NFL Owners Decline to Expand Rosters to 49

National Football League owners overwhelmingly rejected Wednesday a proposal to increase rosters from 45 to 49 players to accommodate United States Football League refugees, but they did grant a limited, short-term roster exemption for players from the dormant league.

The proposal to increase the rosters got only 4 of the 21 votes it needed. It even failed to get the vote of the man who proposed it--Tex Schramm, president of the Dallas Cowboys, who missed his first NFL meeting in 26 years to stay at training camp in Thousand Oaks, Calif., for the signing of Herschel Walker.

The owners did, however, approve two categories in which former USFL players will get help:

--Players, like Walker, who were either drafted by an NFL team or played out their options in the NFL and jumped to the USFL will be allowed two weeks to practice with teams without counting against the 60-player limit that will go into effect next Tuesday. Each of those players will lose his exemption when he dresses for an exhibition game.

--Free agents who played in the USFL. Their rules are the same, except that the exemption will not last beyond Aug. 31.

Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players’ Assn., didn’t regard the two-week exemption as a serious threat to his rank and file.

“It’s only fair that they grant a roster exemption,” Upshaw said by phone from Washington. “The NFL players have been in camp. This also goes on with NFL players (who) come in after the season has started. They usually give ‘em some time.”

Upshaw was more disappointed with the owners’ decision to leave the limit at 45.

“I didn’t expect the NFL to change,” he said. “It would have been a clear signal to the USFL attorneys to get back into court because they (the NFL) put ‘em out of business, then the next thing they do is increase their roster size. I’m disappointed, because I think the fans are cheated when you don’t have 49 players out there (and) you force (injured) guys to go back out and play before they’re healthy.”