PRO FOOTBALL NOTES : Training Camps Open With Plenty of Missing Persons

It’s time for NFL training camps to open. Which means it’s time for . . .

Holdouts.

Example: The Raiders opened rookie camp last Sunday without a quarterback because first-rounder Todd Marinovich hadn’t signed. On the first day, they had ball boys taking snaps, then quickly signed veteran Steve Beuerlein and brought him in six days early just so they’d have a quarterback.

That seems to be the norm.

Midway through last week, when camps began to open, only about 60 of the 334 draft picks had been signed and most were low-round picks. The only four first-rounders signed are Russell Maryland and Alvin Harper of Dallas; Eric Swann of Phoenix and Stan Thomas of Chicago, all of whom signed right after the draft in May.

Even so, that’s more first-rounders at this point than any time in the last half-dozen years. The difference is that because the season opens early (Sept. 1), camps open early and crunch time has arrived.

So the game between agents and general managers is to see who blinks first. Under the “slotting” system, everyone waits for a standard to be set in which, for example, the 16th overall choice makes a little more than the 17th and a little less than the 15th.

“I don’t want to use a word like conspiracy, but I’d sure say the agents are in concert together,” says John Beake, the Denver general manager.

The agents, meanwhile, think the same way -- only they think the owners are conducting the orchestra.

“The only way to get players signed early is to make it a crisis atmosphere,” says Leigh Steinberg, who has two first-rounders still unsigned. He says that’s how he got the New York Jets to sign their top pick, second-round quarterback Browning Nagle, the 34th overall pick.

“You act like you’re three weeks into camp and he’s already a holdout,” Steinberg says. “We sat down and said ‘we want him in camp so we got it done.”’

Steinberg is a more awkward position with another client, safety Ricky Turner, whom Cleveland took as the second overall pick.

He also represents Maryland, the No. 1 overall pick, for whom he got $8 million over 5 years, He wants more for Turner, arguing that Turner could have been No. 1 had not the Maryland deal been worked out before Dallas made the trade to acquire the top choice from New England.

Which is why holdouts are perpetuated.

“That’s the thing about agents,” says George Young, general manager of the Giants. “They can argue anything any way they want to.”

More Holdouts: The unsigned veteran in perhaps the most awkward position is quarterback Jeff Hostetler, who replaced the injured Phil Simms and led the Giants through the playoffs to their Super Bowl victory last year. Now, for the first time in his 8-year career, he’s got a chance to win the starting job from Simms.

But the Giants open camp Monday and every day that Hostetler misses is another step backward in his quest for the starting job.

Hostetler’s agent, Richard Bennett, appears to want to put his 30-year-old client in the $2 million range, where about a third of the league’s starting quarterbacks reside. That’s about $500,000 more than the 35-year-old Simms, the Giants’ starter for a decade.

The chances are Hostetler will end up settling for a little more than $1 million, putting him third on the team behind Lawrence Taylor and Simms in an area near linebacker Carl Banks and tight end Mark Bavaro, whose career may be over because of knee problems.

The chances are also good that he will end up settling in time for camp to open.

“Last time his contract was up, he showed up the day before camp and said ‘let’s get this thing settled,”’ Young says.

Pilfers: Does this say something about Anthony Parker’s improvement or about the caliber of play in the World League of American Football?

Parker, who played for the New York-New Jersey Knights, led the WLAF with 11 interceptions in 10 games, then added one more in a playoff game.

He signed this week with the Phoenix Cardinals, which had 16 interceptions in 16 games last season.

And Parker, who had previous tryouts with Indianapolis and the New York Jets, had just had three interceptions during his college career at Arizona State.

More WLAF: More than 70 WLAF players have now signed with NFL teams although quarterback Stan Gelbaugh, the league’s MVP, is still waiting for the phone to ring. That’s because of a clause in his World League contract that requires any NFL team signing him to pay double his WLAF salary, which came to $90,000 with various bonuses included.

In fact, Montreal, which finished 4-6, has the most players signed so far -- 11, including punter Chris Mohr and kicker Bjorn Niitmo. Niitmo has a chance to beat out Scott Norwood if Norwood remains traumatized from missing what would have been the game-winner in the Super Bowl.

How many will make the NFL?

The Eagles alone have signed 16 WLAF players, some to fill training camp vacancies created by two dozen veteran and rookie holdouts. Many of those will be gone as veterans trickle in.

Other of the signees have been around the block a bit.

One of the Eagles is running back Paul Palmer, the former top draft pick of Kansas City who went through Detroit and Dallas en route to Barcelona. Kansas City has signed defensive lineman Shawn Knight, a bust as a No. 1 pick in New Orleans who was also cut by Denver, Phoenix and Minnesota.

Then there’s the living example of the WLAF’s Triple-A status -- quarterback Mike Perez of the Frankfurt Galaxy.

Perez has signed with the Giants, who drafted him in the seventh round in 1988, kept him on injured reserve for a season, then cut him in 1989. He was cut by Houston last season, but finally got experience with Frankfurt and has only journeyman Matt Cavanaugh and 12th-round draft pick Larry Wanke to beat out to make it as the third quarterback behind Phil Simms and Jeff Hostetler.