Sunshine Patriots

To their loyal, long-suffering fans, the New England Patriots are beginning to look like the New England Traitors.

First, there was the case of Joe Kapp, the veteran quarterback whom the Patriots signed for a reported $130,000 last year to help change the team's losing ways. Kapp not only failed (the hapless Pats' record of two wins and twelve tosses was the worst in the National Football League), but when training camp opened last month, he pronounced himself unhappy with his contract and left the team. Meanwhile, Defensive End Phil Olsen, the team's No. I draft choice last year, announced that he had discovered a loophole in his contract; he quit the Patriots and joined the Los Angeles Rams. Soon after that, Linebacker John Bramlett, the team's Most Valuable Player last season, was unexpectedly placed on waivers by Patriot Coach John Mazur. The reason: Bramlett was supposedly lazy.

For sheer confusion, though, nothing could match the double reverse that the Patriots pulled off last week with the Dallas Cowboys. It began when Dallas Running Back Duane Thomas demanded an increase over the estimated $60,000 he made last year when he won Rookie of the Year honors. The Cowboys refused and traded Thomas and two other players to the Patriots for Running Back Carl Garrett and one choice in next year's draft. After Thomas arrived at the Patriots' training camp, Mazur gave him and the rest of the team a pointed pep talk: "I don't want any free spirits around here. All I want are football players who want to win." Thomas, who describes himself as "a modified version of a Hessian," apparently didn't get the message. When Mazur tried to adjust his stance in the backfield formation, Thomas said that he preferred to do it his way. Just like that, Thomas was sent packing and Garrett was called back from Dallas. At week's end Thomas said that he would consider rejoining the Cowboys on one condition: if the players voted that they wanted him to return.

N.F.L. Commissioner Pete Rozelle, distressed by the Thomas affair and by the several players in the league who are still holding out for more money, called for an end to all the haggling. "I'm convinced," said Rozelle, "that the football fan--the sports fan--is disenchanted with the business aspects of the game, the lawsuits, contracts, franchise problems, stadium financing, pension plans." Right on, Pete.

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