PRO FOOTBALL / BOB OATES : Owners’ Vote No Cause for Players to Celebrate

Jim Finks of New Orleans, chairman of the NFL’s competition committee, was talking about the most historic decision of the week during league meetings, the action by club owners against Ickey Woods, whose sideline shuffle was forever banned.

“Sideline demonstrations and postgame celebrations are unprofessional in a professional sport,” Finks said. “They will no longer be tolerated.”

Previously, the league had banned the Ickey Shuffle in NFL end zones, where Woods often has arrived as a running back for the Cincinnati Bengals, and where he made his dance famous, at least in portions of Cincinnati.

The club owners’ new order extends the game-time ban to the sidelines and bench areas for all players on all teams.

Fraternization is out, too. The touching little postgame scenes in which a beaten foe embraces his conqueror, or vice versa, often with hugs and tears, won’t be tolerated, either.

“Public fraternization has gotten out of hand,” Finks said. “Major league baseball players don’t fraternize in public. When the game ends, they’re out of there. When an NBA game ends, basketball players are out of there.

“(The NFL) has rules against fraternization, too, but they haven’t been enforced. From here on, they will be.”

Pulling out a rule book, he added: “It’s been on the books since 1981: ‘Players who do not leave the field promptly will be fined.’ ”

Players--but not owners. The league won’t interfere with any owner or fan publicly celebrating a victory, Finks said.

Thus, New Orleans owner Tom Benson’s solo dance will continue to be seen, unfortunately.

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue will appoint his new vice president for labor relations “within the next month or so,” he said.

But he’s not sure it will improve the league’s chances for labor peace.

“We have substantive differences--not people differences--with the (players),” Tagliabue said of his decision to replace negotiator Jack Donlan with a vice president.

The players say they want some form of free agency before they will sign a new bargaining agreement to validate the annual college player draft beyond 1992.

Tagliabue’s position is that the NFL doesn’t want free agents and doesn’t need a player agreement to perpetuate the draft.

“The (players’ association) has (stipulated) that the draft is reasonable under antitrust,” the commissioner said.

A federal judge eventually will rule on that point, which is disputed by the players. Is it wise for the league to roll the dice on such a critical issue?

“It’s more of a gamble for the players,” Tagliabue said. “They have more to lose than we do.”

On a related issue, he said he will rule next month on whether it’s proper for a club to negotiate with the year’s No. 1 choice before the draft. The competition committee says it isn’t.

On pay-TV: Tagliabue said the league plans a limited experiment in 1993, when Los Angeles fans, perhaps, will be able to get a Redskin-Giant game on pay-TV on a weekend of commercially televised Raider and Ram games.

In a new interpretation of the grasp-and-control rule, an NFL quarterback will be free to fight off a defensive player and get the ball off if he can, even if he is clearly in the grasp of the defender--so long as it is only one defender. If a pack of defensive players is about to get him, the play will be whistled dead--and ruled a sack--if the quarterback is in the grasp of somebody.

“The only consideration is the safety of the quarterback,” said Jerry Seeman, the NFL’s new director of officiating. “One on one, he’s on his own. But we won’t let him be punished by a bunch of defensive players after he is in the grasp and control of a pass rusher.”