Tentative Deal Reached on Labor Deal

[12thMan]

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and Players Association chief Gene Upshaw have reached a tentative agreement on a labor settlement that will be presented to the sport's team owners for approval during a meeting scheduled to begin Tuesday afternoon in Dallas, a source familiar with the proceedings said this morning.

Negotiators for the two sides will resume talks today to put the details of the agreement between Tagliabue and Upshaw into writing, the source said.

The deal would have to be approved by at least 24 of the 32 NFL teams to go into effect. Details of the proposed settlement were not immediately available.

On Sunday morning, the deal appeared to be on the verge of getting done when Upshaw indicated that he thought the owners and the union were close. Negotiations resumed just after 11 a.m. in New York, and union officials still thought around noon that an agreement with the owners was within reach. But they said that the owners backtracked in their proposals from there -- while the league said it offered to increase player compensation to unprecedented levels -- and negotiations broke off around 6:30 p.m.

Upshaw and other union representatives headed to dinner, saying they had no plans for the deliberations to resume before the scheduled opening of the league's free agent market at midnight. Clearly, however, something was up. The two sides had agreed around 5 p.m. to postpone a 6 p.m. deadline until 10 for teams to release players to get under the $94.5 million-per-team salary cap. After the negotiations broke up, the deadline was pushed back again until 11:30. Why push back the deadline if negotiations were dead? Obviously, they weren't.

The owners and Tagliabue conducted a conference call and, according to Upshaw, the union's leaders received a phone call saying the league would put the players' latest proposal before the owners for a ratification vote during a meeting in Dallas scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. Tuesday. At that point, Upshaw said, the league and union agreed to a second three-day postponement of the opening of free agency, now scheduled for 12:01 a.m. Thursday. Teams now have until Wednesday night to be under the salary cap; if they must release players to do so, those moves must be completed by 9 p.m. Wednesday.

This morning's development means the owners will now vote on an approved deal instead of a proposal.