Talk baseball and there's very little dissension among NFL players.
Based on their experience with a salary cap, they believe baseball players are totally justified in going on strike to avoid one."I'd tell them to stick to their guns on the cap issue," defensive end William Fuller of the Philadelphia Eagles said of the baseball players, who went on strike following Thursday's games.
"I don't like the cap. I don't agree with it," Fuller said Friday. "It divides players. You'll get a situation between the haves and the have-nots. It's already getting that way in football."
Fuller is one of the "haves," leaving the Houston Oilers to sign a three-year, $8.4 million deal with the Eagles.
But many players have complained bitterly about the cap, which has led to the release of a number of big-name, high-salaried players at the end of their careers, most notable of whom is 38-year-old Phil Simms, who quarterbacked the New York Giants to two Super Bowls.
The NFL Players Association's latest figures note the average salary has increased 51 percent this year, to $737,000, in the first year of the $34.6 million cap. And union officials, from executive director Gene Upshaw on down, who defend the cap as a compromise necessary to get the agreement reached two years ago, note that veterans have always been released or taken pay cuts.
"The salary cap makes the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and takes out the middle class completely, much like our system of democracy is going," said another NFL star, linebacker Bryan Cox of Miami. "The middle class is all but over. Either you're rich or you're poor."
Said Detroit linebacker Chris Spielman:
"I miss baseball, but there's more at stake that just a few games. I can understand the players' feeling toward the salary cap. Ask any of the guys in this room who had to take a pay cut how they feel about a cap?"
The NFL contract is the result of the 1987 strike, which ended after 24 days with the players returning without a contract.
It took five years after that to hammer out an agreement, which came only after a jury in Minneapolis found for seven players who argued that the NFL's system of compensation for free agency violated antitrust laws. The NFLPA and management finally agreed to free agency, but included a salary cap which took effect this year, the second season under of free agency.
From a management standpoint, the cap is welcome.
"Whenever you tie a fixed percentage of income to what players get, it helps the players know what they will get and teams know how much they can spend," says Jim Miller, executive vice president of the New Orleans Saints. Miller served as spokesman for the NFL Management Council during the 1982 NFL strike, the league's other major work regular-season stoppage.
But most NFL players say they now regret voting for the cap and support the baseball players.