NFL MEETINGS : Will Owners Give Tagliabue Replay?

Before choosing Paul Tagliabue commissioner last October, the NFL’s club owners argued for seven months.

They were a splintered, quarreling group in those days. And, in some ways, they still are.

Tagliabue will find the owners badly divided on the game’s two most pressing issues today in Orlando, Fla., when, for the first time, he calls the league’s annual convention to order:

--Should the NFL abandon instant-replay officiating? Electronic assistance is detested by many clubs, although it is favored in fan polls.

--Can the owners end their feud with the players by agreeing to a form of the NBA solution? The basketball owners and players made peace by agreeing to a payroll cap and limited free agency, measures some NFL conservatives call unacceptable.

As their winter meetings open, pro football owners will begin by applauding Tagliabue for the best thing he could possibly do for them: Make them much richer.

In hard-edged negotiating with commercial and cable networks, Tagliabue, in his first five months on the job, has managed to almost double the NFL’s annual TV income--from about $17 million a club last year to about $32.8 million this year.

The commissioner’s prestige has risen with every million he has fetched and, considering the structural innovations he has also brought to the league, he already stands as a leader with more respect than many others in sports today.

The question now is what he’s going to do with that prestige.

Can he achieve what he says is his first priority--labor peace?

Can he save instant replay?

The first answers should come during the week in policy sessions with the league’s 150 top decision makers--owners, coaches and administrators. And one of the first tests will be instant replay.

“(Replay officiating) is very popular with sports fans,” Norman Braman, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, said. “But most clubs are against it. We only voted for it a year ago out of deference to the wishes of (outgoing Commissioner) Pete Rozelle.

“I see the situation as exactly the same today. You hate to turn your back on either a commissioner who’s just leaving or one who’s just starting. So I think instant replay depends on how Tagliabue really feels about it. If he comes out strongly in favor, it will be tough to vote against him.”

Tagliabue said he will lobby to continue the replay system.

“I’m with the majority of fans,” the commissioner said. “I’m hopeful we can keep instant replay, rather than take a step back out of this electronic age in which we live.”

That possibility doesn’t bother George Young, general manager of the New York Giants.

“We’re still against it,” said Young, who, along with the Cincinnati Bengals’ Paul Brown, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Hugh Culverhouse and the Phoenix Cardinals’ Bill Bidwill, held out until the end last year.

They say they have more than the five additional nay votes they need.

But not Seattle’s.

“I don’t want to win a game on an official’s bad call,” Seattle Coach Chuck Knox said. “And I sure don’t want to lose one that way. To redress the obvious error, instant replay is the only answer.”

Eddie DeBartolo, owner of the San Francisco 49ers, said: “I think we have to have it in some version.”

If instant replay is the most significant issue to most fans, the player-owner stalemate is the most destructive to the league, in the view of most owners.

Said Braman: “A new collective bargaining agreement with the players has got to be our first priority. I hope to see a full-court press on that in Orlando.

“The (NBA solution) has been discussed informally in recent months (by NFL owners). Last week, especially. Most of us see it as at least an alternative. I hope we get it. I’m in favor.

“I’d say that if Tagliabue and the Management Council both get behind a form of the (NBA solution), the owners will vote for it.”

One surprise of the most recent Super Bowl week was the commissioner’s tour de force during the NFL’s annual showcase news conference on the Friday before the game. In his first appearance before a large assembly of reporters, Tagliabue made a strong, self-assured impression.

He has similarly affected most owners so far--in action as well as in conferences. Here are three typical Tagliabue innovations that will influence this week’s meetings:

--He has expanded the prestigious competition committee to get a broader look at game-related problems. To head it, he named the man who ran second to him in the voting last October, Jim Finks, general manager of the New Orleans Saints. In many respects, Finks has become an assistant commissioner.

----A Former Players Advisory Council has been organized to get a broader perspective on some of the stickier issues, from drugs to union matters. To head it, Tagliabue named successful Dallas businessman and Hall of Fame quarterback, Roger Staubach. The council will meet during the week with the commissioner and others.

--For the first time, a group of NFL officials will be brought to the winter meetings Tuesday to discuss rules and game problems with the coaches. The objective: More understanding all around.

Said General Manager Tom Flores of the Seattle Seahawks, who as a coach won two 1980s Super Bowls: “A discussion like that could be very important to the league if everyone comes into it with an open mind.”

Unless serious opposition develops in Orlando, Tagliabue will announce that the halftime break in NFL games is to be shortened this season from 15 to 12 minutes.

“(He) is concerned that longer games are becoming too commonplace,” Joe Browne, the NFL’s director of communications, said. “An occasional (long one) is all right, but the average last year was 3 hours 11 minutes. (Tagliabue) wants the pace of the game picked up.”

So do Monday night viewers in the East, for example. There, games can extend to nearly 1 a.m.

Browne said that to reach an average of 2:55 or 3 hours, the league may take the job of calling TV timeouts from the networks.

That would get commercials on the air quicker. In recent years, announcers, instead of promptly going to commercials, often have added superfluous minutes to the telecasts with talk and replays that could have been postponed.

NFL Notes

Fears that random steroid testing won’t fly in the U.S. judicial system have led Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to consider the alternative of more frequent testing, league publicist Joe Browne said. Players could be examined every other month, or even monthly, year-round. . . . Since Tagliabue calls street drugs a national social problem--and steroids a sports problem--there won’t be a similar NFL push on cocaine.

The first order of business in Orlando will be owner consideration of Tagliabue’s off-season moves, including the new TV contracts and revised postseason format--eight teams in four first-round games instead of four in two. New NFL public relations policy this winter has brought instant announcements when changes of that kind were in place. In other years, word was held for release at the winter meetings--leading to leaks and scoops that Browne says were unfair to most reporters.

Alabama linebacker Keith McCants and three other college juniors have been approved for the April draft, but the application deadline is March 22, and most are still thinking it over. . . . Competition committee recommendations on crowd-noise procedures, grasp-and-control calls, instant replay and rules changes will be made Wednesday, Browne said. New committee members are George Young of the New York Giants, Bill Polian of the Buffalo Bills, Tom Flores of the Seattle Seahawks and Coach Marty Schottenheimer of the Kansas City Chiefs, along with Jim Finks of the New Orleans Saints, Paul Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals and Coach Don Shula of the Miami Dolphins.

On Wednesday, the owners could award the 1993 Super Bowl to the Rose Bowl, San Diego or Phoenix. The next two Super Bowls are in Tampa, Fla., and Minneapolis. . . . Although expansion is a back-burner priority--scheduled behind labor peace, realignment and other issues--every city that has lost an NFL franchise will be represented at the meetings by lobbyists. In all, eight municipal delegations are expected.

ON THE AGENDA

Instant replay--Owners are divided on the issue of whether to abandon instant replay, but it appears to be doomed unless Commissioner Paul Tagliabue can make a persuasive case for retaining it.

Collective bargaining--Owners are divided on the issue of a salary cap and limited free agency, key elements to creating a proposal to present to the NFL Players Assn. in an effort to gain a contract before next season and avoid a possible strike.

Super Bowls--Owners will award the 1993 Super Bowl site. Among the contenders are the Rose Bowl and San Diego.

Expansion--At least eight municipalities will be wooing owners in hopes of obtaining an expansion team, as owners will discuss whether to expand and possible league realignment.