In the parlance of the salesman it was a "cold call," Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder securing the home phone number of Roosevelt Barnes from a reporter late Friday night, and then dialing up the agent whom he had never met to discuss the possibility of snatching wide receiver Laveranues Coles away from the New York Jets with a restricted veteran offer sheet.

Forty-nine-and-a-half hours later, the deed was done, the price of potential piracy established with a record $13 million upfront signing bonus to which Coles verbally agreed on Sunday night.

Capping it off

Having been by far the most active team in free agency, the Washington Redskins might be close to tapped out, at least in terms of adding any more high-profile players. Owner Dan Snyder has committed roughly $38 million in signing bonuses and 2003 base salaries for new players so far, but that total will be reduced if he doesn't land all three veterans signed to restricted free agent offer sheets. The Green Bay Packers have until Tuesday to decide whether to match the four-year, $6 million offer sheet to free safety Matt Bowen. The New York Jets must decide by Thursday whether return specialist Chad Morton merits the five-year, nearly $8 million offer he signed in Washington. And the Jets will have a week to resolve the Laveranues Coles offer sheet. Even if the $38 million aggregate investment made by the Redskins is cut by the resolution of those offer sheets, Snyder probably can't make too many more big splashes. The reason: He has very few ways to create more room under the salary cap. Washington recently saved $4.234 million by restructuring the 2003 portions of the contracts for offensive tackle Chris Samuels and middle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter. But there are only about two players left on the roster with huge cap numbers who, by restructuring their current contracts, could help the club carve out more space. The first of those is linebacker LaVar Arrington, with a monstrous salary cap charge of $9.771 million for 2003. The Redskins almost certainly will have to approach Arrington about doing a "simple" restructuring after the draft, but that means dealing with agents Carl Poston and Kevin Poston, who are known to be difficult negotiators. Defensive tackle Dan Wilkinson has a cap number of $5.17 million and already has been approached about re-doing his contract to provide much-needed cap relief. Another possibility is extending the contract of Champ Bailey but, being in his final season and possibly headed for unrestricted free agency next spring, the standout cornerback almost certainly isn't interested in re-upping. Looking down the road, Snyder will probably have to restructure deals next year as well, but is not quite a prisoner of cap jail yet. But what is clear, and the owner has conceded this, is that there won't be many acquisitions in free agency next spring. "The team we have now," said Snyder, "is pretty much the team we're committed to having in 2004." On the Coles front, while Jets officials on Monday began the debate over whether to match the offer sheet, they also commenced seeking options to the three-year veteran. The Jets spoke with the agent for unrestricted free agent wide receiver Kevin Dyson, formerly of Tennessee, and they could arrange a visit for later this week. --Len Pasquarelli

Snyder will now have to cool his heels and close his coffers for a week as New York officials decide whether or not to match the offer sheet. But for now, at least, The Daniel must feel like the Fuller Brush representative who sold out his entire stock at the first anonymous door on his route.

Preposterous, you say, to compare Snyder to a salesman when he is the one doling out the money? Absurd to portray him in the role of huckster, given that he has committed roughly $38 million so far in first-year compensation to the players he feels will upgrade his roster, including about $25 million to three players who last season worked for the Jets?

Maybe so.

It would be naïve to suggest, after all, that the dozen players whom Snyder acquired or is attempting to add (the team has three pending offer sheets with restricted free agents that still must be resolved) during the opening 10 days of the signing period were motivated by anything other than all those Benjamins involved in their recruitment.

Let's face it, if a vacuum cleaner salesman shows up on your front porch stoop and his business card is a $100 bill, chances are you are more apt to oblige him his well-rehearsed spiel rather than summarily dismiss him.

But at least in part, Snyder also had to convince the free agents that his team will be significantly better in 2003, and that they will all be a part of rallying the club from its disappointing 7-9 record of a year ago.

Snyder certainly has a lot of "im" words, flattering or otherwise, attached to him. Impetuous. Impulsive. Imprudent. Yeah, perhaps even improvident.

The only "im" word that really matters after his frenetic free-agent shopping spree, though, is "improved." If the Redskins are not dramatically better this season, still not a playoff team by 2004 at the latest, then this latest exercise in largesse will have been as flawed as that of 2000, when Washington had the league's first-ever $100 million payroll and finished 8-8.

Here's the irony: Even with the sudden infusion of new faces, a series of moves that should guarantee the Redskins sell plenty of game programs in '03 since no one can tell the players without a scorecard, improvement is likely to be measured at day's end by the progress of one holdover player.

Second-year quarterback Patrick Ramsey.

Snyder has gone to great lengths, mostly with the long green, to ensure the '02 first-round draft choice is surrounded by better personnel and upgraded weaponry. But the former Tulane standout remains, essentially, a rookie. He played in 10 games last season, started five, but also arrived tardy to camp because of a contract dispute Redskins officials should have avoided.

