STATE OF THE NFL : Some Pressing Problems Seem to Defy Any Solutions

The game is nothing like it was in 1920 when the late George Halas and his cronies met in Canton, Ohio, to form the American Professional Football Conference.

In some ways, 68 years later, it isn’t even as good.

As they sat on running boards in a Hupmobile showroom, Halas’ pals knew nothing of drugs, point spreads, players’ unions, antitrust laws or television. Pete Rozelle hadn’t even been born.

A year later, the name was changed to National Football League, and it became Rozelle’s destiny to rule over it like a benevolent dictator, simultaneously dispensing justice, minding 28 franchises and extinguishing an endless series of brush-fires that threatened to consume it all.

The bigger the league got, the bigger its problems. The more money it made, the more the players wanted. The tighter control it exerted, the more the players clamored for freedom.

The league has become something of a marvel, operating with congressional blessing as a unique monopoly of 28 franchises, fixing prices and salaries and sharing the wealth.

Yet it is flexible enough to make room for a maverick, Al Davis of the Raiders, who is at once an antagonist and member in good standing.

The league has violated basic rights of its employees, with their permission, but it has courted trouble when it went too far, which is why it constantly finds itself in court.

But as the NFL’s troubles mounted in recent years, so has the value of its franchises. Nearly every major city in the country wants one. No city wants to lose one.

But there are many areas of concern:

DRUG ABUSE / TESTING

Two owners--Art Modell of the Cleveland Browns and Alex Spanos of the San Diego Chargers--and President Tex Schramm of the Dallas Cowboys agreed that this was the league’s top concern.

Since it destroys people, careers and talent, the league should care, whether from a moral or practical standpoint.

Jay Moyer, the league’s legal counsel, says: “It affects the integrity of the game.”

Curiously, Commissioner Pete Rozelle didn’t even mention the issue during Friday’s annual pre-Super Bowl press conference. And not one of the several hundred reporters present asked about it.

Under current rules, the league can test all players during their physical examinations before training camp. They also can test for “reasonable cause.”

The league wants more than that. It wants unscheduled, random testing. Otherwise, the reasoning goes, an addict can lay off a few days before the test and come out clean.

Moyer, speaking at a panel discussion on “The State Of The NFL” at California Western School of Law in San Diego this week, said: “My candid view is that if your first value is a drug-free league, then unannounced testing is not the best way to get it, it’s the only way to get it.”

But Dave Meggysey, Western director of the NFL Players’ Assn., appearing on the same panel, said: “As for random drug testing, absolutely not. The dangers there are so enormous, it’s unreal.”

Meggysey didn’t deny that the league has a drug problem but said: “If the league is interested in solving it, (it should) join with us in massive education.”

Logically, if the owners want random testing and the players want free agency, there seems to be grounds for give and take. But the players don’t want to waste a premium bargaining chip on what they might win in court (see below), and if the players seem to be coming around on testing, why should the owners give up anything?

Spanos said: “Since the beginning, I have never understood the drug problem. You can take all the other problems--money, lawsuits--they’ll all work themselves out.

“But we have not resolved the drug problems because we have not been stringent enough--not only we as owners, but the players’ association has not tried to work with us.”

Modell started his own anti-drug program with the Browns several years ago--”The Inner Circle.”

“There will always be a drug problem (in the NFL) as long as there’s a drug problem in society,” Modell said. “We’ve got to get into some form of testing that protects the privacy of the individual but (to do it in a way that) he knows we’re gonna test.”

Schramm said: “That’s an ongoing fight we’re not going to resolve until we get random testing.”

LABOR-MANAGEMENT RELATIONS

They’ve never been worse. Rozelle said the 24-day strike this season was less painful than the 57-day walkout in 1982, but he ignored the fact that it didn’t settle anything.

It ended only when the players realized that the owners had led them into a dead end.

“Like it or not,” Moyer said, “the replacement games were one reason why it was shorter.”

Meggysey said: “We learned a hell of a lesson in this strike. The league made a decision when we commenced negotiations on April 20 that they were going to field scab teams and break this union.”

They didn’t quite break it, but it sure bent a lot. The owners’ strategy pit teammate against teammate and left the union in disarray.

Worse, the league said it would no longer deduct union dues from the players’ paychecks--a potentially crippling blow.

Since the strike, many disenchanted players have neglected to pay installments on their annual $2,000 dues voluntarily, but Gene Upshaw, the union’s executive director, said this week that most of the 1,600 members were doing so.

He offered no proof but claimed that “more than three-quarters” of the Super Bowl players are paying dues.

Meggysey said some are slow because their deferred pay has not come through yet.

Doug Allen, the union’s assistant executive director, said that the union still has enough money to finance its lawsuit pending in federal district court in Minneapolis.

