Commissioner Pete Rozelle said that the National...

Commissioner Pete Rozelle said that the National Football League may try to include mandatory drug testing in its next contract with the players’ union.

“There’s been talk about it,” Rozelle said during a briefing at the league’s two-day fall meetings in New York. “You have a lot of owners wanting to make that a subject of collective bargaining.”

Gene Upshaw, executive director of the players’ association, said it was his feeling, from talking to players, that most of them would oppose mandatory testing.

“I’ve visited 17 teams and I don’t see any reason to believe that players are ready for mandatory testing,” Upshaw said. “We have a policy in place and we don’t plan on making any changes now. When the contract comes up in 1987, then we’ll sit down and decide what we want to do.”

The owners set the date of the 1986 draft for Tuesday, April 29, in New York. The draft will take one day, as it has in recent years.