Plan B Has Been Super to Novacek, Davis

When the NFL unilaterally instituted a limited system of free agency four years ago, neither labor nor management was satisfied. Players ignored under the plan, roughly three out of four on each team, considered it restrictive. Many owners resented giving any employees the opportunity to strike deals with another team.

So there was little mourning when Plan B was laid to rest during the recent season as the result of a suit brought in a Minneapolis federal court. The successful litigation by a group of players helped to precipitate a settlement that, when approved by the presiding judge, will guarantee freedom of movement to all but a handful of athletes and will initiate football peace in our time. Both sides appear willing, even eager, to embrace the future.

But before the new structure is implemented, there is the little matter of Super Bowl XXVII, to be staged Sunday in nearby Pasadena. It so happens that both participants, the Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills, have benefited from Plan B. In fact, Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson used it as a foundation for Dallas’ rebuilding efforts, signing a record 16 Plan B free agents in 1990 after the Cowboys endured a 1-15 record.

Three of those players will start for the Cowboys Sunday. Among them is a man who led all NFL tight ends with 68 receptions this season, a man who has been selected as a Pro Bowl starter each of the last two years. Jay Novacek, experts contend, has become the most valuable Plan B signee in league history.

Unless, of course, you count a Buffalo running back who starts only when Thurman Thomas is injured or misplaces his helmet. Kenneth Davis, among the first wave of Plan B refugees in 1989, followed a fine 1992 regular season with brilliant playoff performances, amassing 310 total yards rushing and receiving in victories over the Houston Oilers, Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Dolphins.

“I think everybody dreams of being the star of the Super Bowl,” he said the other day. “My dream is to get the ball on the 4-yard line and take it 96 yards for the winning touchdown.” And if that doesn’t happen, he will settle for having his daughter, Danielle, 5, spike a ball in the end zone at the conclusion of the game.

Davis orchestrated a similar scenario last year at Super Bowl XXVI even though the scoreboard had conceded victory and celebration rights to the Washington Redskins. The player was embarrassed only by the timing. “I thought the game was over,” he recalled. “Then I looked up at the big screens and saw the teams were still at the other end of the field.”

As might be construed from the admission, Davis is an outgoing sort. He talks with the same speed and enthusiasm that characterize his running. He rides a motorcycle.

Perhaps no other player in Sunday’s game offers a greater contrast in style than Novacek. All he shares with Davis is a year of birth, 1962, and a home state, Texas. The running back maintains a home in Temple, while the tight end rents a small ranch outside Denton for the duration of the season. Novacek speaks softly when he speaks at all. His favorite mode of transportation is a horse.

“Jay does not say a word,” noted his friend, quarterback Troy Aikman. “If you ask him, he’ll answer you, but you’ve got to say something to get a response. He hasn’t gotten the publicity that some of us have because of the way his personality is.”

Reticent is one word that comes to mind. Novacek said he doesn’t think the Super Bowl commotion is much different from what he experienced at Gothenburg High School in Nebraska. “We got a lot of recognition around the town then,” he said. The population of Gothenburg is approximately 3,500, which is about as large a metropolis as the man cares to explore. “I like the country,” he said.

Give him land, lots of land, ‘neath the starry sky above. Novacek owns a spread back in Nebraska. Aikman calls him the Cowboys’ “only real cowboy.” He rides Cola Doc in cutting horse competitions throughout Texas and the Southwest. He has won his share.

The son of a high school coach, Novacek was placed on Plan B by the Phoenix Cardinals after another in a long line of losing seasons. “I just had to make the best of the situation,” he said. “Everything happens for a reason. There’s not really anything you can do about it.”

At Phoenix, he caught 83 passes in five years. In his first season with Dallas, he had 59 receptions, a figure he equaled in 1991. He is the first tight end in club history to surpass 50 catches in three straight seasons.

Unlike the unassuming Novacek, a sixth-round draft choice out of Wyoming in 1985, Davis entered the NFL in a blaze of notoriety. He was fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting as a junior at TCU, where he rushed for 1,611 yards in 1984, but was bounced from the team by coach Jim Wacker in the wake of disclosures he was being paid by a booster. “It was reported I received a little over $40,000,” he said. When someone wondered if the report was accurate, he merely smiled.

The Green Bay Packers made him their top draft choice in 1986, but his rushing attempts and yardage declined in each of his three seasons. “I wasn’t surprised when they put me on Plan B,” Davis said, “because I had asked to be traded two or three times. I was depressed at first, but then I realized it was the best thing to happen to me.”

Davis has given the Bills a dynamic 1-2 punch at running back. “He’s the best backup in the NFL,” said Thomas, whom he spells with minimal falloff in confidence or productivity. “Having him is the best thing to happen not only to me but to the team.”

The best? Give me a B ...