Players Take Soft Stance--So Far : Mood Not as Dark as Before ’82 NFL Strike, but It’s Early

In the last days of its contract, the National Football League Players Assn. is encamped in the Century Plaza Hotel, and in a mood far removed from the Albuquerque, N.M., council of war that preceded its 1982 strike.

“Basically, we’re here to celebrate,” NFLPA president Marvin Powell said. “It’s a coming-together of the clans. We’re here to enjoy the city of Los Angeles.”

Said the union’s first vice president, Brian Holloway: “We’re not as angry.”

There were a number of suggestions to that effect. There were 500 players in Albuquerque but fewer here. The union said it was expecting 300-350, but when the meeting opened Thursday, executive director Gene Upshaw said that 467 had registered.

A happy union, of course, isn’t the same thing as a lean, mean, fighting machine and could be just the opposite. Thus Upshaw resisted the urge to characterize the mood. He took more pointed exception to suggestions that his members, who were polled last year, are still debating the listed bargaining priorities.

“There will be 99 (%) who agree with the position collectively on the Players Assn.,” Upshaw said. “There might be 1 who disagrees. What we don’t get is equal treatment for the 99. You (reporters) treat the 1 the same way as the 99.

“When a guy disagrees publicly, it hurts the cause. It hurts the negotiator. I remember 1982, it hurt the negotiators when I was sitting at the table. I don’t like to see it, but there’s no way I can stop it. I just like to see equal treatment for the majority.”

For what it’s worth, some level of debate continues.

Two players last week took public postures that suggest a casual view of free agency or a dire view of a strike. One was even his team’s player representative.

Bill Ring, 49er player rep, told the San Francisco Chronicle: “Speaking for my team, I don’t believe free agency is a real important issue. . . . Personally, I don’t think it’s a realistic goal.”

And Redskin lineman Mark May told the Washington Times:

“A lot of people in the league were here for the last strike and they know what happened. Nobody won. The fans suffered, the players suffered and the league suffered.

“The way I understand it--and I don’t care how many people explain it to me--free agency isn’t going to help everyone. I’d say three people on every team are going to be able to take advantage of it.”

If this sounds minimal, it also comes before labor and management have met and four months before the contract ends.

In contrast, the baseball players went six weeks into their 1981 strike before any of them ever aired a doubt in public. And when those few cases became celebrated, the players--such as Davey Lopes, then a Dodger--immediately recanted.

Why are the NFL players so happy with what they’ve got?

Management claims that with a jump in average salary from $90,000 to $205,000 during the last contract, the players have it good and know it.

The players note that this is more a product of USFL competition than owners’ generosity, but they don’t entirely disagree.

“Our players realize we earn a very decent salary,” Powell said.

Said Holloway: “I think the critical needs and concerns of the body were much greater (in 1982). Now we know we have made significant gains and so you don’t have people fighting with the sort of force and energy to get great economic increases.

“We’re not as angry. But we’re more educated as well. We’re more confident, simply because we know we’ve got players still in the league who know the players did get together, they did go on strike, they did show strength. They know they can do it because they did it before. We also have management recognizing the same thing.”

There are other pressures on the players to moderate demands.

If they’re skeptical about the owners’ cry of poverty, they still realize that their employers have lost some of the windfall profit the TV networks provided.

There are counter-pressures on management.

If 28 owners, all drawing their main support from one centrally negotiated TV package, are easier to organize, they face a chilling fact: The ’82 strike set the game back a long way. The owners can’t gladly accept an encore.

Thus, management has been no less conciliatory in preliminary talks. There has been such harmony that Management Council director Jack Donlan said at the owners’ meetings in Hawaii: “Someone wrote that if Upshaw and I get any closer, we’ll be picking out furniture.”

Donlan also said that NFL owners were strongly opposed to the top two listed union demands, free agency and guaranteed contracts.

Was that an announcement over Upshaw’s head to the players? The comments by Ring and May followed within the week.

At these meetings, Upshaw keeps stressing that the list of demands is “horizontal,” not “vertical,” that they’ll be submitted as a package.

Translation: The players won’t hitch everything to either demand.

Possible compromises already seem to be wafting in on trial balloons. There has been speculation that Donlan will offer to give free agency to the lowest-paid 50% of the players.

The owners could claim that this protects the economic rights of those who most need it.

The players could claim that this is the 50% who are least likely to get an offer. Even in the era of conciliation, a long road remains.

Upshaw said: “Management has always taken the position the players are happy, that they make so much money they’re not willing to fight for what they have. Well, I hope they don’t misread us. I hope they don’t misjudge us.

“Because the players are devoted to making advances in this contract. We’re not in an era of concession bargaining. We will make some advancements.”

“Some advancements” isn’t a lot to ask for. Upshaw was even asked Friday if his demands aren’t too moderate.

“We’re not asking for the world,” he said. “I’d like to have it. The moon, too. But we’ll settle for our fair share.”