Chargers Try to Get 2 in Line

The Chargers have turned tough with two of their holdout players, telling starting offensive linemen David Richards and Broderick Thompson the team will reduce its contract offers if they do not report by today.

The players were informed of the team’s intent by letter, General Manager Bobby Beathard said.

“We’ve gone as far as we can go with Richards and Broderick,” Beathard said Tuesday. “We’re at the maximum.”

Beathard said Friday the team had made its final offers to the two players and linebacker Cedric Figaro. Figaro was expected to sign and report to training at UC San Diego today, Beathard said.

The agent for Thompson, Jeff Irwin of Scottsdale, Ariz., said Beathard wrote Thompson he will reduce the offer by $5,000 if Thompson does not report by today.

Irwin, who plans to speak with Beathard today, said he still considers the team’s one-year contract proposal unacceptable.

“This doesn’t make any difference at all,” Irwin said of Beathard’s approach.

Beathard said the letter warned of further reductions if the players let today’s deadline pass.

The news of the threat came on the same day the Chargers announced they signed their first player in four days--reducing to seven the number of unsigned players. Cornerback Gill Byrd reported to the afternoon practice after signing a three-year contract.

The contract is valued at $2.2 million, including bonuses, a source said. That is a considerable raise from the $360,000 base salary Byrd reportedly made last season.

“I’m comfortable,” Byrd said. “This wasn’t about looking around the league to see who got paid what. I knew what I wanted for my wife and my two children, what would make Gill Byrd and his family happy and satisfied. That is all that matters.”

The signing had been expected by Beathard since Saturday morning, but Byrd did not sign until Monday night. Byrd said the wait had nothing to do with further negotiations; he simply wanted to delay the rigors of camp.

“We had the deal done,” Byrd said. “It wasn’t a matter of money at all. I really honestly was trying to stretch it out. They might be mad at me for saying that. But now I’m wishing I should have been here Saturday. I really need the work. I’m glad I didn’t stretch it out any further.”

Byrd is coming off what might have been his best season in seven years in the league. He led NFL cornerbacks with seven interceptions, and his 14 interceptions over the past two seasons rank first at his position.

Even with Byrd, the Chargers still are without half of their starting secondary. Free safety Vencie Glenn and cornerback Sam Seale remain unsigned.

Byrd said he felt a little strange on the field without two of his veteran teammates, but he did have a reminder with him. At practice, he wore two white towels from his belt. On one he wrote in black ink Glenn’s number “25” and on the other Seale’s number “30.”

“I can’t forget them,” Byrd said.

Beathard reported no significant progress in contract talks with Glenn and Seale or the team’s two other unsigned players, linebackers Leslie O’Neal and Junior Seau, the Chargers’ first-round draft choice.

Defensive tackle Lee Williams also is missing from camp. He walked out Saturday because the club said it will not renegotiate his contract.

If Williams does not return to camp by Thursday, the team has notified him it will consider imposing daily fines and has the option of placing him on the the reserve/left camp list, which would make ineligible to play or be paid this season by any NFL team.

Beathard said the team has not made a decision about what it might do if Williams does not report back by Thursday.

Steve Feldman, the Newport Beach-based agent who represents Williams, said Williams has returned to his home in Florida and has no intention of returning at this time.

“Lee is staying right where he is,” Feldman said.

Williams is upset, Feldman said, because Beathard will not honor what he said was an oral agreement by Beathard’s predecessor, Steve Ortmayer, to renegotiate Williams’ contract. Beathard has said he has found no evidence of such an agreement and that he is not bound by any oral promises Ortmayer made.

Contract squabbles have become a part of training camp life, but Coach Dan Henning is trying to keep his good humor about it.

Asked this week about the team’s latest troubles with Williams, Henning wryly replied:

“I’ve never had a player who has ever come back and said, ‘I didn’t have a good year last year and need to give (money) back.’ Now when I was (coaching) in Atlanta one year, I mentioned that on a radio show and somebody called in to say, ‘Did you offer to give anything back after the year you had last year?’ I said, ‘No, but I’m not holding out.’ ”

The Chargers leave Thursday morning for three days of practice with the Phoenix Cardinals at their training site in Flagstaff, Ariz.

But because of runway restrictions at the airport in Flagstaff, the team is using one plane to fly in and two to fly out. The Charger party is safe to land in one plane, but too large to be allowed to take off.

And in a request that must do little to ease nervous passengers, everyone who intends to be on the plane is being asked to provide his or her weight.

“I haven’t had anybody ask me that in 20 years,” Henning said. “It used to worry me puddle-jumping around going to different schools. But you have to understand, they’re trying to be safe.”

Charger Notes

Outside linebacker Ken Woodard said he has been cleared to practice after further tests revealed he did not have a heart ailment. Woodard was hospitialized early Friday morning after complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath. . . . Gill Byrd is not the only one keeping alive the memory of teammates missing from training camp. On Monday, one of the blocking sleds bore the No. 99 jersey of Lee Williams, the team’s wayward defensive tackle, on Tuesday, it had been replaced by the No. 91 of Leslie O’Neal, the team’s holdout veteran outside linebacker.