NFL players and some coaches Wednesday leaned strongly against playing games this Sunday and Monday while NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue consulted team owners, the players union and the Bush administration.
A league announcement Wednesday said the decision will be made Thursday at the earliest.
Stadium security and airplane logistics are two obvious considerations, but the commissioner likely will take his main cue from the government.
Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Association, told the Associated Press he had not heard from a single player who wanted Sunday’s games to go on. He said he had talked with player representatives from all 31 teams.
“We’re still going through a state of mourning,” Upshaw said.
Visiting teams that must fly expressed the most trepidation. Even though all teams fly charters, New York Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde said he didn’t want to fly to Oakland because all four hijacked planes were scheduled for cross-country trips. Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Jimmy Smith, scheduled to fly to Chicago to play the Bears on Sunday, said: “I’m sure it will be in the back of all of our minds, even though the planes are chartered. It will be tough.”
The Cleveland Browns said they would bus to Pittsburgh for their Sunday night game against the Steelers. The cities are only 130 miles apart.
Losing one game in a 16-game schedule is a consideration, but minor. The season cannot be pushed back a week because there is only a one-week gap between championship games and the Super Bowl. But in 1987, the season was shortened to 15 games because of a players strike.
In 1982, a 57-day players strike forced the season to be reduced to nine games and a round-robin postseason tournament.
“We need to play a 15-game schedule and deal with it,” Upshaw said.
Stadium security is an issue every week. If games proceed, fans can expect heightened security measures such as were imposed in Tampa during the Super Bowl following the 1990 season in the midst of the Persian Gulf War.
The New York Giants are scheduled to play host to the Green Bay Packers at Giants Stadium, just across the Hudson River and within view of Manhattan’s now-toppled World Trade Center twin towers.
The Washington Redskins are to host the Arizona Cardinals at FedEx Field in Landover, Md., on the other side of Washington from the Pentagon, which was also attacked Tuesday.
Government guidance will play a key role. That’s what the league followed during World War II when President Roosevelt wanted sports to continue and in the aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy. Then-commissioner Pete Rozelle, a friend of the Kennedy family, nevertheless quickly regretted his decision to proceed with games because they occurred at the same time people were filing past the president’s casket in the Capitol rotunda two days after his death, something Rozelle did not know would happen.
Bears coach Dick Jauron pointed out Wednesday that the NFL will leave itself open to criticism either way it decides. Like all other teams the Bears returned to practice Wednesday.
“What we can do to contribute is go back to work,” Jauron said.
Atlanta Falcons coach and executive vice president Dan Reeves said he would prefer the league call off games. He warned his players that as soon as casualty information is available, everybody will become personally affected because of the enormity of the tragedy. Reeves, who used to coach the Giants, said he already has learned that the son of one of his close friends was in the World Trade Center and that his son-in-law also had a friend who made a financial trade in the building five minutes before the first plane hit.
“My preference would be that I don’t think we should play,” Reeves said. “But … we’ve got to prepare and see what the league decides to do. I just think it’s a time of mourning for a lot of people.”
The Jets, whose home field parking lot at the Meadowlands was used as a staging area for police and fire rescue units, left no doubt about their sentiments.
“People in this locker room have neighbors who are missing,” Jets player representative Kevin Mawae said.
“I don’t understand why we’re here today,” Testaverde said. “I think all the games should be canceled this week.
“The last thing we want to do is get on a plane and go to California for a game when all four of those planes that were hijacked were going to California. My suggestion is if they want to play these games, each owner has to travel with his team to the game.
“Even if everything goes accordingly, by the time we get off the plane we will all be shot from the stress and nerves of not knowing … we’ll be exhausted getting off that plane. I don’t think anyone wants to play.”
San Francisco coach Steve Mariucci said the league had told him the team would have to be at the airport three hours before the scheduled departure time. And he said they might not be able to take their equipment on the plane with them, forcing them to drive it to New Orleans.
But Mariucci, like Jauron and other coaches, said he will do whatever he’s told.
“If the commissioner and the president of the United States say, `You’re not playing this week,’ then certainly we respect that decision,” Mariucci said. “If they decide that we should play to help jump-start the nation again back to a normal sort of track, then certainly we’ll do that too.”
