Remember When Two Teams Swapped Rosters ... Twice? This NFL Vet Does

 By John Turney

Merlin and Phil Olsen

What? Really? 

Are you telling me there really was a time when the Rams' entire roster was swapped with the Colts' roster, only to have both rosters traded back to each other?

"Yes, that's right," said someone who knows. "When (NFL owner) Carroll Rosenbloom and Robert Irsay traded the Colts for the Rams, everything was traded. The equipment. The desks. All the assets and liabilities. Everything. And that included all the players, so they had to be traded back."

That someone is former NFL player Phil Olsen, brother of Hall-of-Famer Merlin Olsen. But how would he know?

Good question. Rosenbloom, then the Baltimore Colts' owner, wanted to own the Los Angeles Rams. So he worked out a deal in July, 1972 where Irsay would buy the Rams, then swap them for the Colts and cash. But some of the niceties were never brought up or discussed ... until Olsen is questioned.

"Ed Masry was my agent and lawyer," he said, "and he was an extremely smart and aggressive attorney. He was my brother Merlin's lawyer and also Roman Gabriel's. You'll remember his name from Eric Brockovich fame.

"Ed caught wind of the deal and used the information to get Gabriel a bonus for not trying to block the trade."

It turns out that Gabriel had a no-trade clause in his contract and was one of the few -- and perhaps only -- individual with veto power over a trade.

"Merlin didn't," said Olsen. "I didn't. But Ed had negotiated one for 'Gabe.' So when he found out what was going on and how it worked, he used that as leverage and reasoned that, with the swap of assets comes the swap of the players. So the only way to get them to the right team was to trade them back"

Consequently, Gabriel was entitled to compensation for waiving his no-trade clause ... at least in Masry's thinking.

"Roman got the compensation, and it was sizable," said Olsen. "I think it was maybe three or four hundred thousand dollars, which was a lot of money back then."

According to the papers, Gabriel's salary was $125,000 at the time. So, chalk one up for Masry. But it wasn't the first time the shrewd lawyer took advantage of holes in the system.

"Prior to the 1970 NFL draft," Olsen said, "I was expected to go high. But I didn't want to go back East. I wanted to play in Denver, in the Intermountain West, (and) I expressed that with Ed. So he sent a letter to everyone drafting in front of the Broncos, telling them not the draft me; that I wouldn't sign."

Masry's bluff didn't work. The then-Boston Patriots chose Olsen with the fourth overall pick, leaving Olsen in an uncomfortable situation. Other than holding out, there really wasn't much he could do, and he wasn't going to go that sit out the season. He wanted to play in the NFL.

So, he signed with the Patriots -- a one-year contract with a one-year team option.

"Ed was a bold advocate," Olsen said, laughing.

But Olsen never played with the Patriots. Practicing for the College All-Star game that summer, he suffered a serious knee injury in a collision with what he called  "a big, but a very clumsy player" and was sidelined for the year. At the end of the season, his one-year contract expired, and the Patriots didn't exercise their option.

Apparently, they'd forgotten about it.

"They had some turnover in the front office," Olsen said, "and for some reason the Patriots didn't exercise my option, nor did they for a number of other players who also were in the same situation as I was."

Which, according to Olsen, made him and those players free agents.

"I got a call from Ed asking if the Patriots had contacted me about the option," Olsen said, "and I told him, no, I hadn't. So he went to work in getting me to Los Angeles. He was sure that missing the deadline made me a free agent."

So Olsen ended up in Los Angeles to play next to his Hall-of-Fame brother in what newspapers reported as a "loophole in Olsen's contract," while Masry ended up in NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle's office to discuss a sticky situation he wanted kept quiet.

"Ed and I flew to New York," Olsen said, "and met with Rozelle and Ed laid out our position. The Patriots were not happy and were concerned about me leaving."

So Rozelle struck a deal.

"He agreed to let me be a free agent," Olsen said, "if we did not reveal the details of how my free agency came about. He didn't want the Patriots to lose any more players if they found out about the implications of the team's lack of exercising the options. 

