Regular referees and a 16-game schedule–two signs of NFL normality–appeared on the horizon Monday after weekend games were called off in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
As the NFL settled with its locked-out officials and sentiment for retaining the full 16-game season grew, the league warned Monday of one definite change for this weekend’s 15 games–increased stadium security.
Fans can expect more screening at gates and will be prohibited from carrying anything into stadiums larger than a small purse.
“No coolers, bags, backpacks or large purses,” said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello.
The NFL sent recommended guidelines for security to clubs and will hold a conference call with security officials leaguewide on Tuesday. Individual clubs will announce specific security measures later this week.
At the 1991 Super Bowl, during the height of the Persian Gulf War, fans were subjected to metal detectors and wands entering Tampa Stadium. Whether some teams choose to do that this week remains to be seen.
“There will be visual inspection and some people may be stopped and searched more extensively,” Aiello said.
NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said security is the league’s No. 1 priority and named league security director Milt Ahlerich, a former FBI executive, to head a general security committee. Also on the committee is Lew Merletti, former head of the Secret Service who now heads stadium operations and security for the Cleveland Browns.
Stadiums will be locked down well before games to allow for extensive sweeps. There will be “substantially” more uniformed police officers at games, the league said.
As players returned to practices Monday, New York Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde, a native New Yorker, said he spent four hours Saturday at the site of the World Trade Center, which his father helped build. He picked up a piece of concrete and said he would leave it in his locker.
“I just walked around the outside of where the rescuers were working. A group of guys were resting and I could see their morale was down and I wanted to tell them thanks for their efforts and help,” Testaverde said. “It was amazing to see people come together from all over the country, not just from New York, to save lives. They motivate me. They are our heroes.”
About 25 players from the Pittsburgh Steelers attended memorial services over the weekend for the victims of United Flight 93 that crashed 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Quarterback Kordell Stewart and running back Jerome Bettis were among the mourners who held candles.
On Tuesday, the NFL is expected to announce it will reschedule Week 2 for the Jan. 5-6 wild-card weekend and reduce the number of wild-card playoff teams from six to two, meaning only eight teams instead of 12 will enter the Super Bowl tournament.
No team seeded lower than fourth has made it to a championship game since Jacksonville upset Buffalo and Denver to reach the AFC title game after the 1996 season. Only one low seed has made it to a Super Bowl–New England after the 1985 season against the Bears when there were just two wild-card teams per conference instead of three.
“The players want to play 16 games,” said Gene Upshaw, the executive director of the NFL Players Association. “It’s the least disruptive. If they’re asking me what I want, that’s what I want. It would give every team eight home games, eight road games and everything stays intact.”
The players lose one check if the season is reduced to 15 games. There is no week off between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl on Jan. 27 in New Orleans, but moving the Super Bowl back a week was among five scenarios the league has studied. The others are living with a 15-game schedule, going with 15 games and expanding the playoffs as was done in the strike-shortened nine-game schedule of 1982, and scheduling all teams for Thanksgiving Day and Tuesday, Nov. 27. None of the other alternatives appears as sensible as eliminating the wild-card weekend.
The Jets, who suggested they would have refused to fly to Oakland last weekend had their game not been canceled, will travel to New England this weekend. They plan to fly to that game even though the 200-mile trip to Foxboro, Mass., is about a four-hour drive.
“We have to catch an airplane eventually, so we’ll do it this week,” coach Herman Edwards said. “We can’t bus all over the country; that’s like high school football.”
Carolina Panthers coach George Seifert said his team is considering driving the 240 miles from Charlotte to Atlanta.
