No, not the great Walter Payton. Sean Payton, the current New Orleans Saints coach.
Just prior to the Bear-Saints NFC Championship game, Fox did a feature on Sean Payton's short stint as a replacement player during the the 1987 NFL strike season.
ESPN.com's Gene Wojciechowski also wrote about Sean Payton's short Chicago Bear career.
While time heals many wounds, replacement players have always been a touchy subject in professional sports labor issues. After the 1995 MLB strike, a few replacement players went on to become full-time players. Unions have not treated the replacements kindly. Replacement players are prohibited from joining the Major League Baseball Players' Association, although they can still receive pension benefits.
In 1987 replacement players were used by NFL management to weaken the players and their union. While the product was diminished by not having regular players on the field, as long as teams suited up 45 players, teams received television revenue.
The 1987 NFL players strike was over a critical issue -- free agency.
Prior to 1976, the NFL had free agency, but it was essentially meaningless because of the "Rozelle Rule," which awarded compensation to the team who lost a player to free agency.
Paul Staudohar analyzed the 1987 strike in the August 1988 issue of Monthly Labor Review and discussed the NFL's slow progress toward establishing a free market for players:
"In December 1975, however, the players' association won the Mackey case...the Federal Courts ruled that the Rozelle Rule was an unreasonable restraint of trade under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, because it acted as a deterrent to player movement in the NFL.
"With the decision in Mackey, NFL players could become free agents by playing out their option with the barrier of a compensation penalty to their team no longer in the way. However, in 1977, the union bargained away the rights won in the courtroom and agreed to method of determining compensation payments for signing free agents.
"The rationale for negotiating away free agency won in court is that fee agency may not be as meaningful in football as it is in other sports. The players gained increased pension and other benefits for giving up free agency, and felt it was a wise trade off."
Sean Payton was not the only current NFL head coach to make news during the 1987 strike. Then Kansas City Chief linebacker Jack Del Rio (now Jacksonville Jaguars head coach) got into a nasty fight with former Chief star Otis Taylor, who worked for the Chiefs as a scout. Taylor was escorting replacement players to practice.
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