Fifty years ago, striking NFL players picketed the Hall of Fame Game

Posted by author August 1, 2024 NFL

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Today’s NFL isn’t your father’s NFL.

That’s true with gameplay, but even more so with behind-the-scenes situations.

When the Hall of Fame Game kicks off in Canton Thursday, it will mark 50 years since players staged a 42-day strike where two teams – the Arizona Cardinals and Buffalo Bills – featured rosters of never wases in 1974.-

What were the NFL players seeking with the strike?

Frank Pitts, the Cleveland Browns player representative summarized it succinctly in a comment to the Associated Press.

“Basically, we are trying to get our freedom. We want to be treated like people in any other business,” he said in an article dated July 14, 1974.

Overturning what was known as the Rozelle Rule, which provided compensation for a team losing a player in free agency, thus limiting any player movement, was easier said than done, given the NFL owners held almost all the leverage in negotiations and there was a dismissive tone set by owners such as Joe Robbie of the Miami Dolphins:

“They want security none of us ever had,” he said. “I came up from the dust and the depression and for these people to say they have no freedom is news to me.”

The 1974 Hall of Fame Game in Canton: A tipping point?

It all came to a head with the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, July 27, 1974. From a newsletter from the Professional Football Researchers Association written by football historian Joe Zagorski:

There was a decided difference between what the fans typically see in a first exhibition game and whatthey saw in this game. The first game usually pits a bunch of rookies against another bunch of rookies after veterans get a series or two. But in this game, it was practically all rookies. The Bills lineup contained only two veterans while the Cardinals managed to suit up a total of 13 veterans. A total of 17,286 fans watched the Cardinals beat the Bills, 21–13, but what they really saw was the dysfunction of the NFL amid the current labor strife. This was definitely not what the league wanted to promote.

Players picketed the game and won minor concessions related to pay and pensions before heading back to their respective teams.

With that game, more cracks developed. Even before the heart of the preseason pragmatism dictated players’ moves. While most were onboard with what Ed Garvey, NFLPA executive director, was trying to accomplish, they recognized the reality of their situation.

“If you go back to camp too soon, you mess everything up. If I wait too long, I mess myself up,” Browns running back Hugh McKinnis said just as the strike got underway.

At the time, Browns starting quarterback Mike Phipps had set a deadline for returning to camp. Inevitably, as stars migrated back to camp, the players caved.

What did NFL players get in the strike settlement?

For retired Browns left tackle Doug Dieken, who served as a color commentator on the Browns radio network for years, the memories of a third-year lineman out of Illinois have developed haze.

“Third year in the league and I didn’t have a big clue about what was going on. I couldn’t even tell you who our union rep was then,” he said during a recent phone conversation. However, he is well aware of the significance of the strike.

It was an evolutionary step.

The players received more money in the form of salaries, concessions involving pension vestment, better medical and dental benefits with a final deal being signed in 1977. It was a stepping stone, Dieken said.

By the time the players’ next labor action happened in 1982, Dieken was a team representative. The players went on strike for 57 days that season, costing the schedule seven games.

That strike was another step, as was the 1987 work stoppage that saw replacement players don NFL uniforms.

One of the stated goals of that 1974 strike was free agency. It didn’t come until nearly two decades later in 1993.

George M. Thomas covers sports and popular culture for the Beacon Journal.