Pack Offer Holmgren Mega Deal

The contract offer that Green Bay Packers coach Mike Holmgren has left on the table is for close to $4 million a year, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reported Thursday, citing an unidentified source.

Agent Bob LaMonte confirmed that the Packers had made a generous offer in late August but that Holmgren wanted to wait until after the season to decide his future.

Holmgren, whose current contract runs through 1999 and reportedly pays him about $2 million a year, could either sign the extension, exercise a clause in his contract that allows him to leave for a dual general manager-coaching job or enter the final year of his contract.

The length of the extension offer wasn't known.

It looks like there could be as many or more coaching vacancies after the season than the nine in 1992, and Holmgren's name keeps popping up in the few that could offer him the control he craves.

General manager Ron Wolf said he's tired of the speculation. But while it's hard to imagine him wanting to go through another season like this one, he declined to say whether he'd demand Holmgren sign an extension if he decides not to leave Green Bay in the off-season. He's got a 21-day window to entertain offers.

"I'm not making any decisions right now. I don't know how many different ways I have to say that," Wolf said. "We have a season in place here. We're trying to accomplish something and I'm hoping that we'll be able to do that. Until that's all over, I can't speak for Mike Holmgren."

Talking about Reggie White's last home game, against the Tennessee Oilers this weekend, Holmgren was asked whether he'd given any thought to the possibility it might also be his farewell to Lambeau Field.

"Well, we don't know what the future holds so any emotion. ... I mean, I don't know," Holmgren stammered. "I know we have two games left and again my focus has not changed and will not change. We have two games left in the regular season and we have got to figure out a way to get into the playoffs."

"And so at the appropriate time, at the appropriate time, when I know, when I know, evryone else will know," Holmgren said. "But right now, right now we're pointing toward one game and that's winning this game Sunday."

Recently, Wolf said he thought Holmgren's chances of returning for an eighth season were about 1-in-5, given the lucrative offers he's expected to draw.

The Packers can't offer Holmgren GM duties, but can they at least compete financially with other prospective suitors?

"We'll worry about all that stuff when the time presents itself," Wolf said. "I'm concerned about the 1998 football season right now and trying to get some guys signed for 1999 on our team. That's my No. 1 focus."

"I realize you have a job to do, you have to let me do my job. And my job is not all the time to answer these questions," Wolf said. "That's all I'm doing is answering what-if questions."

Wolf said he didn't think Holmgren's uncertain future was affecting the team's efforts to sign some of its 18 unrestricted free agents, either.

"Well, I haven't heard that one," he said.

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