NEW YORK — A slate of NFL exhibitions with replacement officials went off with no major problems. Starting next week, though, the games are for real, mistakes will be magnified, and coaches and players will get a lot angrier about bad calls.

        “I thought they were great, they were fine,” Arizona coach Dave McGinnis said of the replacements after the Cardinals beat the Chargers 16-3 Friday.

        “They were very good. You could talk with them. I thought they did a nice job under some real tough circumstances.”

        McGinnis, of course, had gotten the league message about not criticizing replacements. His comments seemed genuine, as did the comments of players and other coaches.

        Basically, the official line was: “These guys are pros, too.”

        “I went into their dressing room after the game and thanked them,” Giants owner Wellington Mara, a member of the owners' group overseeing negotiations, said after his team lost to the Ravens on Friday. “I thought they did a good job handling the transition.”

        Take Mara's statement at face value.

        The NFL is playing hardball because it thinks it's in the right — and that the public thinks so, too.

        So the league is unlikely to move much from an offer that doubles the salaries of its officials by 2003.

        Its reasoning: Is there any other industry where workers would turn down a such a proposal?

        That was one reason commissioner Paul Tagliabue went over the heads of the NFL Referees Association leadership last week and mailed an appeal to all 119 officials, hoping to stir some dissent against the leadership by the rank-and-file.

        The union, on the other hand, seems ambiguous.

        In the days before the NFL lockout was announced, Tom Condon, the lead negotiator for the officials, continued to predict there would be a settlement, noting how most labor disputes aren't settled until the last minute. He reiterated that this weekend, saying he was willing and ready to resume talks at any time.

        In an effort to keep tensions down, the union decided not to picket any of the games this weekend, nor did it seek union support at games in such labor strongholds as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Detroit.

        But Ed Hochuli, the president of the organization, isn't optimistic.

        “There is a real probability that we still we be locked out for Week 1,” Hochuli, one of the NFL's top referees, told ESPN.com., citing the league's action doubling its guarantee for the replacements to four weeks at $2,000 a game.

        Hochuli, who is a lawyer, should study NFL history.

        NFL players went on strike in 1982, costing the league nine games and leading to a 16-team playoff format and a spoiled season.

        Five years later, when the players struck again, the league went for the jugular, bringing in replacements. The quality of the football was terrible and attendance in many cities was negligible, but the players caved after three games, winning the free agency they wanted in an antitrust suit settled five years later.

        “I still remember that very vividly,” former quarterback Boomer Esiason said this weekend during the telecast of the Jets-Eagles game. “If these officials think the NFL is kidding around, they're wrong. They're deadly serious. I know from experience.”

        There is a rough difference of 50-75 percent right now between the offer the owners have on the table and the counteroffer made by the officials. The owners aren't about to back down.

        If the regular officials want to work this season, the decision seems up to them.

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