Raiders’ Strike Stance: Call It Soft Solidarity

And now to see what the Raiders do if there’s a strike:

Was that a portent when Howie Long didn’t join everyone else in the middle of the field for the pregame solidarity handshake? Despite their tradition of standing behind the players union, the Raiders as a whole have sounded very dovish, indeed, on the possibility of striking.

“Didn’t you see me?” Long asked later, laughing. “I got the first guy on the kickoff team. . . .

“I shook a hand. I walked out on the field and shook somebody’s hand--technically.”

Or in other words, the union held a symbolic gesture, and Long, also symbolically, kept his support to a minimum.

“A strike would eat me alive financially,” Long said. “I’m making quite a bit of money ($650,000 in salary), and a strike isn’t beneficial to a guy like me.

“Of course, I’ve got mixed emotions. If you were making the kind of money I’m making, you’d have mixed emotions, too. Gene Upshaw (union director) isn’t supporting my wife and son.

“Obviously, if there’s a strike, I have to back it. But I’m not happy. It’s not a Howie Long-type strike. It’s the type for the masses, not Howie Long.”

Several of his teammates, such as Vann McElroy, who calls himself “a happy Raider,” have said similar things publicly, and many others have said privately they want no strike.

“This team is not divided,” said Sean Jones, the new player-representative. “We’re going to do everything as a team.”

Is he aware of anti-strike feeling?

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jones said. “We’re not going to strike because we’ve got nothing better to do. But if it’s forced, we’ve got to do what’s right. Sometimes, you can’t do the thing that’s right, so you’ve got to do the only thing and make it right.”