Drew and Jason Rosenhaus’ new book, “Next Question: An NFL Super Agent’s Proven Game Plan for Business Success,” takes its name from the phrase Drew Rosenhaus repeated at his infamous 2005 news conference with client Terrell Owens.
But rival NFL agents have a question of their own about the book: Are they in it? The answer is yes and no.
Drew Rosenhaus has built his successful practice — more than any other agent — by signing players who fired their previous representatives. The book, written with brother and business partner Jason, is filled with incidents in which star players including Frank Gore and Chad Ocho Cinco (Chad Johnson legally changed his name in August) sought out Drew Rosenhaus when they were unhappy with their agents.
With a few exceptions, such as a mention of Mel Levine, the former agent Drew Rosenhaus first apprenticed for in the late 1980s, the agents involved in the stories recounted in the book are nameless. But if you know who represented the players Drew writes about signing, or are willing to look them up, you’ll be able to figure out who’s who on your own.
“I don’t think we refer to any agents by name in the book,” Drew Rosenhaus said in a telephone interview last week. “I don’t want to embarrass anybody. It’s unprofessional.”
Other stories involving other agents include a battle Rosenhaus won for Jeremy Shockey coming out of the University of Miami in 2002 and how he almost lost Bernard Berrian during the 2008 Super Bowl week. Back then, according to the book, Drew Rosenhaus, battling the flu, a kidney infection and a back problem, flew from Arizona to Fresno, Calif., after Jason Rosenhaus told him Berrian “was in the process of letting us go,” and the wide receiver was not returning his calls.
The book’s title comes from Drew Rosenhaus’
memorable 2005 news conference with T.O.
“The word was that his previous agent and a rival agent had told him that he wasn’t a priority to me,” Drew wrote. But Berrian was so impressed that Drew Rosenhaus would fly out to see him in Fresno that week that he rehired him, according to the book.
However, the book does not mention the controversy surrounding Berrian’s firing of agents Eugene Parker and Roosevelt Barnes the year before, which involved the allegation that the two agents were fired after someone told Berrian a false rumor about them.
Rosenhaus said that controversy was not included in the book because “we were not a part of that.”
Rosenhaus wrote his first book, “A Shark Never Sleeps,” almost a decade ago, and it was much more of an autobiography, he said. “Next Question,” contains biographical elements, but it is meant to be more of a business lesson book for entrepreneurs.
“Next Question” is published by Berkeley Publishing, a division of the Penguin Group.
CAA SIGNS PACKERS COACH: CAA Sports, which launched a coaches representation practice last year by hiring former NFL Players Association President Trace Armstrong to run it, has signed Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy for representation.
McCarthy, who won accolades for leading the Packers to a 13-3 season last year, finished second to New England coach Bill Belichick for the Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year award last year.
Liz Mullen can be reached at lmullen@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
