Players’ Free-Agency Ball Is in His Court : Pro football: Minneapolis judge says unless they get together with owners by today, he will settle things himself.

The lawyers who argued for and against free agency for NFL players in a Minneapolis courtroom last summer without deciding anything are at it again this week.

They are back in Minneapolis, telling the same judge, David Doty, the same old things.

And by late Tuesday, Doty had had enough.

Delivering an ultimatum, he said he will announce his settlement decision later today if a peace agreement hasn’t been reached by then.

The NFL’s 28 club owners, convening today in Dallas, and representatives of the 1,500 players, based in Washington, will try to reach an agreement by telephone.

Raider owner Al Davis was in Doty’s court with several other team presidents. But when Doty put a gag order on both sides, nobody would say whether Davis had carried the day with his stern warnings that a “parade of free agents” would seriously damage pro football.

After more than five years of player-owner infighting, there were still two major unresolved conflicts:

--The owners say the players reneged on a stipulation confining free-agent signings to set periods each year.

--The players say the owners reneged on a stipulation confining the annual number of exceptions to free agency to a handful.

By far the more serious disagreement, the owners say, is the new one over what is called the calendar issue--requiring free agents to sign within prescribed calendar limits before training camp each summer.

That is un-American, Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Assn., said.

“Free means free,” Upshaw said. “Once a baseball player becomes free, he remains free until he signs a contract.”

That’s what football players want.

One trouble with such a scheme, the owners contend, is that the players didn’t bring it up before Dec. 22, when the sides announced a temporary agreement in principle.

In the view of John Shaw, executive vice president of the Rams and a member of the NFL’s Management Council, the players raised the issue only after consulting with their agents--after the Dec. 22 agreement was announced.

“This is an agents’ issue,” Shaw said. “The agents want the right to keep their players unsigned.”

That would give agents and lawyers more leverage during the summer and late fall if, for example, other players were injured.

“The quality of the game is (our) big issue,” Shaw said. “And the quality of the teams improves if (every player) signs before training camp. Holdouts hurt every team that has them. That’s why you must have a (free-agent) signing period every year--to get the (disruptions) out of the way.”

Said Upshaw: “Baseball and basketball don’t have signing periods.”

Argued Shaw: “Football is different. For one thing, baseball players are anxious to go to spring training. Few football players like it.

“The real point is that (the players) had agreed to a (calendar) window--and now they’re recanting.

“This is the main stumbling block to a settlement.”

The players and owners have been able to settle their big problems--the ones that have kept them arguing for more than five years--but are hung up on two less important issues.

“The big one was free agency, and we’ve agreed to that,” Shaw said. “There will be free agency (for five-year veterans) and it will go down to four years when the salary cap is triggered by (labor) costs.”

According to a provision in the Dec. 22 agreement, the NFL will operate without a salary cap until players’ salaries and other player costs reach 67% of designated NFL revenues.

After spending 67% that year, the clubs will be able to cut back to 64%, 63% and 62% in successive years, bottoming out at 62%.

“When the 62% cap is in place, players with four years (in the league) can become free agents,” Shaw said.

Davis doesn’t like that possibility. He is trying to rally the NFL’s other owners and players to a position that would create fewer free agents annually.

Davis “led the charge” to break the Dec. 22 agreement in principle, a players’ lawyer said.

That agreement provided for four exceptions to free agency on each club: a so-called franchise player and three others who could be retained by their current employers--in either 1993 or ‘94--under right-of-first-refusal provisions.

Davis wants many more first-refusal exceptions annually.

Doty is working against a Feb. 1 deadline.

That is the annual start-finish line for NFL contracts.

“Let the judge rule,” an NFL owner said, arguing against a settlement.

The players’ lead attorney, Jim Quinn of New York, seemed to agree. “The only place players can secure the free agency they are legally entitled to is in court,” he said.

The question now is whether the antagonists can all back off from those hard-line positions before noon today and settle--or whether they are really prepared to roll the dice with Doty.