ATLANTA -- On a mid-February morning in 1999, just weeks after he had started at weakside linebacker in Super Bowl XXXIII and less than two months after concluding a standout regular season in which he led the Atlanta Falcons in tackles, Cornelius Bennett received a phone call apprising him that he had been released by the club.

For the Falcons the decision combined three elements: Bennett's advancing age, a desire to elevate 1998 first-round draft choice Keith Brooking to the starting lineup, and a need to address salary cap concerns.

	Despite being only 26, Jamie Sharper couldn't cash in on a career year in free agency.

But for Bennett, a five-time Pro Bowl performer who had appeared in five Super Bowls, the pink slip also represented the big-picture indicator of a leaguewide trend directed toward reducing the prominence and the paychecks of those who play the three linebacker positions.

"You don't want to use the term 'disrespect,' because that's not exactly true," said Bennett, jettisoned by the Indianapolis Colts this spring after two seasons with the team. "But all you have to do is look at how linebackers are being regarded now, and where the money is being paid, and you see things are (focusing) away from the position."

Indeed, only eight years after Lawrence Taylor retired following a 13-year career with the New York Giants in which he earned a spot in the Hall of Fame by redefining a position, clubs are revisiting the importance of the linebacker spot. Even with Ray Lewis coming off a season in which he reigned as defensive most valuable player and gained acclaim as one of the NFL's most dominating performers while leading the Baltimore Ravens to the Super Bowl title, linebackers have been knocked off their once-lofty pedestal.

The Ravens, for instance, would have sacrificed starting weakside linebacker Jamie Sharper in unrestricted free agency had the four-year veteran found a market that would have paid him more than Baltimore eventually did. It mattered little to Ravens officials that Sharper, at just age 26, was coming off his best season. One member of Baltimore management even conceded that, "you only worry about the special ones now" when it comes to the linebacker position.

During the tenure of terror enacted by Taylor, the linebacker spot (and more specifically the weakside post) was regarded as a glamour position. Coordinators spent hours trying to devise blueprints aimed at creating matchup advantages for their linebackers. It was a time when weakside linebackers were the ultimate "edge" players, streaking in from the outside to wreak havoc on opposing quarterbacks or dropping into the flat to crowd the passing lanes.

Over the last five or six years, though, the big-play emphasis has evolved more toward defensive linemen and cornerbacks. Teams have invested both draft choices and dollars into defenders who can knock down the passer or blanket receivers. Since 1990, 33 linebackers have been chosen in the first round, while 51 defensive ends, 34 defensive tackles and 42 cornerbacks were taken in Round 1.

This year, there was only one linebacker chosen in the first round -- Dan Morgan by Carolina with the 11th overall pick. By contrast, there were three ends and six tackles who went off the board in the opening round.

The upshot is that, both schematically and financially, linebackers have taken a giant step back as their position is deconstructed.

It is not just happenstance, for instance, that there are only four linebackers among the top 50 highest-paid players in the league for 2001. On the defensive side of the ball, only the safety position has fewer players in the elite tax bracket of those who will earn at least $5 million in total compensation for this season.

The qualifying offer for a "franchise" linebacker, once the highest for any position on the defensive side of the ball, was $4.762 million this spring. That ranked behind the tenders for defensive ends ($5.39 million) and defensive tackles ($5.084 million). And corners ($4.179 million) are closing the gap.

	“	We saw the beginning of this (trend) back when Jimmy Johnson was the Dallas coach. He believed you paid for the front four guys and for cover cornerbacks, and then filled in with linebackers, because he didn't think they were truly playmakers with the way the game was going. ”
		— Foge Fazio, Browns defensive coordinator

"We saw the beginning of this (trend) back when Jimmy Johnson was the Dallas coach," said Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator Foge Fazio. "He believed you paid for the front four guys and for cover cornerbacks, and then filled in with linebackers, because he didn't think they were truly playmakers with the way the game was going. I might not agree totally with that, but that rationale sure has taken hold. There aren't many 'three down' linebackers anymore and that's had an effect on the way people think."

Not until Dallas re-signed Dexter Coakley to a six-year, $20.36 million contract early this spring had the Cowboys ever paid a linebacker an average of even $1 million on a long-term deal. It was one of the few remnants of the bygone Johnson Era retained by Dallas owner Jerry Jones.

And the Cowboys weren't the only team manifesting a miserly trait toward linebackers. Once the Denver Broncos retained John Mobley with a six-year, $27.9 million deal and Cleveland pried Dwayne Rudd away from Minnesota by paying him $22.95 million over five years, the bottom all but fell out of the linebacker market in free agency.

"If you didn't get the money early," said agent Pat Dye Jr., who represents Coakley, "you didn't get it at all. Teams just don't consider (linebackers) a high priority anymore."

Teams will still pay a premium for the athletic weakside linebacker who doesn't come off the field on third down -- witness the lucrative extension the Tampa Bay Buccaneers awarded to Derrick Brooks last week -- but put a lesser urgency on middle and strongside linebackers who play two downs at most. Of the pure middle linebackers in the league, just four were on the field for 70 percent or more of their teams' defensive snaps in 2000.

When franchises needed to create salary cap space this spring, linebacker was typically the first place they looked to carve out some wiggle room. In a one-month span between mid-February and mid-March, no fewer than 15 linebackers were released. Ten had been starters in 2000, and eight played either middle or strongside linebacker.

The group included high-profile players like Levon Kirkland (Pittsburgh), Bryan Cox (New York Jets), Ken Norton Jr. (San Francisco) Sam Rogers (Buffalo), Robert Jones (Miami), Lee Woodall (Carolina) and Mark Fields (New Orleans), among others. In addition to Rogers, the Bills subsequently released starter John Holecek, meaning that in going to a 4-3 front the club purged half its starters from its 3-4 days.

"Teams flat-out told me they weren't going to invest big money in a strongside 'backer," said Henri Crockett, who signed a one-year, $600,000 contract with Denver as an unrestricted free agent, then was traded back to the Falcons team he had just departed. "You really have to lower your expectations, financially and on the field, too."

So many teams are "walking up" a safety now to crowd the line of scrimmage, that the linebackers simply aren't being counted on to make as many plays. The propensity of the "zone-blitz" schemes that defined the '90s has been reduced and coordinators now stack linebackers inside the defensive tackles as run-stuffers. It's rare anymore when you even see a strongside linebacker playing over the tight end.

Not so long ago, the leading tackler on virtually every team was a linebacker, but that is no longer the case. On nearly half the teams in the league in 2000, the leading tackler was a safety. There was a three-year stretch in the mid-'90s when linebackers led the NFL in sacks, but not since Kevin Greene notched 14½ quarterback kills in 1996 has a 'backer been atop the sack list. That is indicative of how teams are no longer fashioning their defensive schemes toward big plays from the position.

In the 1990 season, 12 of 28 teams were led in sacks by linebackers, and there were eight linebackers with at least three fumble recoveries and six with four or more interceptions. Last season, just five of 31 teams had linebackers at the top of their sack list. Only six linebackers had more than three fumble recoveries and just four had three interceptions or more. Those numbers are a graphic illustration of the de-emphasis of the linebacker.

"The position has changed a lot since teams began moving away from the zone blitzes and trying to generate pressure with the front four," said Miami coordinator Jim Bates. "You just don't see as many big plays from linebackers now."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com.