Many New York fans want Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis to succeed Tom Coughlin with the New York Giants. It’s a great wish, but it won’t happen unless the Giants want to pay Notre Dame almost $18 million to free Weis from his long-term Irish contract. The buyout is reportedly $2 million per year for each of the remaining years on Weis' contract.

We’re not saying Weis may not be a good NFL coach, but that’s a huge ante for any ownership group before starting contract talks with a new head coach. You can bet Weis would want to start at $5 million a season.

Where do Dolphins Turn?

The state of football in Miami is at its lowest ebb. The U. of Miami just fired its head coach and basically settled on Randy Shannon, who may turn out to be very good, because there wasn’t enough money to lure a bigger name.

Now, the Dolphins are reeling and probably are not interested in promoting offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey or defensive coordinator Dom Capers into Saban’s spot.

Remember, next to Joe Gibbs’ coaching staff in Washington, Saban had the richest staff of assistant coaches at $6.5 million annually. Counting Saban, Huizenga had a coaching payroll of $11 million. The NFC champion Chicago Bears are paying half that.

What’s bizarre about Saban leaving is that Huizenga is considered one of the NFL’s best owners to work for. He pays for everything and doesn’t interfere in the football operation. Miami, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Green Bay and Seattle are probably the best franchises in the league when it comes to hands-off ownership. Denver, Kansas City, Pittsburgh and now Washington (because it’s Gibbs) are probably in the next group because those owners are either businessmen or football men who like their head coach.

Miami isn’t a great job right now because the quarterback situation is in such a flux. That’s one big reason why Saban left. He signed Culpepper instead of Drew Brees and had to live with a horrible decision. And there’s no quarterback on the horizon to fix it, either. There is no doubt that Houston’s Mike Sherman is a solid NFL head coach. Sherman only sel####estructed in Green Bay because he wore too many hats and refused to delegate.

With a quality support staff in Miami, Sherman (59-43 in Green Bay) might succeed. Of course, there had been rumblings that Saban wanted to dump GM Randy Mueller. One thing is certain.

Most Dolphins employees are happy to see Saban gone. He basically treated the rank-and-file employee very badly and rarely had words of encouragement for his 21 assistant coaches. It wasn’t a fun place to go to work.

Big Money Peppers

The Indianapolis Colts have decided to pay Dwight Freeney, who could be an unrestricted free-agent after the season, but apparently Freeney wants to see what kind of deal Julius Peppers receives from the Carolina Panthers.

Because his $3 million Pro Bowl bonus was pushed in 2007, the Panthers are basically forced to re-negotiate Peppers’ contract and get his salary-cap number below double digits. The cap next year will be a record $109 million. Freeney had a career-low 5 ½ sacks this year, after collecting 51 in his first four seasons.

There is very little doubt that signing bonuses for both Freeney and Peppers could range between $15 and $20 million because they are so valuable to their respective teams. The Colts can’t afford to lose him and probably need to spend even more money on defensive players in the future.

Darrent Williams Remembered

The entire Denver Broncos team plans to fly to Fort Worth for cornerback Darrent Williams’ funeral scheduled for Saturday. Owner Pat Bowlen is taking care of the plane. Without question, Williams’ senseless death on New Year’s morning has deeply impacted the Broncos because he was considered such a good person in the locker room. I haven’t heard one bad thing said about Williams, who was always upbeat and had a promising NFL future after two seasons. He was named to the Pro Football Writers’ all-rookie team last year. Internally, the Broncos are worried about receiver

Javon Walker, who literally watched Williams die in his arms inside the stretch Hummer limo. It is also a miracle that more passengers weren’t injured, considering the limo sustained 14 bullet holes.