HOLDING THE LINE : When NFL Management Calls Shots, the Old Guard Is an Effective Bloc

As they sift through their many problems these days, National Football League negotiators for both management and labor recognize two kinds of free agency.

There is the unconditional kind. Most Americans have that. They may live where they choose and if they are unhappy with their jobs, they are free to seek work elsewhere.

Then there is conditional free agency, which is sometimes awarded by sports leagues to older athletes, who can earn their freedom only by logging a specified number of years in the uniforms of the teams that signed or traded for them.

Both kinds of free-agent liberty are flatly opposed by the National Football League club owners responsible for management’s position in the current dispute with the players.

They have been joined by most other owners in pro football, but not by all.

From their offices in Texas and Colorado this week, Lamar Hunt and Pat Bowlen, who own, respectively, the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos, illustrated the range of NFL opinion on the subject.

Hunt, siding with management’s negotiating committee, said: “Free agency wouldn’t help the league in the long run.�

Bowlen, who is opposed to unrestricted free agency, said that if the conditional variety comes up for realistic consideration, “I would look at it. I’m not as spooked on (freedom for veterans) as some people.�

It never surprises Hunt to find at least 28 views on anything in a 28-team league.

“We have three (decision makers) on our club,� he said, meaning President Jack Steadman, General Manager Jim Schaaf and owner Hunt. “And even on (free agency), we don’t all feel exactly the same way.�

The fact is that in their philosophic approach to football, some club owners are hard-liners, some are more moderate.

None of them will discuss it in detail, but there seems to be something of an NFL consensus on the following:

--The conspicuous hard-liners are the two most prominent members of the league’s Management Council, the group that supervises the battle against the union. They are Hugh Culverhouse, president of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Tex Schramm, president of the Dallas Cowboys.

--The moderates--who generally are moderate on some but not all issues--are the Rooneys of Pittsburgh, the Sullivans of New England, Art Modell of Cleveland, Al Davis of the Raiders and most of the league’s newer owners: Bowlen in Denver, the Nordstroms of Seattle, the DeBartolos of San Francisco, Alex Spanos of San Diego and the so-called car dealers, Norman Braman of Philadelphia and Tom Benson of New Orleans.

“Car dealers are always deal makers,� the players’ counsel, Dick Berthelsen, said, expressing a wish that the league’s negotiating team could be widened.

On free agency, though, at least in Modell’s opinion, it wouldn’t help the union if the negotiating team were widened to all 28 franchises. “If we voted today, it would be 28-0 against,� he said.

On other issues, the owner of the Cleveland Browns finds it difficult to divide the NFL into left and right.

“As I have said many times, (NFL owners) are Republicans who vote socialistic,� Modell said. “The 28 clubs split all (material resources) equally--TV money, assessments, even the gate. It’s 60-40 for all at home, 40-60 on the road.�

If on some issues the NFL does occasionally divide into Republicans and Socialists, their feet are often planted in shifting sands.

Thus in Pittsburgh, for example, Steeler President Dan Rooney is remembered as the whiz who ended the last NFL strike five years ago. But he lives in a city where some people blame the collapse of the Pittsburgh Pirates on baseball’s free agency. So, this year, the Rooney family is fighting against free agency for the NFL.

Several questions remain.

In a league whose many overtime owners’ meetings suggest that there are often disagreements, who, finally, sets NFL labor policy?

Who directs the league’s chief negotiator, Jack Donlan? How, exactly, does NFL policy work its way down to Donlan, the man who confronts the union at the bargaining table?

The outline of pro football’s chain of command is visible through the smoke of battle. It extends down from the owners through the Management Council and the council’s executive committee to Donlan.

THE OWNERS

NFL policy is set by the owners when they convene in executive session, as they do several times a year. Each team is limited to representation by one person with one vote--usually the owner or his most trusted subordinate.

On labor issues, club sources say, the NFL’s old guard has had the strongest voice for many years, taking the initiative to get what is always a hard-line policy approach to the players.

The younger owners support much of this policy but are often more willing to negotiate. Pro football is a strange industry because of the differences in franchise investment. Early owners got in for $500 or less. Others have paid $50 million or more.

Thus, a strike is less costly to an old-guard owner than it is to an individual with a recent large investment requiring, perhaps, large annual interest payments. Hence, new owners tend to be less willing than the old to accept a strike.

