Another NFL Strike Coming Up?

A defiant Gene Upshaw said that if the NFL's owners opt out of the current labor agreement later this year, the players' union is ready for a strike or the decertification tactics it used to get free agency after the 1987 walkout. "If they want to get out of the deal, there's nothing we can do about it," the executive director of the NFL Players Association said Thursday before the union's annual Super Bowl news conference. "But we'll be prepared." The labor agreement reached after tough bargaining in March of 2006 gave both sides the right to opt out in November. That would lead to 2010 being an uncapped year before the contract expires in 2011. Several owners, including Denver's Pat Bowlen, have suggested that the current agreement is leaving some teams cash-strapped and making it likely that the owners will opt out next year. Upshaw said that he's heard the complaints and is ready for any outcome.
"At our meeting in March, our priorities for discussion are four options: strike, lockout, decertification or extension," he said.

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NFL To Play In Europe Again

The NFL will return to Britain next season. The league, which held its first regular season game outside North America in London last October, said Thursday it would come back again in 2008. The teams, date and venue will be announced during Super Bowl week late this month or in early February. The New York Giants beat the Miami Dolphins 13-10 in front of 81,176 fans at Wembley Stadium on Oct. 28. "The game in London was undoubtedly one of the highlights of the entire 2007 season," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. "We had an overwhelmingly positive response to the event from all involved -- the teams, our sponsors and business partners and of course the fans themselves." Wembley officials weren't so ecstatic because the game, played through a persistent drizzle, tore up the field and left it in rough shape for England's crucial European Championship qualifier against Croatia on Nov. 21. The English lost that game 3-2 and failed to qualify for Euro 2008. Besides Wembley, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, is another possible venue for next season's game. In 2006, NFL owners agreed to play one or two regular-season games outside the United States for the following five years. The Dolphins and Giants essentially volunteered for the 2007 game and are not expected to be asked to return in the near future. AP

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