Ramsey completed 117 of 227 passes for 1,539 yards, had nine touchdown passes and eight interceptions, with an efficiency rating of 71.8. This year he will go to camp as the unchallenged starter, since the talent-squandered Rob Johnson isn't about to make a run at the job, and will have the benefit of getting all the snaps with the No. 1 offense.

On the flip side, that means being subjected to the close scrutiny of coach Steve Spurrier, whose rapier tongue can scar any quarterback who does not come equipped with sufficiently thick skin. Spurrier essentially plays the quarterback position vicariously, through those he deigns worthy of getting onto the field, and he is a demanding puppeteer.

Said one NFC head coach over the weekend: "I'm not going to get into the Snyder-bashing others in the league are doing because, to tell the truth, I wish my owner was that aggressive sometimes. But unless the quarterback plays well for them, and (Trung) Canidate plays to his potential, they may have just thrown a lot of good money after another bad season. Really, it all rests on the quarterback, I believe."

Unless you've got a crystal ball with pretty good reception, it is impossible to prognosticate how Ramsey will handle the pressure. What is far easier is understanding how Snyder reconciles the barbs being lobbed his way after a dizzying plunge into the free-agent pool.

Frankly, he doesn't give a damn about how the outsiders perceive what he has promulgated to this point, and is adamant that the club is considerably better now than it was on Feb. 27, the day before the signing period began.

It remains to be seen if the Redskins have closed the talent cap between themselves as the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants, and retained an edge over the Dallas Cowboys. But in the mind of ownership, this is now a team capable of competing in the NFC East.

	The 'Skins have made a lot of moves, but next year's success will depend mostly on Ramsey.

How competitive the Redskins are in 2003 could be determined in part on how successful they ultimately are with the three restricted offer sheets. For Ramsey to make a quantum leap forward, he needs a wide receiver such as Coles, one capable of the timely big play.

It has become chic to rip Snyder for what some of his peers would suggest has been outlandish and fiscally irresponsible behavior. But has as the coach cited above acknowledged, there are fans and organizations who wish their owners were more aggressive. Here's a fact: Snyder has spent more on one hour of operational costs for his private jet Redskins One, which has been in air near-constantly the past 10 days (the tab for one hour: $5,000), than 11 teams have invested in free agency.

The upshot of his free agency spending -- four new guards, two defensive linemen, a backup quarterback and a kicker -- should help the Redskins. If by some stroke of fortune, he would be able to land all three players that the team has signed to restricted free agent offer sheets, particularly Coles, the needle would swing a bit more toward possible playoff contention.

And if the Redskins don't realize return on their investment then, truth be told, but who has Snyder damaged but himself?

Other than Jets guard Randy Thomas, probably one of the NFL's best young players at his position, Snyder did not dramatically overpay for any of the other free agents he acquired. Guard Dave Fiore, defensive linemen Regan Upshaw and Brandon Noble, kicker John Hall and Rob Johnson all signed for upfront money of less than $2 million each.

Washington may have gone overboard for the three restricted free agents it signed to offer sheets, but it is an NFL truism that you have to overspend to force the incumbent team to blink and not match the contract. And while the critics rail, it should be noted that the Redskins entered free agency far more prepared than most teams, some of whom didn't even began evaluating the available talent pool until days before the signing period commenced.

		Unless you've got a crystal ball with pretty good reception, it is impossible to prognosticate how Ramsey will handle the pressure. What is far easier is understanding how Snyder reconciles the barbs being lobbed his way after a dizzying plunge into the free-agent pool.

Nearly three full weeks before free agency began, Washington personnel director Vinny Cerrato turned over to Snyder a thick binder that comprised the scouting reports on all free agents and 60-70 players he felt might be early salary-cap casualties. That permitted Snyder, who ostensibly serves as his own general manager, more than adequate study time.

The binder, which featured more than 2,000 pages, included an assessment of how Washington's current personnel compared to free-agent players at every position. In many cases, the picture wasn't a pretty one, and begged for an overhaul. That was especially the situation at guard, where Snyder either ignored how bad his interior corps was in 2002, or got bad advice.

"All I know is, we did the (evaluation) work, and turned it over to Dan," said Cerrato. "We don't deal with the economics. That's purely his call. But I know we were really complete, very thorough, with the evaluations of the free-agent class. And with everything we've done so far, we have gone right down our list, and not wavered from it."

That is not to suggest the Redskins' system has been free of potential flaws. One example: The team now has a guard tandem capable of opening inside creases, but its best inside runner, tailback Stephen Davis, was released for salary-cap reasons and because he did not fit the Spurrier scheme. The new theme is that Canidate should have an improved opportunity to reach his potential because the Redskins will spread the field more.

The bottom line, though, is that Washington and Snyder have spread a lot of money around over the past 10 days, and expect return on investment. The salesman, it might be said, wants to collect his commission.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.