NFL Players Say No to Extending Strike Deadline

WASHINGTON — The National Football League players union refused a request by the owners Friday to extend the strike deadline 30 days, sticking to its plan to go on strike Tuesday for the second time in six seasons.

Gene Upshaw, Players’ Assn. president, said after a three-hour meeting with Jack Donlan, head of the NFL’s Management Council, that the owners were stalling for time and offering deals that “don’t have any meat.”

“Unless they’re willing to move toward us, I don’t see any way to avert a strike,” Upshaw said. “We both agreed on that today. We all see where this is headed.”

Donlan and the NFL Management Council were expected to issue a statement today.

Upshaw said Donlan told him: “It looks like we’re headed for a strike.”

The walkout would begin after Monday night’s game between the New England Patriots and the New York Jets at East Rutherford, N.J.

The 1982 strike lasted 57 days and 7 weeks of the season.

Upshaw said that he and Donlan discussed roster size, pension, severance pay and free agency but that Donlan’s offers were “the same things I heard two weeks ago.”

Upshaw added: “The message today was clear to me: Players, reconsider your strike deadline and let us keep talking. The players are saying: ‘You’re nuts.’ ” Upshaw said that Donlan had talked about settling the pension and squad issues, suggesting: “Give us 30 days and we can work the other stuff out.”

Upshaw said he talked with seven player representatives after his conversation with Donlan and said that some don’t even want to play this week.

“Management’s idea of playing scab games has really upset them,” Upshaw said. “They did more to unify us than to separate us, which is what they were trying to do.”

Owners have said, if there is a strike, they will still field teams by using free agents and roster players who would ignore picket lines. The owners have told television networks that, if there is a strike, there would be no games Sept. 27 or 28, but that play would resume Oct. 4 and 5.

The main stumbling block appears to be the union’s demand for outright free agency for players beyond their fourth year.

San Francisco 49ers players said they had been told to take Monday off and practice Tuesday, normally their day off. The San Francisco Examiner said the order came in a league directive aimed at determining how many players would cross picket lines. NFL spokesman Joe Browne said he was unaware of such an order. Each side has had just one counterproposal since the talks began last April 20. And each side has rejected the other’s proposal.

Each side has had just one counterproposal since the talks began lat April 20. And each side has rejected the other’s proposal.

The players struck in 1982 over a demand that they receive 55% of the NFL’s gross revenues, which amounted to a package of about $1.6 billion over four years. They settled for $1.28 billion over five years, plus incentives.

Until Friday, the two sides had not met since last weekend, except for a 25-minute session Tuesday while the union went over its counterproposal. The one-on-one session between Donlan and Upshaw was not a formal negotiating session.

Meanwhile, player agents gathered at union headquarters and revealed that they would refuse to represent new players who plan to play during the strike. Any agent working a deal for a scab would risk losing his union accreditation.