PAUL JOHN (SKIP) LANE, JR. ET ALIA — CIRCA 1987
“I think we can run 50 quarterback sneaks without making a mistake, but that would be taking it too far.
— Bill Parcells, New York Giants
“On the first kickoff, the ball hit the receiver right in the head. And then he dropped the next five in a row. You get used to things like that.”
— Giants Asst. Coach Bill Belichick after a kickoff drill
“Our game plan is for our coaches to learn everybody’s name.”
— Al Saunders, San Diego Chargers
The 1987 NFL Strike initiated by the NFLPA in search of significant free agency concessions represented an enormous short-term victory for the owners.
As Paul Zimmerman of Sports Illustrated noted in his piece describing the end of the work stoppage, “The NFL players association got hammered in its 24-day strike…”
True enough in light of the fact that no contractual agreement was reached at the time but as Zimmerman so astutely recognized, “…that defeat could contain the seeds of eventual victory in the only arena in which the NFL ever seems to lose — the courts…
The union [immediately] filed an antitrust suit against the league that challenges, among other things, the college draft and restraints on free agency for veterans.
The NFLPA also filed charges of bad-faith bargaining with the National Labor Relations Board. A decision in the players’ favor would give their antitrust suit more bite.”
Bargaining in good faith is a key tenet in any labor-management dispute and if the two sides do not resume negotiations, eventually coming to terms and litigious actions proceed, management in the NFL case stood to lose — and did.
Eschewing the bargaining table for the courtroom would prove to be imprudent in the face of union charges that the owners “started assembling replacement, or scab teams before the strike was declared, that management threatened players to get them to cross picket lines and that management refused to budge on the major issue, free agency.”
And as Zimmerman further noted, “Remarks from the owners’ side that were perhaps throwaway lines in the heat of battle might be viewed in a different light by the NLRB or a court.”
Lines like these:
“Never would a player have [free agent] movement, not in five years, or 10, or 15. Never.”
— Tex Schramm to Gene Upshaw
“It’s like a camel with his nose under the tent. You wonder what they’ll want three years from now.”
— Jack Donlan, management’s chief negotiator, responding to a union proposal for free agency after four years
“Our view is the same as it has been — we are not going to change our structure on free agency.”
— Schramm
“With the exception of free agency, we don’t consider anything etched in stone.”
— Donlan
“If Gene needs something for dignity, we’ll give it to him. But not free agency.”
— Buccaneers owner Hugh Culverhouse
A rather compelling argument can be made that the ’87 strike and all that it represented helped create the NFL of today.
As Dom Cosentino writing for Deadspin remarked, “So much of what’s happened since — from players’ inability to secure more guaranteed contracts to the league’s manipulation and denial of the science of brain trauma to the heavy-handedness of the league’s discipline — can be traced to the ’87 strike. It’s hard, drawing the line between then and now, not to view that time as the birth of the modern NFL.”
The history of labor-management clashes in our country is rich.
Management has always wanted more work for as little pay (and as few benefits) as possible.
Labor has always wanted what it considered fair compensation.
Typically, labor strife reaches its boiling point and beyond as industries approach their peaks, building greater financial strength and might and employing an ever-expanding pool of workers.
The earliest strikes of significance, though not the largest were waged in textiles. Companies in the labor-heavy Northeast and Midwest which specialized in the finishing of raw cotton goods woven in the South led the way.
From there the railroads and the steel and mining industries followed suit.
Steel became a valuable resource thanks to Andrew Carnegie and its demand burgeoned in concert with the growth and needs of the shipping and automobile industries, among other manufactured consumer and commercial goods.
Steel strikes, known for their violence, automobile and later airline labor disputes were necessary evils which ultimately helped to form the nation’s great middle class.
The 1970 U.S. Postal Strike and the 1997 UPS Workers Strike — each considered a victory for labor — bookended the NFL’s travails of the strike-shortened 1982 season and the debacle of 1987, the league’s last major labor crisis.
Few remember the short-term fallout or the central characters of the ’87 strike either due to the passage of time or the aborted event itself, but ribbons of Homeric tales were strewn all over the cutting room floor.
Unlike in ’82 the owners in 1987 were determined to fill out rosters any way they could, so the show would go on.
The search for “talent” knew no bounds.
Grocery stores. Barrooms. Truck drivers. Prison inmates on work furloughs. Scouring rocky and untended semi-pro fields. Cultish former players given a second chance to fulfill a lifelong dream.
These were the ‘replacement players.’
They were called scabs and worse and were met with expectable scorn and hostility by the striking rank-and-file.
Buses of players crossing the picket lines were threatened.
They were mercilessly mocked.
Nearly every replacement team was derided and hung with unflattering, pun intended monikers: “The Rhinestone Cowboys”; “The Chicago Spare Bears”; “The Seattle Sea-Scabs”; “The New Orleans Saint Elsewheres.”
The games for Weeks 4–6 were played with these replacement players including cinematographer Todd Schlopy who, in spite of having never played professional football before or after the strike, served as the placekicker for his hometown Buffalo Bills standing in for the picketing Scott Norwood.
(After two games in which he missed all 3 of his FGA and one of his two XP tries, Schlopy accounted for all of his team’s points in a 6–3 victory over the New York Giants. Clearly, “Kodak moments.”).
Approximately 15% of the NFLPA’s players chose to cross the picket lines, the most prominent of whom were Mark Gastineau, Randy White, Joe Montana, Tony Dorsett, Ed (Too Tall) Jones, John Stallworth, Doug Flutie and Steve Largent.
Looking teammates in the eye must have been a little difficult after the union voted to end the 24-day walkout.
Upon reflection it can be stated with certitude that when the players splintered and caved after three weeks, the replacement games helped them more than they did the owners.
The union decertified in order to sue the NFL on antitrust grounds which ultimately led — following the Plan B free agency era from 1989-’92 — to the system now in place: free agency with a salary cap.
Shed nary a tear for ownership: the league itself, its inherent problems notwithstanding, is flourishing to the tune of a $6.3 billion/year mega-industry.
And there have been no work stoppages since 1987.
But all this is white noise to guys like Jack Epps, a business and real estate attorney in Kansas City.
Or Robert Williams, a football and track coach at Jesuit College Prep in Dallas.
Or Cornell Burbage, the former head football coach at Kentucky State.
Or Ivy-educated (Penn) Jim Crocicchia, who threw a 46-yard TD pass to Lewis Bennett in a Giants-49ers Monday Night Football game; the catch by Bennett was voted the greatest catch in the history of MNF.
Or Paul John Lane, Jr., Skip to his friends, a successful commercial real estate broker in Westport, Connecticut who happily took a $100,000 pay cut to become an NFL replacement player.
All to experience just one day in the life; to finally realize a childhood dream; to compete at the highest level — no matter the cost.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in July 2018.]