The NFL, however, is a minority-rules league. It takes 21 of the 28 votes to change league policies that have been established over the years. Even if younger owners favor more moderate policies, they can’t outvote the old guard.

A difference of opinion on guaranteed contracts--rare in the NFL--illustrates the scope of the problem.

Modell, an NFL leader, sides with the old guard on the question.

“In a vigorous contact sport like football, there wouldn’t be an incentive or motive to keep playing if you had a guaranteed contract,� he said.

From Denver, however, Bowlen, one of the younger owners, said: “Sure, it may take the incentive out of playing hard (for some players). But there are give-and-take areas. Vesting a veteran after three games could be a fair arrangement. (A guaranteed contract) isn’t as onerous as free agency.�

Many other new owners reason similarly, but most of the old owners see it Modell’s way. And it is they who set NFL policy accordingly.

MANAGEMENT COUNCIL

This group, which formally structures the league’s labor policy, consists of one member from each of the 28 clubs.

On any given club, the Management Council representative can be the same person who votes in an NFL executive session--or it can be someone else delegated by the owner.

The council was created some years ago solely to distance the 28 owners from the commissioner, Pete Rozelle.

“It’s a different entity legally (from the NFL),� Hunt said from Kansas City. “Pete isn’t directly involved, although he sometimes attends council meetings.

“You need a separation because Pete, as the commissioner, rules on things involving players. The sole purpose of the Management Council is to negotiate and deal with the (union). It’s expensive, with a big staff and a big budget.�

During the council’s deliberations, which aren’t open to the public, representatives from old-guard teams continue to lead the way because momentum and experience are on their side.

In NFL seniority, their leader, Culverhouse, is a relatively new owner whose pro football affiliation dates only from 1975. But philosophically, Culverhouse aligns with the NFL’s right wing.

H.R. (Bum) Bright of the Cowboys is an even newer owner, but Bright is influenced by the club’s president, Schramm, a veteran hard-liner.

COUNCIL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Because the Management Council is an unwieldy group, it has created an executive committee--known as the CEC--as its supervisory agency.

The CEC functions as the NFL’s strike committee, and its role is better understood when it is called that.

“It’s difficult for one person (Donlan) to report to 28,� Hunt said. “The executive committee is a six-person (board) chaired by Hugh Culverhouse.�

Other members are Joe Robbie of Miami, Michael Brown of Cincinnati , Charles Sullivan of New England, Dan Rooney and Schramm.

The NFL’s labor machine works as follows:

--It was at an owners’ executive session that this year’s most radical policy measure was adopted. The proposal: Continue the regular season with nonunion players.

According to club sources, the owners favoring this plan argued, first, that it would put pressure on union players to report. Second, they said, “the strike is over� if the pressure gets a nucleus of six or eight players from each team to cross picket lines.

The owners see the present conflict not as a fight over money, the sources said, but as an all-out fight against the players for power. Their objective, they say, isn’t to break the union but to cripple it, or at least weaken it.

--The Management Council was charged with implementing the owners’ policy by coordinating with coaches and general managers on the club level.

--The strike committee is the enforcement group.

JACK DONLAN

Donlan, the man who heads the Management Council’s negotiating team, gets his instructions in strike committee meetings or from Culverhouse.

A trained negotiator with a background in airline labor disputes, Donlan is the council’s executive director.

“All we hear is Jack saying no,� a union source said.

But the results would be the same if Culverhouse were sitting there.

Donlan is the extension of Culverhouse, who is the extension of a majority of NFL owners.

A club source said: “Jack does have some flexibility, and he’s judged by the way he gets agreements that are more what we want than what the players want.

“It’s like (Ram owner) Georgia Frontiere dealing with (running back) Eric Dickerson. She sets the upper and lower limits of what can be offered to each Ram player.

“It’s somebody else, though, (vice president John Shaw) who does the actual dickering with Dickerson and the other guys--and who gets a bonus from Georgia if he comes in on the low side of what he’s authorized to offer.�

Donlan has one clear advantage over Gene Upshaw, who negotiates for the NFL Players Assn. on behalf of the union’s strike committee. Donlan has only 28 bosses, Upshaw 1,600.

Upshaw has to spend much of his time in the field meeting with the players to make sure that what he’s demanding from Donlan is still what they want.

Donlan only has to call Culverhouse, whose ear to the other owners is always perfectly tuned.