Hip-hop fans might have recognized a young replacement defensive end for the Los Angeles Rams: Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight, who appeared as a backup in two games. Did any of the replacement players go on to better things?
Replacement Saints QB John Fourcade kicked around in the league until 1990, too. He stuck around with the Oilers until 1992 and even made the All-Pro team as a special teams ace in 1988. The best replacement player was probably Houston Oilers linebacker Eugene Seale, who ran back an interception return for a TD in the team’s first replacement-player game. Did any of the replacement players turn out to be good? Clare Farnsworth compiled the following brilliant list for a 2002 Seattle Post-Intelligencer story: the Los Angeles Shams, the Chicago Spare Bears, the Seattle Sea-Scabs, the New Orleans Saint Elsewheres, the Miami Dol-Finks, and the San Francisco Phoney-Niners. Did these replacement teams have hilariously punny nicknames? As NFL stars walked picket lines outside of their teams’ headquarters, personnel men scrambled to throw together rosters that could take the field for Week 4.
STRIKE AND SPARE TV
As it turned out, the TV affiliates were happy to show the replacement players’ games. The NFL canceled Week 3’s games – thereby reducing the season to 15 games – and teams began assembling replacement players. This time around, though, the owners decided to call the players’ bluff. The players’ logic was that even if the owners had the nerve to toss together replacement teams, there was no way TV stations would air terrible football. When the players pulled the same maneuver in 1982, the league’s schedule ended up being reduced from 16 games to nine for the season. The players likely assumed that this tactic would give them leverage, since TV networks would need their games to fill out the following week’s schedules. The strike began after the season’s second week of games. This rule hampered players’ movement in search of bigger paychecks, especially since the compensation to players’ former teams could be as steep as two first-round draft picks. The “Rozelle Rule” stated that if a team signed a free agent from another squad, the commissioner could compensate the player’s original team with draft picks or players from his new team. The players had ostensibly had free agency for a decade, but there was a major hurdle to their movement from team to team. © Bettmann/CORBIS What were the players after?įree agency. We’re not experts on the lockout, but we thought this might be a good time to fill you in on the details of the NFL’s last major labor crisis, 1987’s midseason player strike.
STRIKE AND SPARE PRO
The specter of an extended work stoppage means we don’t know exactly when we’ll get to watch pro football again.
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