NFL replacements part of history

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A persistent man with an offer was calling, but Robert Williams had to be practical. He was turning 25, and it was time to be an adult. He had a wife to think about, plus a couple of kids. He had a stable, albeit ordinary, job in Waco, Texas, and that was just fine. See, a time comes in every man's life when a dream dies, and Williams apparently had come to peace with that when his phone rang in the fall of 1987. If he could just … get this guy from Dallas … off the phone …

There are no endearing stories in the 2011 NFL lockout. Suits walk into a New York City hotel for a secret meeting, emerge with very little information, and the wait continues. It will all be over eventually, Gil Brandt says, and the season will go on as planned. He knows this because he's been through a few of these labor disputes. He know this because he was the persistent man on the other end of the line in 1987, trying to persuade Williams to play football again during another impasse.

It might sound strange, but Brandt was moved by the innocence of that season that has been called one of the darkest in the history of the NFL. For years, it was Brandt's job to evaluate NFL talent for the Dallas Cowboys, to sift through the piles of names and numbers and inevitably squash a few dreams. And there he was in '87, like Willy Wonka, handing out golden tickets. Back then, the NFL players' union went on strike, and the owners struck back. They would find somebody else to do the players' jobs.

The search for talent went everywhere, to grocery stores, bars and chewed-up semipro fields. One team, the Washington Redskins, picked up a quarterback on work furlough from prison. But most of the replacement players were young men in limbo, somewhere between college and whatever was supposed to come next.

"Those players kind of considered themselves a cult, almost," said Brandt, a former Cowboys exec who's now an analyst for NFL.com. "Four or five of them got together and bought a used car for 500 bucks so they had transportation. They were a self-reliant group is what they were. I think the hardest thing they had to do was find a coat and tie to wear on an away game when we went to play the Jets.

"It was refreshing. There were so many interesting, refreshing things that happened that year."

So many stories. Like the time receiver Cornell Burbage reached into the stands during a road game at New York, grabbed a package and placed it under the bench. It was a box of laundry Burbage's sister had washed for him. He couldn't afford to have his clothes cleaned at the hotel.

They were called scabs and were met with hostility, threats and profanity as their buses crossed the picket lines. Their following depended on the city. In union towns, the replacements were shunned. In places such as Dallas, some fans loved their grit and nicknamed them the "Rhinestone Cowboys." Nearly every replacement team wound up with some kind of revamped nickname, and they generally weren't nice. The Chicago Spare Bears. The Seattle Sea-Scabs. The New Orleans Saint Elsewheres.

When it was over, after a hastily arranged camp and three weeks of replacement games, hundreds of dreamers went back to their lives while the NFL churned on. A whole generation of fans doesn't know about them, or why asterisks appear alongside their names on old rosters. But to the replacements, it still means something. They're part of history.

Drama Central

The custom-made No. 25 Chiefs jersey with Jack Epps' name on the back does not hang in his spacious Overland Park, Kan., office. His wife bought the jersey for him, and he keeps it at home. Had Epps known 24 years ago that his football career would end so abruptly, with a few hurried goodbyes in a dazed, cluttered locker room, maybe he would've stolen his sweaty jersey as a keepsake. He sure as heck wasn't going to pay $100 for it, which is what the Chiefs wanted to charge for the mementos.

Whatever. Epps has all the memories he needs in his office. He walks to a window, near a picture of Vince Lombardi.

"See the lights that come up over that hotel?" Epps said. "That's a football field down there. That's where I played in high school. This is why I love this spot."

It is late in the afternoon on a scorching June day, and Epps, dressed in a crisp white shirt and tie, is busy. He's a lawyer now with two daughters who dance and act and have little interest in football, so he doesn't get to talk much about the old days. He eases into his seat and lets his phone ring for a bit.

Kansas City might be a sterile, scrubbed-down NFL town now, but in '87 it was Drama Central. There were shotgun-toting picketers and repeated attempts to scare the newbies. The night before their first replacement game in Los Angeles, the aftershocks of an earthquake jolted their team hotel. Towers swayed, and a "Do not panic" announcement was made over the speakers.

"All the players ran out in the hallway," Epps said. "We didn't know what to do. We were all guys from the Midwest."

But Epps was unflappable and stubborn. He believed, with all his heart, that he was good enough to make it. A year before the strike, in 1986, the strapping safety from Kansas State did make it with the Chiefs. But he broke his ankle near the end of the preseason, then spent the year breaking down film with the coaches. He was in Tampa Bay's training camp in 1987 and didn't escape the final cut.

So he went home to K-State, three weeks after the semester started, and begged to get into his graduate school classes. Shortly after the dean said yes, Epps was gone again because when the NFL calls, you can't hit "ignore." He immediately took off for fast-food two-a-days in Kansas City. They had a little more than a week to go over fundamentals, conditioning and, oh, the game plan. Some of them hadn't sniffed a field in a year.

Most of the joy Epps felt about playing football again was doused by guilt. He'd been with the team all summer in '86. He understood the players' plight. One time, the bus rolled into Arrowhead Stadium and a protester yelled, "Jack! Not you!"

"We weren't looking for a fight," Epps said. "I think everybody on the bus had the same kind of attitude. That lightning struck me, and I have the opportunity to play football again."

And they did have fun. Because of the volume of information the replacements had to learn, they spent nearly every waking moment together and became very close in a short period of time. Epps reunited with Doug Hoppock, an ex-USFL player who had been a teammate at K-State. He also became pals with former Iowa State quarterback Alex Espinoza, an old Big Eight foe. Espinoza jokingly called Epps "Cheap Shot" because of a hit he laid on him in college. The laughs were short-lived.

By mid-October, a number of veterans were crossing the picket lines to play, and the end was looming. The Broncos beat the Chiefs 26-17 on Oct. 18, and Chiefs coach Frank Gansz huddled the team together in the locker room. He told them that the players were coming back and that some of the replacements would be here next week but most of them wouldn't. Thanks for coming in to help us, Gansz said.

The locker room was quiet. The replacements were sweaty and worn out. Epps packed up his belongings because that's what Gansz told everybody to do.

"But I never dreamed I was done playing football," Epps said. "And I think this is a mark of those guys who played. You don't really think you're done until you kind of … I mean, there's got to be the coffin nailed and shut. I told somebody one time they couldn't just cut me, they were going to have to drag me out of the locker room, throw me out, take my pads away, take the football and tell me I'm done. That's pretty much what happened."

A week later, Epps got a call from a front-office person who officially told him he was done. The Chiefs did think enough of him to offer Epps a part-time scouting position. He couldn't take it. He couldn't close that door.

Years passed, and Epps eventually used the money he earned as a replacement to pay for law school. He got married and had kids. He told them to give everything to anything they're passionate about.

"I was maybe in kindergarten or first grade when I told my dad and my brother I was going to play in the NFL," Epps said. "It was very short-lived, but I guess I can count it."

Money was a lure

Media accounts from the fall of 1987 tell the story of a 24-day strike that started with great passion. In Houston, the striking Oilers hurled eggs at a bus carrying the replacements and broke a window with a rock. In various cities, angry players stood in front of vehicles to prevent entry into stadiums.

The Associated Press wrote that Chiefs tight end Paul Coffman and linebacker Dino Hackett jokingly yelled, "We're looking for scabs!" as they waved unloaded shotguns outside of Arrowhead Stadium.