NFL Owners to Vote for Commissioner

Team owners will try again today to elect Pete Rozelle’s successor as commissioner of the National Football League.

Most of them believe that Jim Finks and Paul Tagliabue are the only viable candidates, and some believe that Tagliabue will win in what is scheduled as a two-day meeting here.

An NFL lawyer, Tagliabue got 13 votes earlier this month when 13 others voted for Finks, general manager of the New Orleans Saints.

Tagliabue has been coming up, and Finks has been going down after peaking with 16 votes at the first meeting July 6 in Chicago.

At Dallas two weeks ago, Finks lost one vote on the first ballot and two more on the final ballot.

It takes 19 to be elected.

Tagliabue is the choice of most of the 11 owners who blocked Finks at the Chicago meeting, although they weren’t so much for Tagliabue as they were voting against Finks.

The 16 who supported Finks in Chicago were led by Wellington Mara of the New York Giants and Art Modell of the Cleveland Browns. Mara is still in Finks’ corner but Modell seems to be wavering.

“The most important thing now isn’t just to elect a commissioner, it’s to reunify the (owners),” Modell said Monday.

Other formerly strong Finks supporters--Lamar Hunt of Kansas City and Mike McCaskey of Chicago--may also be shifting their support.

“I think we have two very good candidates,” Hunt said.

Said McCaskey: “We’re lucky to have two such good candidates.”

If they have now decided to switch votes, Tagliabue will be elected on the first ballot today, possibly before noon.

But with NFL owners, you never know. It took 26 ballots to elect Rozelle 30 years ago.