FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NFL -116
1/10/01
COMMISSIONER RULES DICK VERMEIL MAY COACH CHIEFS;
RAMS ENTITLED TO SECOND AND THIRD-ROUND DRAFT CHOICES PLUS $500,000 FROM CHIEFS
The St. Louis Rams will receive second-round and third-round draft choices and $500,000
from the Kansas City Chiefs if the Chiefs sign Dick Vermeil as their new head coach, NFL
Commissioner Paul Tagliabue ruled today.
Although Vermeil was paid by the Rams ($500,000) during the past year under a retirement
agreement signed with the Rams last February, Commissioner Tagliabue ruled that he will be
permitted to sign a contract as head coach of the Chiefs. If he does, however, the Rams
will be awarded the Chiefs’ second-round pick in the 2001 draft and the Washington
Redskins’ third-round selection in the 2002 draft (acquired from the Redskins as part
of the compensation for their recent signing of Marty Schottenheimer as head coach). The
Chiefs also must reimburse the Rams the $500,000 paid to Vermeil during the past year.
The Rams had asked Commissioner Tagliabue to rule on the status of Vermeil, specifically whether he may serve as head coach of the Chiefs in 2001. Vermeil had signed a five-year contract with St. Louis in 1997, covering the 1997-2001 seasons, but announced his retirement following the Rams’ Super Bowl victory last January. He then entered into a four-year agreement with the Rams last February that both terminated and superceded the 1997 contract.
In his ruling, the Commissioner found that, although the Rams-Vermeil agreement in February 2000 did not expressly bar Vermeil from seeking a head coaching position with another club during 2000 or 2001, "the clear purpose and effect of the agreement -- and the explicit premise of the agreement -- was that Vermeil would remain retired from coaching through the 2001 season."
"Under these circumstances," Commissioner Tagliabue wrote, "the February 2000 agreement certainly did not extinguish all of the Rams’ rights with respect to Coach Vermeil. In other words, the Rams’ voluntary agreement to pay a retiring coach (Vermeil) should not limit that club’s ability to hold a coach to the full term of his original contract or to seek draft-choice compensation from another club if the coach is permitted to secure employment with another club."
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