, said he was unhappy on the West Coast and wanted to play closer to his Columbus, Ohio, home. He wound up with the Raiders, who are run by Al Davis, the man who used to sign the paychecks of Steve Ortmayer, the man who now runs the Chargers.

Fairly or unfairly, the Raider-Davis-Ortmayer connection has not been lost on many football people this week. Meanwhile, the concern among such people as Vainisi and Polian and Jim Finks, general manager of the New Orleans Saints, is this:

Will Lachey start a trend? Will unhappy players of Lachey’s caliber see what happened to him and decide that all they have to do is express their unhappiness, and they will be traded?

“I don’t see it snowballing,” Vainisi said. “But I think a club is limited. If they make an exception like that (Lachey), there’s not too many exceptions they can make after that.”

Added Finks: “A trend could start. But sooner or later, the clubs are going to have to say, ‘Good luck to you, no hard feelings. But if you’re not going to play here, you’re under contract, and we’re not going to accommodate you.’ ”

Ortmayer could have done that with Lachey. But Charger owner Alex Spanos directed him to move Lachey instead.

Finks said he admires what the Cardinals did last year with first-round draft pick Kelly Stouffer. Stouffer sat out the entire year when he and the Cardinals couldn’t agree on a contract. But Finks refused to second-guess the Chargers.

“When you’re trying to build, when you’re trying to get respectable, when you’ve got a lot of things ahead of you, the pressure mounts to do something that will give you some solace and maybe some peace of mind at that very instant,” he said.

The peace of mind--John Clay--turned out to have a bad back. He practiced Tuesday for the first time since he arrived Saturday.

Polian said Buffalo’s reports showed that Lachey’s performance had dropped off in the last year. He also described Ortmayer as “a damned good football man.”

But he said his immediate thoughts when he heard about Gault and Lachey being traded were “unprintable.”

The rest of the NFL is also waiting for the other shoe to drop. What will the Chargers do with the two draft picks they received from the Raiders along with Clay?

At first it was reported that the Chargers were going to send the picks back to the Raiders in exchange for Raider running back Napoleon McCallum--if McCallum frees himself from obligations to the Navy. Then there were reports that the Chargers would spend the picks on Marcus Allen, the former NFL rushing leader and Super Bowl MVP.

“The owner (Spanos) seems to like Marcus Allen,” Darryl Dennis, McCallum’s agent, said Tuesday. “But Steve Ortmayer and Napoleon developed a very good working relationship when Steve was with the Raiders.”

Sources close to the Raiders say it is unlikely that they will part with Allen. He is the focal point of the team’s new offense under first-year coach Mike Shanahan. And early indications are that Allen is in his best physical condition in years.

The Chargers’ biggest problem is that they are not dealing from strength. The rest of the league knew that Lachey wanted out of San Diego. And the rest of the league knows that Ortmayer and Coach Al Saunders are under pressure to win games as soon as possible.

“It’s a lot easier to take the hard line when you’re an established club,” Finks said.

As for the criticism being leveled at Ortmayer, Finks said: “I think you just have to accept it. I don’t think you can do things just to take the pressure off you. You’ve got to bite the bullet and say, ‘This is the way we’re going to go.’ It’s tough.”

Tougher still from a public opinion standpoint when you deal with a team--the Raiders--most hated by your fans in your city.

“If we can get what we consider to be a good trade, we’ll trade with anybody,” Spanos said, defending Ortmayer. “At this point, I’d like to believe that Lachey is history.”

Not quite.

Charger Notes

The Chargers agreed to terms on a two-year contract with defensive lineman Mike Charles Tuesday. Charles is expected to report today. His signing leaves the Chargers with four unsigned free agents: defensive linemen Lee Williams and Joe Phillips, linebacker Chip Banks and running back Curtis Adams. . . . Asked about Banks’ absence, Charger owner Alex Spanos said: “I don’t like it, and I certainly don’t understand it. Strange temperament. He says he’ll be here next week. That’s what we hear.” . . . The Chargers released four players--cornerback Brandy Wells, running back William Saipale, safety Wendell Phillips and kicker Paul McJulien. Phillips, a 12th-rounder from North Alabama, is the first 1988 draft pick waived by the team. . . . Newly acquired left tackle John Clay suited up for the morning practice but did not take part in contact drills. He did take part in contact drills in the afternoon. . . . Defensive end Tyrone Keys injured his knee in the morning practice and was unable to take part in afternoon drills. Coach Al Saunders said the injury was not serious. . . . Running back Gary Anderson, bothered by a variety of minor injuries, participated in the afternoon practice. It was only his third practice of the training camp. “One of our concerns with Gary is his durability,” Saunders said. . . . Spanos on the new Charger offense that features the running game and a long passing attack: “The Dan Fouts era is just gone.” And his opinion of this year’s Chargers: “I’m encouraged. Totally.”