1974
In 1974, the veteran NFL players went on strike for five weeks, declaring “No Freedom, No Football,” but they received no concessions before reporting to training camp after a two-week “cooling off” period. The strike never resumed, and the NFLPA player representatives voted instead to pursue a previously filed lawsuit, Mackey v. NFL, which challenged the Rozelle Rule restrictions on free agency as a violation of the federal antitrust laws. The Rozelle Rule was a compensation clause that outlined that a team losing a free agent would get equal value in return. Player confidence in the NFLPA was weakened by the strike’s ineffectiveness. By 1975, fewer than half of players in the NFL were paying their union dues.