Pro Football / Bob Oates : Rozelle’s Reasons for Stepping Down Become More Clear

For National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle, this is an “anniversary” week. It has now been five months since his announcement in Palm Desert last spring that in his 30th year in office, he wants to retire, two years early.

With the passing of time and the continuing inability of his old associates to agree on a candidate to replace him, Rozelle’s reasons for wanting to step down have become clearer.

He had discovered that the 70-year-old league, with 13 new club owners as of the last 15 years, had evolved into a splintered, rancorous bunch that could no longer be effectively led, or even handled.

Though a celebrated compromiser, Rozelle had found that it was increasingly difficult, in an unwieldy, 28-team institution, to get the required 21-owner consensus on so much as the time of day.

His successor isn’t even in sight.

“Right now, if they found an authentic genius who’d take it, I’m not sure he could be elected,” Rozelle said from New York. “There would be (owners) who’d say: ‘He should know football.’ ”

The essential problem, Rozelle added, is that nobody can find a way to centralize the control in a league with disjointed ownerships.

It’s like Germany before Bismarck, when the German states were each autonomous, and proud of it.

“Everyone (in the league) wants control, every (owner) wants a say,” Rozelle said. “The individual clubs all want more and more input. You can’t get a consensus. That’s (the NFL) today.”

Does anyone wish to be an interim commissioner?

That question has been asked around the NFL lately, and the answer, apparently, is no.

Thus, curiously, it is Rozelle who has settled in as the league’s interim commissioner, between Rozelle and the next guy.

A bold leader for three decades--often called the most successful of all commissioners--he has become, since his retirement announcement, a caretaker with limited influence.

In a weak moment at last spring’s league meeting, though longing to be free, Rozelle had casually promised to stay on until the replacement commissioner came aboard. And the search committee had promised, he said, that that would be about Aug. 1.

“We put our (Rye, N.Y.) house right up for sale,” he said, speaking for himself and his wife, Carrie. “And when a buyer came around, that was it. You can’t mess around when you’re selling a house. You have to move out.

“So Carrie has gone to California with two of the children, and I’m living in a hotel. That’s the negative. The plus is no more commuting. The hotel is only seven blocks from the office.”

He said his family is in a rented house in Rancho Santa Fe, half a mile from where the Rozelles are building their new home.

“We’re enthusiastic about it,” he said. “It’s a Mediterranean-style place, a story and a half. Our bedroom and Carrie’s office will be upstairs.

“I’ve never built a house before, and I’m looking forward to it. That is, I expect to enjoy it--if I get there in time to have any input.”

As to precisely when he’ll get there now, Rozelle doesn’t have the foggiest. The league has been in chaos since the original commissioner-search committee was formed last March.

Answering a question, he said: “The composition of the committee, that’s where (the problem) started. I didn’t select that committee.”

The two conference presidents, Wellington Mara of the New York Giants and Lamar Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs, selected it. And, choosing old-guard owners exclusively, they infuriated the newer owners--who were even angrier when they learned that the committee, after promising to submit a slate of three or four candidates, had recommended only one.

Even so, in July, Rozelle expected at least 19 teams to ratify the nominee, Jim Finks, the New Orleans Saints’ general manager.

“I thought the (committee) people had counted noses,” he said.

They hadn’t. And even with four replacement members on a new search committee, they still can’t get the necessary 19 votes for Finks, or anyone else.

“The strange thing is that after five months, there isn’t another strong candidate,” Rozelle said.

Norman Braman, president of the Philadelphia Eagles and a leader of the NFL’s new-owner insurgents, is speaking for most of his peers when he notes that nobody seems to be in a rush to bring in a new chief.

“There’s no gun at our heads,” Braman said from Philadelphia. “We’d like to accommodate Pete, but it’s more important to get the right commissioner than to get him today or tomorrow.

“Pete has built a solid (league) structure in New York. It will run well until this thing is settled.”

The reason the search is taking so long, the Philadelphia owner said, is that the original committee moved too fast, spending an insufficient amount of time probing the field of candidates.

“The new committee has broadened the search,” Braman said. “They’re going into (candidates) who should have been more seriously considered the first time around.

“All that takes time--but we aren’t unique. Most sports leagues take their time getting a new commissioner. Baseball was at it a year or so, as I recall, before they decided on Peter Ueberroth, and they had some advance notice.

“We didn’t. Pete’s resignation came as a bombshell.”

Artistically this month, the Raiders have looked like a team that could easily make the playoffs with Steve Beuerlein, if only they were as effective at all positions as Beuerlein is at quarterback.

In fact, they had that look early last season, for a while, when Beuerlein was their only quarterback. And he has improved.

What’s in doubt now is whether the rest of the Raiders have improved that much. In particular, they seem to be a team with problems in the offensive line and on defense.

The division in which they play, however, is full of other clubs with big problems so it should be very competitive in the AFC West.

For those who hate exhibition games, the season can’t start too soon. For those who love them, there will be a rare doubleheader this week on the final exhibition Saturday.

At the Coliseum: the Raiders vs. the Chicago Bears in the afternoon. At Anaheim: the Rams vs. the Detroit Lions at night.

The NFL’s newest offense, the run and shoot, hasn’t produced any victories this summer for the Lions, but the fault, if any, seems to lie with the execution, not the formation.

In the first exhibition weekend, the Lions outgained the entire league but lost by a point. Next, they were destroyed by nine turnovers. And in their third start, the Seattle tapes show, they were undone by nine dropped passes, eight of them thrown by rookie quarterback Rodney Peete.

When there are nine dropped passes, the offense is freeing at least nine receivers in the secondary, which is the object of any formation.

Teams so far have been rushing the Lion passer with six or more players, or, sometimes, covering Detroit receivers with five or six defensive backs.

“We put four cornerbacks on them,” Seattle Coach Chuck Knox said after a 13-7 Seahawk win.

Isn’t that a problem for run-and-shoot coaches--not knowing what defense they’ll face?

“That isn’t much concern,” said Lion assistant Mouse Davis. “The only real concerns are execution and personnel. We’re confident that we can move the ball when we have comparable personnel and execution.”

The holdouts of so many top-drafted rookies this summer have weakened clubs in every division, including the NFC West, where the Rams won’t instantly get the benefit of first-rounder Cleveland Gary. He will need practice.

A 225-pound running back from Miami of Florida, Gary plays the one position that seems to require upgrading if the Rams are to make their run at the Super Bowl this time.

With an improving quarterback, Jim Everett, and one great receiver, Henry Ellard, what the Rams need most is a comparably effective runner to balance the offense. And after a long holdout, Gary doesn’t figure to be that right away.

The Rams have had a 10-year history of arguing over money with holdouts. They’ve lost some good ones rather than pay up. But this situation seems to be a little different.

“There’s so much comparing of player salaries these days that in some cases, fear has just taken over,” said agent Leigh Steinberg.

“The agents are afraid of asking too little, and the teams are afraid of paying too much.

“If an agent doesn’t get the top dollar with this year’s rookie, he fears that he won’t get next year’s rookie as a client.

“If the owners pay more than they have to, they fear the scorn of other owners, and they fear that, next year, they will really have to pay up.”

Some owners are talking about one possible solution--a signing deadline. Players unsigned by, say, Aug. 1--any year--would go back into next year’s draft.

That would put the pressure on everyone to get it done, but only if the NFL Players Assn. agrees that it’s legal.