Cowboys Sign Aikman for $11.2 Million

Troy Aikman, the quarterback who led UCLA through a record 20 winning games in his two seasons at the school, has picked the right time to move into the National Football League.

Forty-five years ago, Bob Waterfield came out of the same university and took the Rams to the 1945 NFL title--as a rookie quarterback--on a salary of $7,500.

In Dallas Thursday, Aikman, 22, signed a contract that will pay him an average $1.86 million a year--and a total of $11.2 million over six years--as the new field leader of the Cowboys.

“And we’re proud to pay it,” the club’s new owner, Jerry Jones, said, confirming that it’s the largest sum ever for an NFL rookie, and the third-highest salary package in the league.

The only players making more are veteran quarterbacks Warren Moon of the Houston Oilers and John Elway of the Denver Broncos, the league’s only $2-million men.

Aikman’s signing bonus is $2.75 million, his agent, Leigh Steinberg, said, adding that his client could make another $100,000 or more annually in incentive bonuses.

The yearly salaries are not guaranteed against injury.

Although Aikman reached an agreement with Jones earlier this month, the Cowboy announcement was delayed until the NFL approved the sale of the franchise at a special meeting this week in New York.

In keeping with a recent NFL trend, the announcement was made three days before Aikman was due to become the first choice in the 1989 draft, also in New York, where he will appear Sunday.

“I feel that I can do more (for the Cowboys) than I did at UCLA last year,” Aikman said at a Dallas news conference.

“I don’t want to get into specifics,” he added, declining to elaborate. “But the (UCLA offense) was a little limited in some areas.”

That was interpreted by some in Texas to mean that Aikman was restricted by the short-pass nature of UCLA’s offense.

But Ram Coach John Robinson, who scouts college football extensively, said the Bruin problem in Aikman’s final year was in the area of personnel, not philosophy.

“Aikman didn’t have the receivers last season that he’d had the year before,” Robinson said. “He’ll be a good long passer in pro ball.”

Others are not so sure about that. Some question Aikman’s ability to throw long passes--not his velocity but his touch. “(He) puts too much air under the deep ball,” said Joel Buchsbaum, Pro Football Weekly’s personnel expert.

As Aikman demonstrated last season, however, he is already a more capable short- and middle-range passer than most in the NFL.

His accurate reads and his quick release were the undoing of most UCLA opponents.

How soon will he take over the Dallas offense? “We’re just delighted to have him on the team,” the Cowboys’ new coach, Jimmy Johnson, said evasively.

Robinson said: “Aikman might be ready halfway through the season. Don’t forget that with a new coach and a new system, their present quarterback, Steve Pelluer, is in a learning situation, too.”

Aikman becomes the first NFL No. 1 from UCLA and the Bruins’ most prominent since Freeman McNeil and Kenny Easley were third and fourth overall choices in 1981.

In 1987 and ‘88, as the Bruins won 10 games in each of two successive years for the first time in the school’s history, Aikman started all 24 games for Terry Donahue, the only college football coach who has won seven straight bowl games.

Aikman was Donahue’s quarterback in the last two as UCLA beat Florida and Arkansas in the Aloha and Cotton bowls, respectively.

As Donahue has often said, the intangibles--leadership qualities and his ability to get along with, and get the most out of, teammates--made Aikman invaluable at UCLA, which is now trying out three new quarterbacks, Ron Caragher, Jim Bonds and Bret Johnson.

During a career that began at Henryetta High School in Oklahoma, Aikman has enjoyed several rounds of good luck. In order:

--He grew into the ideal size of a modern quarterback, about 6-feet-3 and about 220 pounds, with the quickness and agility of a smaller athlete.

--In 1986, he transferred to a showcase at UCLA from Oklahoma’s wishbone environment when the modern master of the wishbone, Barry Switzer, went with Jamelle Holieway after Aikman had broken a leg in 1985, then stayed with Holieway. Telephoning Donahue, Switzer said: “Have I got a quarterback for you.”

--Aikman is avoiding the fate of most NFL top picks, who, because of the inverted nature of the draft, usually go to one of the league’s worst teams. It’s only because the Cowboys had an off year last season that they finished low enough to draft Aikman.

--He joins the NFL before the coming of a wage scale that will provide about the same salary for all rookie quarterbacks in the early 1990s.

He said he will donate $5,000 of his first year’s salary to UCLA and that the Cowboys will match it.

Steinberg said that the Cowboys and their new quarterback will also donate $10,000 to Aikman’s high school in Henryetta, where his family moved when Troy was a youngster. He was born in West Covina on Nov. 21, 1966.

Aikman, who is one quarter short of his graduation requirements at UCLA, said he will move to Dallas in three weeks to begin his new career.

Steinberg said that Aikman’s actual annual salaries--aside from bonuses--will be $787,000 this year, $1 million next year, and then $1.2, $1.5, $1.75 and $2 million, some of it deferred.

In the instant-millionaire league, the previous rookie champion was quarterback Vinny Testaverde of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who signed in 1987 for an average $1.36 million annually in a six-year package worth $8.2 million..

“I think Troy could have got more from another NFL team,” Cowboy owner Jones said. “But we’ll never know, will we?”