Gene Upshaw Reject Quotations

The NFL negotiators called us tonight to indicate that they will take our complete package to the owners for an approval vote on Tuesday. We have therefore agreed to extend the free agent deadline until midnight Wednesday in order to provide time for that vote to be accomplished. It was the NFL's previous rejection of our proposal earlier this evening that caused the talks to break down.

They gave us a new proposal, which was worse than their prior offer. Quite naturally, we rejected that proposal and saw no need to continue meeting.

They've taken the concept of designated gross revenue and changed it to total football revenue and basically come up with the same amount they're paying the players now, ... They have not made a proposal to us since we started this whole process. All they say is, 'We reject whatever you want.' Then they say what we want is too much. . . . Once we get to March 2006, when the league calendar starts, as far as we're concerned there's no need to make a deal. If that's what they want, we'll go there too.