National Football League Players Association

Three more years of labor peace, and the NFL will have gone a quarter-century without a work stoppage. But don't buy that anniversary cake just yet. A lockout could be looming. DeMaurice Smith, newly appointed executive director of the NFL Players Assn., said as much Monday in a visit to Indianapolis Colts training camp. He told reporters he expects team owners to lock out the players when the current collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2010 season. Tough talk?

ATLANTA -- NFL owners voted unanimously Tuesday to shorten their collective bargaining agreement with the players' union. That doesn't mean a work stoppage is in the offing -- that would come three seasons from now in the absence of a new deal. But what it does mean is that the 2010 season will be played without a salary cap if the sides cannot reach an agreement before then.

A federal jury in San Francisco on Monday ordered the NFL Players Assn. to pay $28.1 million in damages to retired players after determining that the union had ignored contracts covering reimbursement for use of their images in such things as video games and sports trading cards. The civil court award included $7.1 million in actual damages and $21 million in punitive damages.

The head of the NFL players' union indicated Friday that he would give serious consideration to a three strikes-type program for players who repeatedly run afoul of the law, one that includes penalties similar to those in the league's drug policy. The idea was proposed a day earlier by a group of players who met at an Indianapolis hotel with Commissioner Roger Goodell and team owners Dan Rooney of Pittsburgh and Pat Bowlen of Denver, members of the league's Conduct Advisory Committee.

It was difficult to imagine how the war of words between dissident retired NFL players and their former union could get much hotter. That is, until NFL Players Assn. Executive Director Gene Upshaw suggested last week in an interview what he'd like to do to fellow Pro Football Hall of Fame member Joe DeLamielleure for complaining about the modest union-provided health and pension benefits awarded to some NFL retirees.

NFL Hall of Fame members Mike Ditka and Joe DeLamielleure continued their war of words with NFL Players Assn. boss Gene Upshaw on Monday, and introduced hobbled former offensive lineman Brian DeMarco, 35, as a prime example of the union's indifference to the medical needs of scores of ex-players. "This is unacceptable," Ditka thundered at a news conference organized by Gridiron Greats at his Chicago restaurant. "We are past having committees. It's about right versus wrong. Do the right thing.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and players union chief Gene Upshaw sat side by side Tuesday and detailed a planned coalition that will try to ease suffering among former athletes who have fallen on hard times. Their joint appearance at the NFL Players Assn. headquarters here was an attempt to calm what has been an escalating battle of words.

The increasingly bitter feud over NFL retiree benefits for aging NFL veterans took an unexpected turn on Friday when a nonprofit group that has been helping down-on-their-luck retirees distanced itself from its founder. The Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund that former Green Bay Packers star Jerry Kramer created in February issued a news release that took issue with Kramer's apparent willingness to work with the NFL and NFL Players Assn.

WASHINGTON -- Responding to often-emotional testimony, several U.S. senators Tuesday threatened to step in and fix the NFL's pension and medical disability program if league and players' union officials don't quickly improve the system -- one that retirees increasingly describe as dysfunctional. The possibility of congressional oversight came during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in which NFL Players Assn.

WASHINGTON -- Gene Upshaw, head of the NFL Players Assn., sat in a meeting room at the union's headquarters Wednesday and explained why the names of four retired NFL players were buried in his testimony to the Senate Commerce Committee the day before. In that testimony, Upshaw had asked Congress to alter a seemingly arcane part of federal law governing pension and disability plans -- a change that would give the union control of the board instead of sharing it with the NFL.