PRO FOOTBALL DAILY REPORT : AROUND THE NFL : Chargers Send Holdout Williams to Oilers

The Chargers traded holdout defensive end Lee Williams to the Oilers for rookie wide receiver Shawn Jefferson and the Oilers’ first-round draft pick in 1992.

Although he was scheduled to make $900,000 this year, Williams, a two-time Pro Bowl starter, refused to report. He said he was tired of being played out of position and being criticized by team officials.

The Williams deal leaves the Chargers with only one remaining holdout, running back Marion Butts. After wrapping up the Williams trade, Charger General Manager Bobby Beathard said he planned to speak with Butts’ new agent, Leigh Steinberg, to try to break that impasse. Butts, who gained a team-record 1,225 yards last year, has demanded that the Chargers rework his contract.

Victor Kiam, owner of the financially troubled New England Patriots, met in May with the head of Barnett Banks and later boasted to some NFL owners that he had struck a deal to move his team to Jacksonville, Fla., a newspaper reported. Sources told the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville that the meeting between Kiam and Barnett Chairman Charles Rice temporarily hurt the city’s changes to land an expansion team.

“Rice met with him in New York to discuss moving the team to Jacksonville. It hurt the city because some owners though Jacksonville was making an effort to get the team. At the time, some thought Jacksonville may have shot itself in the foot there,” an NFL source told the newspaper.

The source added that Kiam went to league meetings in Minneapolis May 22 “saying he had a deal worked out with Jacksonville.”

Kiam was unavailable for comment.

The Patriots are deep in debt and already beyond the league limit, which has been set at $35 million. In May, Kiam received permission to extend the team’s debt limit an additional $10 million to $45 million.

The Patriots signed veteran linebacker Johnny Rembert after a 35-day holdout. Rembert reportedly will receive $430,000 for a one-year contract, and $75,000 in bonuses. . . . All-Pro cornerback Rod Woodson, who had threatened to sit out the season in a test of the NFL’s free-agency rules, signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Terms were not disclosed. . . . A sore right elbow is expected to keep Joe Montana on the sidelines when the San Francisco 49ers play the Seahawks at Seattle tonight.