NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle finished more than...

NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle finished more than 13 1/2 hours of grilling by USFL attorney Harvey Myerson by emphatically restating that he had no knowledge of the three “smoking guns” that Myerson claims will make the USFL’s antitrust case.

At one point, Myerson went as far back as 1959, just before the American Football League began play in competition with the NFL, to inquire into Rozelle’s signing--as general manager of the Los Angeles Rams--of 1959 Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon.

Myerson used the signing of Cannon to attack the credibility of Rozelle, who had criticized the USFL for signing Herschel Walker when the 1983 Heisman Trophy winner still had a year of college eligibility left. Noting that it happened 27 years ago, Rozelle conceded that he had signed Cannon while he still had one game, the Sugar Bowl, left in his college career.

But, at the end, Myerson zeroed in on the three documents he says will prove the USFL’s $1.32-billion antitrust suit--a Harvard Business School study Myerson calls “How to Conquer the USFL;” a 1973 memo from league counsel Jay Moyer maintaining that an open network might invite a new league, and a plan by Jack Donlan, executive director of the NFL Management Council, to inflate USFL costs by going after that league’s players.