WASHINGTON -- The USFL -- the football league without a schedule and its teams without players -- insists it is going through 'a transitional phase' to future prosperity despite indications the league is all but dead.
On Aug. 4 -- six days after a hollow victory in their massive antitrust suit against the NFL -- USFL officials announced they were suspending the 1986 fall schedule. Then, on the night of Aug. 7, players union and management bargaining teams reached an agreement releasing approximately 530 players from their contracts.
But Commissioner Harry Usher, along with management and union officials, is steadfast in his insistence that some version of the four-year-old league will be playing in 1987.
'We will not give up in the face of the NFL's illegal monopoly. We are sitting down immediately to rebuild rosters for next year,' Usher said in a statement.
Larry Csonka, the general manager of the Jacksonville Bulls and the head of management's negotiating unit that agreed to the release of the players, echoed Usher.
'I think we're alive and viable. We're going to be in the market place. How much impact we'll have in the market place will be judged in accordance with what we do. I can make you no promises in that respect,' said Csonka, the former NFL and World Football League fullback.
'We're taking this one step at a time. I think it is one rather large step in ensuring some kind of semblence of structure in progressing toward what we hope to obtain by 1987,' he added.
The USFL was awarded $1 in damages from a six-person jury in its $1.69 billion antitrust suit against the NFL. The jury found that the NFL was guilty of one antitrust violation, but cleared the older, bigger league of eight other purported violations.
After the move on Aug. 7, there could be a mass exodus of USFL players into NFL training camps.
The USFL Players Association faced a moral dilemma entering the negotiations that culminated in the pact -- ratified as an amendment to the league's collective bargaining agreement -- that cut players free from their USFL commitments.
Union officials reiterated that they still support the league; after all, if the league folded, the jobs of more than 500 players and the union itself would cease to exist. But, at the same time, the Players Association did not want to see its members robbed of a chance to continue playing in the face of uncertainty about the USFL.
Doug Allen, the union's executive director, said the Aug. 7 agreement satisfies both ends of the dilemma.
'This is a transitional phase and we want to do everything possible to help the league continue its existence,' Allen said. 'This league has been a marvelous opportunity for professional football players and we hope and believe it will continue to be so in the future and anything we could do to assist thay we wanted to do.
'But we also wanted to make sure that players who have been loyal to this league have the opportunity to continue their professional careers immediately if they feel that they need to do that. We think we came up with something that addresses the continuation of the USFL in a viable structure and also addresses the individual players needs,' Allen added.
The union-management pact calls for each of the eight active USFL teams to maintain, through re-signing of players, a roster of at least 10 players for the 1987 season. The player re-signings are set to be completed by Sept. 15.
'We feel that we have a great quantity of premium players and we also feel that the likelihood of all of those players finding a spot in the NFL or CFL is rather remote, so we're looking forward to getting as many as those back as soon as possible,' Csonka said. 'I can't give you an exact number, (but) we're going to try to get all we can.'
Allen said the estimated 30 USFL players holding contracts featuring guaranteed clauses will be given until Aug. 13 the 'unrestricted right' to sign contracts with NFL clubs or Canadian Football League clubs if they are willing to forgo the uncollected guaranteed payments in their USFL pacts.
Allen added that a player under a guaranteed contract may elect to remain with the USFL and collect on the contract or negotiate a separate 'mutually agreeable termination of their contracts.'
Under the agreement, USFL clubs will retain rights to players under contract if those players return to the USFL for any future season.
NFL clubs have been in training camp for approximately one month.
Teams in the NFL currently own draft rights to nearly 50 USFL players, most notably running backs Herschel Walker (Dallas Cowboys) and Kelvin Bryant (Washington Redskins), quarterback Jim Kelly (Buffalo Bills) and offensive tackle Irv Eatman (Kansas City Chiefs).
Players whose rights are not owned by an NFL team now are free to negotiate with any NFL club.
The USFL has not played a game since its July 1985 championship game, won by the Baltimore Stars. To retain its top players, clubs paid approximately 100 of them 30 percent of their 1986 salaries earlier this year and paid about 200 more $10,000 each.
Players will have to reimburse the clubs to gain their release.
Allen was asked why any player would want to continue in the USFL considering most observers believe the league is crippled from the events of the past two weeks.
'The fact is this league has been here for four years and will continue to be here in the future. The players are not afraid of a little uncertainty,' Allen said. 'In respect to loyalty, I think you will find there is an enormous number of fiercely loyal players to this league because it has given hundreds of players an opportunity to show fans and each other that they can play quality professional football.'
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