PRO FOOTBALL : Choice of Tagliabue Is Questioned

CHICAGO —  As the National Football League gets ready to elect a new commissioner next week in Cleveland--maybe--the favorite seems to be NFL lawyer Paul Tagliabue, a one-time longshot.

Tagliabue has come on fast since he emerged last week as the favorite son of the 13 owners who oppose the candidate of the 13 old-guard teams, Jim Finks of New Orleans.

But the Tagliabue faction, if it gets him, may wish it hadn’t.

“We’re having an all-out power struggle this year,” Mike McCaskey, president of the Chicago Bears, said at his office this week. “The main question is where we’re going to locate NFL decision-making authority from now on.

“And the one thing that comes through loud and clear in Tagliabue is that he strongly believes in centralizing power in the commissioner’s office.

“I’m not sure that that’s what the (anti-Finks) owners really want.”

Finks’ opponents include most of the club presidents who have bought into the NFL in the last 15 years--many in the last five years. And what they have clearly indicated in recent months is that they want more authority themselves.

“The sense I’m getting is that most (new) owners want more say in league affairs,” said McCaskey, a Finks supporter. “And it would be healthy for the NFL if more owners took more responsibility.

“But I wonder if they’re listening to (Tagliabue). I fear they aren’t focusing on what sort of commissioner he’d make.”

The irony, in other words, is that if the new owners reject Finks for Tagliabue, they will be rejecting a candidate who shares many of their views for one who doesn’t.

You will hear bunches of sweet talk when the new commissioner is installed. It will be announced that the new and old owners have smoothed out their differences.

But it won’t be so.

Into the foreseeable future, this is going to be a league with two factions. And the winning faction in the commissioner fight will be dominant.

Most fights in the NFL have been resolved when one owner or another has given in “for the good of the league.”

But the old-guard owners figure this is one time they can’t cave in, that the new owners don’t understand the for-the-good-of-the-league principle, that what they want is definitely not for the good of the league.

The linebacker who functions as the Chicago Bears’ coach on the field is Mike Singletary, who predicts that at Cleveland in their next start, the Bears will end their longest slump in five years--a two-game losing streak.

They’re worse than that--2-13--in Monday night games. Asked if that will worry him in chilly Cleveland Stadium, Singletary said:

“I don’t look on it as another Monday night game. I see it as another opportunity.”

Over the NFL weekend, the Rams lost in Buffalo and Chicago lost to Houston. That meant two good AFC teams beat two good NFC teams--for the first time this year--and in both instances, the problem was a failure of late-game defense.

But in Buffalo Monday night, the decisive problem lasted longer: The Rams couldn’t run the ball against the Buffalo defense.

On a night when Thurman Thomas gained 105 yards on 24 carries for the Bills, Ram starter Greg Bell was held to 44 yards in 21 carries.

That put so much pressure on the Ram pass offense that it misfired.

One of the sad things about American team sports is that upstanding young citizens must learn how to cheat to win.

In baseball, the outfielder who traps the ball must pretend that he caught it or risk ostracism by his teammates, not to mention the manager.

In football, one of the trickiest tactics for a good young quarterback to learn is the art of scientifically grounding the ball--throwing it away to make it look like a bad pass when, in fact, the objective is merely to avoid getting sacked.

The Bears lost a game last Sunday, for example, when the Houston Oilers twice intercepted discarded passes by young quarterback Mike Tomczak, who became the Chicago starter this year with the trade of Jim McMahon.

“I was trying to throw it away, and didn’t throw it away far enough,” Tomczak said bitterly this week. “You’re a professional athlete, you want to do the best job you can.”

In the art of cheating, the best Tomczak could do to the Oilers was terrible.

His problem is inexperience. He has only been in pro ball four years, and, previously, he hadn’t learned much about passing at Ohio State.

He could learn from quarterback Phil Simms of the New York Giants, a 10-year NFL man who made the four winning plays against Washington Sunday--two touchdown passes in the fourth quarter and two clever throwaways that kept the Giants going on both drives.

Under NFL rules, a passer may heave the ball into the stands to stop the clock, but not to prevent a sack. His team is not only penalized but loses the down if he intentionally grounds the ball.

Making the referee believe that it’s unintentional--that a throwaway is just a wild pass--is a fine art.

It’s immaterial where the potential receivers are. The officials will call it grounding if, in their judgment, the quarterback’s goal was to avoid a sack.

So Simms works on throwaway techniques every day.

To begin with, he was as naive as Tomczak, sometimes aiming an intentional incompletion too close to a defensive player--a mistake that often ends in an interception, as Tomczak learned.

Or, in his younger years, Simms was sometimes too obviously throwing the ball away, and the officials weren’t fooled.

In the Redskin game, he fooled them beautifully, twice.

“(Simms) is a master of that play,” Giant General Manager George Young marveled.

Every winning veteran quarterback is. It isn’t honest and it isn’t right, but it’s acceptable behavior in the NFL.

This is a season in which the better coaches are frequently asking their players to advance the ball on fourth down. They’re leaving their kickers on the bench when the percentages seem favorable for a run or pass on fourth and one.

There were many years when Giant Coach Bill Parcells called automatically for a punter or kicker on fourth down--but not this year.

Parcells went for it three times in the Redskin game Sunday and his players converted all three on drives leading to 17 points.

Gambler? Clever strategist?

Not really.

Parcells was just playing the new percentages, which show that in many field goal situations, NFL teams average more points after running or passing on fourth and one than when they kick the ball.

Of his three decisions, Parcells said:

“The first time, I don’t know if I can make a 51-yard field goal, and I don’t want to punt.

“On the others, if it’s one foot or two feet, I think you have a better chance than making a long field goal.”