After the strike, the union played its trump card by filing an antitrust action against the owners, claiming that the rights it bargained away in earlier years concerning the draft--the right of first refusal/compensation system and the standard player contract--were now invalid without a collective bargaining agreement and that more than 500 players will become free agents when their contracts run out Monday.

The owners responded by charging that the union failed to bargain in good faith--a matter now before the National Labor Relations Board--and therefore, under labor law, the terms of the expired collective bargaining agreement still apply.

District Court Judge David Doty said Friday he would not rule on the union’s suit until he hears from the NLRB.

Schramm made few friends among the players during the strike. He was one of management’s most outspoken advocates.

And yet he says now: “The NFL needs a good, strong union because many of the labor exemptions we receive from antitrust laws that are necessary to operate the league wouldn’t be possible if there weren’t a union. The farthest thing from anybody’s mind would be the idea of crushing the union.”

Modell, looking beyond the antitrust issue, said: “We must have structure. We want a collective bargaining agreement. There isn’t an owner in his right mind that would say anything but that.”

Spanos, one of the nation’s leading building contractors, said: “I’ve had a lot of union dealings, and let me say there still should be one, in spite of the headaches.

“But the players have to get somebody in there who is able to work with the owners . . . to be reasonable as to what is right and wrong.”

As the strike wound down, Upshaw seemed to be on shaky ground with his rank and file. But he said this week that he plans to serve the rest of his term, which expires six months after the next collective bargaining agreement is reached--whenever that is.

“I’ve recently visited 18 teams and spoke to them about their concerns,” Upshaw said. “Not one player told me I should step down. If I wasn’t doing my job, that’s another matter. But I am.”

The only threat to Upshaw seems to be from former player agent Art Wilkinson, who is trying to form a union called “NFL Pro.”

Wilkinson had his press conference Friday to announce that he had signed 328 of the 480 players he needs to have a certification election, including some NFLPA player representatives. He gave no names, except running backs Walter Abercrombie of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Butch Woolfolk of the Detroit Lions, who would be officers in his union.

Allen scoffed.

“None of our player reps has signed with him,” Allen said.

Both sides seem to agree that strikes aren’t the answer.

“We don’t need any more strikes,” Moyer said. “We need a new collective bargaining agreement.”

But Jimmy Cefalo, the NBC commentator who was a wide receiver with the Miami Dolphins, was on the same panel and said: “There will be a strike every time the contract comes up because there has never been an equitable agreement. It’s too one-sided.”

FINANCIAL

A Times survey this past week indicated that only seven teams operated in the black in what was admittedly an unusually expensive year, for several reasons.

The strike forced the league to rebate $40 million to the TV networks because of weaker ratings, with $20 million more due in ’88. The Coliseum suit involving the Raiders move cost the NFL $30 million--$20 million in damages and $10 in legal fees. The United States Football League got only a $3 judgment in its suit, but the case cost the NFL some $26 million for lawyers.

“I’d like to believe it was just a fluke year,” Spanos said.

Said Schramm: “We were on our way to having one of our greatest years--an upswing in interest, an upswing in (TV) ratings. Then the strike threw cold water on that.”

Said Modell: “We had a very bad year. I read excerpts of the L.A. Times financial report. It showed us at a $145,000 profit. I can’t fathom where that information came from because the Browns will lose heavily.

“Most clubs, including the Browns, that borrowed money are still paying off the ’82 strike. Then in ’83 came the peak of the bidding war with the USFL, and guys like myself went crazy to retain Paul McDonald as a quarterback and Chip Banks as a linebacker.

“When we were still trying to put our houses in order, here came another strike in ’87. So teams lost millions when it should have been profitable because we had the biggest TV contract in history.”

Moyer said there is hope for ’88 and beyond, based on highly encouraging TV ratings, especially from the new ESPN Sunday night series, which Moyer called “a toe in the water on cable.”

Meggysey said it will go much deeper than that.

“The next step up for the league is subscription (TV), and where they’re headed is pay-per-view, which has potential revenues of $30 million per game,” he said.

Despite the owners’ talk about losses, Meggysey said: “The league has changed from the paternalistic industry that it was in my playing days in the late ‘60s (with the Cardinals) to a highly profitable private enterprise. This is an $875-million business called the NFL.”

ST. LOUIS/PHOENIX CARDINALS

After Robert Irsay’s fly-by-night exit from Baltimore to Indianapolis with the Colts in ‘84, after Al Davis’ move from Oakland to Los Angeles with the Raiders two years earlier, the league tried to achieve a sense of order regarding franchise shifts.

If someone thought they might want to move, they were asked to keep the other owners informed on developments leading up to that decision.

The league could then go through the formality of a vote and make it official. The owners are expected to give Cardinal owner Bill Bidwill their blessing at the league meetings starting March 14 in Phoenix.

“Bill Bidwill has done a real good job keeping the membership apprised of his problems from a stadium standpoint,” Schramm said. “I imagine he’ll get an attentive audience.”