"It would have been chaos, but, as far as I know, Ed was the only player representative who was on top of it. The others were not yet wise to the situation. I was able to sign with the Rams, and Rozelle would name the compensation the Patriots would receive. That ended up being a first-round pick and a third, I think."

That's exactly how it turned out, but only after the Patriots tried to pry a top player (Isiah Robertson and Jack Youngblood were mentioned) and a 1972 first-rounder from the Rams. That didn't happen. Instead, Rozelle settled on a 1972 first-round pick, $35,000 cash to reimburse Olsen's original signing bonus, and "additional compensation at the end of the 1971 season."

As it turned out, that was the 1972 third-round pick Olsen mentioned -- a package Rozelle called "just compensation" but left the Patriots furious.

"As it stands, I have nothing but total dissatisfaction with the settlement," said Upton Bell, then the Patriots' general manager. "It's an example of giving to a team that already has and taking from a team that has not."

Olsen played four years for the Rams, first as a defensive tackle next to his brother; then as a third defensive end behind Youngblood and Fred Dryer.

"I went from being a starter," he said, "to playing maybe one-third of the snaps. So I played out my option." 

Then he decided to move.

"John Ralston was the coach of the Denver Broncos," Olsen said, "and he'd recruited me to go to Stanford when I came out of high school before I settled on Utah State. He was interested in signing me. So Ed worked out a deal".

Only one problem: Compensation.

To avoid having Rozelle decide the terms, the Rams agreed to trade Olsen's rights for the rights of unsigned wide receiver Otto Stowe, plus a draft pick. That meant Olsen finally would play where he wanted five years earlier and get what he wanted where he wanted ... or not.

Surprisingly, the Broncos asked him to change positions and move from the defensive line to the other side of the ball and play center.

"They didn't tell me until I got to Denver," Olsen said. "But I wanted to do what John asked me. So for the next two years I split time at center with myself and Bobby Maples alternating quarters. He'd play the first and third, and I'd play the second and fourth quarters. I also was the captain of the special teams."

Those special teams were elite, especially in 1976 when Rick Upchurch was returning a punt for a touchdown or Olsen was blocking kicks seemingly every other week.

Though Olsen was expected to be the full-time center in 1977, those plans were derailed by a player revolt that forced the firing of Ralston and had Red Miller replace him. Miller didn't see Olsen as his next starting center; he wanted him to play left tackle. And that was a no-can-do.

"Red brought his own center with him," said Olsen, "and didn't give me a chance to keep the job. I told him I didn't mind moving to tackle, but I wanted a chance to compete at center ... and if I got beat out, that was fine, I'd move. But, he didn't want competition at the center position. He wanted the guy he was bringing in to start."

Faced with playing a position he'd never tried before on a surgically repaired knee, Olsen retired and moved on to business interests. His NFL career, he thought, was over. But, to his surprise, Buffalo coach Chuck Knox -- who had just joined the Bills -- wanted him to play center there.

Knox had been Olsen's coach in Los Angeles in 1973-74.

When Olsen agreed, the Bills worked out a deal that sent a conditional 1979 draft pick to Denver. His early practices impressed coaches and the media, but one final knee injury in July felled him. After undergoing surgery, he spent the season on injured reserve.

However, he wasn't exactly finished.

"I was disappointed (to get hurt)," he said, "but it turned out well because I got to do a little coaching and a little scouting. I'd fly to cities and watch games and come back and report to the coaching staff and also I'd work with some of the linemen on techniques."

After the year, though, Olsen retired for good. Officially, he played for two teams in his NFL career, but unofficially he was on the rosters of four. Olsen had gone from the Patriots to the Rams to the Broncos and finally the Bills -- with none via a conventional player-for-player trade.

Furthermore, each time the move technically was as a free agent. However, that doesn't count the time he was traded to the Colts, then traded back to the Rams, in the franchise swap of 1972. 

What a long, strange trip it was.