Gene Upshaw Stops Short Of Apologizing For Comments

NFLPA Exec Dir Gene Upshaw said that his comments last week about HOFer Joe DeLamielleure “weren’t intended to be threatening, but he didn’t apologize and said he won’t back down,” according to Charles Chandler of the CHARLOTTE OBSERVER. Upshaw, appearing on WTEM-AM's “The John Thompson Show” in DC, said, “There was no way there was anything threatening about it. ... It was basically telling him that, ‘If you hit me, I’m going to hit you back.’” DeLamielleure later said that he “didn’t accept Upshaw’s claim that his [comments last week] weren’t intended to be threatening.” DeLamielleure: “He got caught again. He thinks he’s going to try to bully me. It’s a tactic he uses” (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 6/8).