Spanos, whose company has built 12,000 apartment units and a half-million square feet of office space in Phoenix, said: “I think it’s a great move. I know they’ll do a good job of supporting a franchise.”

Bidwill wanted a new stadium in St. Louis, where he plays in a baseball park--Busch Stadium--owned by a brewery, whose primary tenant is its baseball team.

The stadium seats only 54,000, the second-smallest capacity in the NFL.

The catch is that Bidwill’s lease runs to 1996, but it contains a clause that he can break if three-quarters of the owners approve the move.

Modell said: “I would have to think it will be approved. Obviously, he got to a point where he couldn’t stay in St. Louis.”

EXPANSION

Rozelle has said that he didn’t want to think about expansion until all of the league’s litigation was behind it.

Spanos, unlike Modell and Schramm, has been in the league only four years and can’t see waiting.

“It doesn’t appear that the litigation will ever get behind us,” Spanos said. “If it’s not one, it’s gonna be another. You have to move on. Litigation will take care of itself.”

Rozelle modified his stance Friday to say he would consider expanding the league to 30 teams, two years after the next collective bargaining agreement is signed.

Spanos is more ambitious.

“I think we should expand to at least four different areas (to) 32 teams,” Spanos said.

He mentioned Baltimore, Memphis, Jacksonville and Oakland as good possibilities. Oakland?

“You have to understand, I came after the (Raider) problem,” Spanos said.

The NFL has been playing exhibition games in London, Tokyo and other foreign sites for several years. This year, the Bears and the Vikings will play at Stockholm.

But the league isn’t as much testing the waters for possible expansion as it is seeding interest for future live satellite telecasts.

“Under our current expansion thinking,” Rozelle said, “we have an adequate number of qualified cities in the United States.”

PETE ROZELLE

He is 61, has been commissioner for 28 years and his contract runs out in 1991.

Despite occasional rumors to the contrary, he says he isn’t thinking about retiring.

Schramm, his oldest friend and closest ally in the league--Rozelle was the Rams’ publicity director when Schramm was the club’s general manager--said: “Oh, Lord, I’d hate to think of it.

“I would hate to think of trying to find somebody that could satisfy 28 different clubs. He’s brought us through some real tough times, and it wouldn’t be a very happy day for me--unless that’s what he wants.

“By human nature, everybody would want to feel that whoever his successor is would be a little bit (their) man.”

Meggysey said that’s part of the problem, that Rozelle “is the owners’ man”--always was, always will be.

Nevertheless, the owners had a tough enough time settling on the young Rozelle to succeed the late Bert Bell after seven days of wrangling in 1960.

One day soon, they must start thinking about the man who will lead the league into the next century.

“I guess we’d better start looking at the 33-year-olds in the league,” Schramm said.

Said Modell: “That’s a hard one. The game has changed so much since he was made commissioner. He came into that job a year before I came into the league, and we sort of grew up together in the NFL. We both watched an enormous change in the league, its problems, external pressures, internal pressures.

“If I were to describe a prototype--and you’ll never find it all wrapped up in one man--it would be somebody knowledgeable of antitrust laws, somebody who knows television, somebody who’s a good public relations man, somebody who will be accepted by our players as a truly neutral commissioner, which he has tried for years to accomplish to no avail.

“I have said before, I think the job should be split into two. One should be sort of a president of the league that will represent the league in all business matters, collective bargaining and what-have-you, and have a second person--Justice Byron White, because he’s from the NFL, or somebody like him--to administer the discipline and the integrity pf the game.

“That idea was born on the bench in the Cotton Bowl before a Dallas-Cleveland game when Tex and I were conversing about the future of the league. That was 20 years ago. Never did we dream 20 years ago that we’d be facing the problems that face the league today. That idea is more relevant now than it was 20 years ago.”

But like Rozelle, Modell stays on.

“The thing that has been so time consuming for me personally and (for) Pete and Tex and (the Steelers’) Dan Rooney and other so-called activists in the league has been the excessive litigation against the league. We had the Raiders’ case and appeals, we had the (John) Mackey case in Minneapolis and subsequent labor-related cases. We had the U.S. Football League cases. I sat in federal court for 11 weeks, every day, and it was a laborious experience, but I felt duty-bound to be there.

“The game has changed from yesteryear. It was a different era completely. We didn’t have the problems we have today. We didn’t have the size--size, meaning large TV contracts, large salaries, the high-priced tickets. Everything has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, not necessarily for the better.”

Modell is interrupted. Does he mean it isn’t fun anymore?

“Well, at 1 o’clock on Sunday there’s no better place to be,” he says, paraphrasing Rozelle’s own comments this week. “The off-field activity is debilitating. That has taken some of the fun out of it.

“But 10 seconds before a kickoff, there’s nothing like it. That compensates for sitting on a hard bench in a courtroom.”