NFL Hopes It Can Recoup from Strike Effects

For the second time in six years, the NFL enters a “season after.”

As in 1983, the NFL is coming off a damaging players’ strike. Commissioner Pete Rozelle and the club owners hope last year’s 24-day walkout has no lingering negative effects on attendance and television ratings during the NFL’s 69th season, although the strike has already left serious marks on the league.

The players’ union and management still have no collective bargaining agreement. The labor war has moved to the courts, where it might take years for a final outcome.

“The strike obviously hurt; it never helps any industry,” Rozelle said. “It hit both the owners and players where it really hurts, in the pocketbook.”

Television ratings were down on CBS and NBC last year, and attendance shrank to an average of 54,315 per game from 60,663 in 1986. The declines can be blamed on the three weeks of replacement games, when the NFL fielded less-than-the-best teams and expected fans to buy it.

So, the NFL finds itself rebuilding credibility and its financial coffers as the 1998 season aches. Rozelle says it will be easier solving problems on the field than off.

“Two factors saved the 1987 season,” he said. “The high level of post-season performance and the same 10 teams qualified for the playoffs with or without the strike. Without the strike, it would have been a banner year. I have reasons to believe the 1988 season could be one of our finest ever.”

But there are already problems in summer camps. Eight players have been suspended for drug including defensive end Dexter Manley of the Super Bowl champion Washington Redskins for 30 days and Indianapolis running back Tony Collins for at least a year.

Several teams--including the troubled New England Patriots--have dipped into the team’s escrow account. The money will be repaid out of the television networks’ payments.

“We don’t expect problems from any of those teams,” Rozelle said.

But he admits the owners are concerned despite splitting $430 million in television money each year.

“The owners are much more guarded against economic problems,” he said. “We’ve had 56-day and 24-day strikes the last six seasons. That really cuts into a league and really sets you back.”

An off-season move that should a favorable impact on NFL economy was the shift of the Cardinals to Phoenix from St. Louis, which had been their home for 28 years. The Cardinals, who started in Chicago in 1920, will be playing in the 74,000-seat Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Ariz., with the potential for dramatic improvements in attendance.

Rozelle hopes a loaded early schedule helps fans forget all about the strike and replacement games of a year ago.

The Sept. 4 opening-day schedule includes San Francisco at New Orleans, Seattle at Denver and Miami at Chicago. The opening Monday night game--Washington at the New York Giants--pits the previous two Super Bowl champions.

The Redskins will try to become the first team to repeat as Super Bowl champions since Pittsburgh after the 1979 season. The Redskins signed Wilbur Marshall, a free agent Pro Bowl linebacker, in the off-season but have some problems--a starting quarterback, Doug Williams, coming off knee surgery, and the brutal schedule the Super Bowl champion always receives.

“It’s important we enter the 1988 season in the right frame of mind,” Washington Coach Joe Gibbs said. “We’ve got to realize that, even though we won the Super Bowl, we’re not a dominating team.”

Perhaps the Redskins should hope for another strike. Their two Super Bowl triumphs have come in the strike seasons of 1982 and 1987.

The Super Bowl XXII losers, the Denver Broncos, are seeking their third straight AFC title and first league championship. After blowout losses in the last two Super Bowls, the Broncos signed 34-year-old Tony Dorsett to help John Elway on offense, but did little to bulk up their small defense.

The league’s two new head coaches this year are both former offensive assistants getting their first chance as an NFL head coach. Lindy Infante takes over the Green Bay Packers and Mike Shanahan, the youngest coach in the league at 36, will coach the Los Angeles Raiders.

The season, as usual, features quarterbacks under pressure. They run from San Francisco’s Joe Montana, who has won two Super Bowls and led the league in passing last year but has Steve Young waiting to take his job, to Tampa Bay’s Vinny Testaverde, the 1986 Heisman Trophy winner who becomes a starter this year.

Among the milestones within reach this season:

--Jerry Rice, Montana’s favorite target, goes into the season with an NFL record of TD receptions in 13 straight games. Rice is five games short of Lenny Moore’s record of 18 straight games with a TD by any route.

--Seattle wide receiver Steve Largent, the leading NFL career receiver with 752 catches has 12,041 receiving yards and needs 106 more to pass Charlie Joyner (12,146) as the career yardage leader. He needs five TDs to pass Don Hutson (99) as the leader in TD catches.

--Indianapolis running back Eric Dickerson needs 1,744 yards to become the first NFL rusher to gain 10,000 yards in his first six seasons. He averages 1,651 yards per season and 111.6 per game.

--Montana can tie Dan Fouts’ record of six 3,000-yard passing seasons.

--Dorsett, the fourth leading rusher in NFL history with 12,036 yards, needs 85 yards to pass third-place Franco Harris and 277 to move past Jim Brown into second.

--Vai Sikahema of Phoenix can become the first player to lead the NFL league in punt return yardage three straight years.