Striking National Football League players ran up a white flag of surrender Thursday and reported to work, but suffered one final indignity when owners refused to let them play this weekend.
A 24-day walkout collapsed as a humbled union hierarchy told members to return without a collective bargaining agreement. It then played one of its few remaining cards by filing a federal antitrust lawsuit challenging the NFL system of controlling player movement.
When strikers from 27 of 28 teams reported, owners cited a Wednesday deadline for playing and being paid their normal salaries this week. Though the deadline was a bargaining ploy meant to pressure the union, adherence to it meant the strikers were out of luck for another week.
Players were told by the union that if they reported, they had legal right to their weekly salaries, which range from about $4,000 to nearly $100,000. When the owners refused, citing the makeshift deadline, the union prepared to file breach of contract suits in each NFL city.
As the hours passed, confusion was rampant, tensions deep and emotions more frayed than during a mean-spirited playoff game.
The 45 real Bears resumed practice at Soldier Field for a league-mandated $108 per diem and under the supervision of coach Mike Ditka. The returning strikers, who practiced regularly by themselves, wanted to play Sunday and replace their replacements.
Players noted that when a 57-day strike ended in 1982, the Bears came back on a Wednesday night and were allowed to play that Sunday. The owners`
current position, partly based on a claim that there is an undue risk of injury to out-of-shape returning players, seemed suspect.
Spurned strikers on most teams didn`t follow the likes of the Bears, Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Raiders, who practiced with their coaches. Many said they would return next week. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will decide Friday on whether to report.
Returning San Diego Chargers encountered security guards who refused to let them into their locker room. Returning New England Patriots met a posted memo stating that they could use only the visiting locker room.
There were reports that Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen would buck the league, pay his returning players for this week and, possibly, even put them on the field Sunday. But Bowlen said the antitrust suit may nullify his attempts to pay the players.
”I`ve sort of lost control of the situation,” he said. ”It`s between the Management Council and the union at this point, and I don`t think they`re going to give me any leeway.”
A few team officials were candid enough to admit disenchantment with the Management Council directive that the regulars would be sidelined another week as replacements played their third game.
”I am not happy the (striking) players are not practicing and ready to play the game on Sunday,” said New York Giants General Manager George Young. ”You want your best product on the field every Sunday.”
Asked how long it would take to prepare for a game with the regulars, Kansas City Chiefs Coach Frank Gansz said, ”How fast is your heartbeat?”
Replacement players, be they bartenders or lab technicians, were looking over their shoulders as fleeting glory, or notoriety, neared an end. In Philadelphia, they cleaned out their lockers. In Seattle, they shouted,
”We`re fired, we`re fired.” In Los Angeles, a returning Ram shouted,
”Scabs, get the heck out of our locker room.”
But management was intent on playing Sunday with the replacements and the 14 percent of unionists who crossed picket lines by Wednesday. Still, any notion that a return to competition, and common quest for glory and playoff money, would soften strike-fueled animosity seemed naive.
In New Orleans, quarterback Bobby Hebert threatened to avoid throwing passes to wide receiver Eric Martin, who crossed the picket line earlier, once Hebert is allowed to play.
”We`ve got some lovely chaos,” said one union official. ”I think the owners better get an agreement, or they`ll have some real problems next week.”
Disarray was appropriate, given the previous 24 hours. First, the union decided that seven or eight teams would return en masse. Then, after failing to convince management to sign an interim agreement, it told players to report. Finally, management said thanks, but no thanks for this week.
Thus, an unconditional offer to return was met with what might be construed as a short-term, semi-lockout. It meant that if agreement could not even be reached to extend the expired pact temporarily, players would be without basic rights of a union contract, including a grievance system and employer pension payments.
The union, player agents and some labor lawyers alleged that the owner action breached players` individual contracts. But most experts, including management lawyers, found the response legally defensible, if unusually stern, even contemptuous of the workers.
As one prominent Chicago management attorney said, ”I could defend the technicalities in court, but the employers are rubbing the workers` noses in the dirt.”
New York Giants defensive captain Harry Carson said, ”It`s a little like when you have a person down, you grind on them. I think that`s what they are trying to do.”
For example, it means that though the striking Bears were willing and clearly able to play, team President Michael McCaskey will follow the NFL directive and field a team of replacements Sunday against New Orleans. The visitors` lineup will include 13 players who crossed picket lines before Wednesday.
In Washington, embattled union leader Gene Upshaw strove to exude an air of confidence improbably tinged with a sense of victory.
”It was all worth it,” he said. ”We did what we had to do. We tried bargaining; now we`ll let the courts decide.”
His cost-benefit analysis was debatable. The suit, filed in Minneapolis, would take years to be resolve if pursued, might drain the treasury of a small union and resurrect a painful period of drift in the mid-1970s when the union also operated without a contract.
During that period, the union pursued a similar antitrust action in Minneapolis. But the inherent cost to the union, though it ultimately gained a partial legal victory, was huge.
There was no formal grievance procedure, no employer contributions to the pension fund, no severance pay arrangement, no medical and life insurance coverage.
As far as benefits, the replacement players will come upon grand serendipity. By playing a third game, they become eligible for a variety of NFL benefits, such as a pension.
Moreover, the replacements whose NFL alma mater goes on to win the Super Bowl will receive one-half of a winner`s share. That half share could turn out to be as much as $35,000.
