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.
See "Upshaw Ready if Owners Opt Out of Pact", Dave Goldberg, San Francisco Chronicle, January 30, 2008