NFL MEETINGS : Tagliabue Comes Up 3 Votes Short of Selection

The National Football League’s owners are still three votes shy of electing anyone as commissioner.

Last summer, needing 19 votes to win, Jim Finks could get only 16.

And in the balloting here, Paul Tagliabue could get only 16 Tuesday, when Finks dropped to 11.

The numbers suggest that Tagliabue, an NFL lawyer, might finally be selected on an early ballot today, after the voting resumes at 6 a.m., PDT.

But that isn’t necessarily so.

The Finks 11 seem solidly behind their candidate, a 30-year NFL man who runs the New Orleans Saints’ front office.

The Tagliabue group, while larger, seems softer. Five of the 16 Tagliabue voters on Tuesday’s final ballot abstained on one or more of the day’s earlier ballots.

They finally chose the Washington lawyer not necessarily because they want him, but simply in a futile try to break the impasse.

Raider owner Al Davis, who was here for a while, checked out early, enabling the 27 who remained to split, 16-11.

San Diego Charger President Alex Spanos also departed Tuesday night, meaning that only 26 ownerships will be represented this morning, with 19 votes still needed to elect. Spanos had voted for Tagliabue.

The other Southern California club owner, Georgia Frontiere of the Rams, also voted for Tagliabue.

Outgoing Commissioner Pete Rozelle said the league has several options:

--Conceivably, either Finks or Tagliabue could withdraw.

--Both could be shelved while the league hunts for a compromise candidate.

--Both could be included in a restructured NFL leadership plan of some kind.

--One could be elected.

Restructuring isn’t likely today. But Tagliabue’s backers--largely drawn from the ranks of new owners who have been fighting the old-guard owners since last March--were quietly contacting compromise candidates during the day.

They were on the phone with, among others, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp and New Jersey Meadowlands Manager Robert Mulcahy.

“If (the owners) can’t decide between the two candidates (today), they’ll have to go outside for somebody else,” Rozelle said. “We have no other choices.”

But first, at a Cleveland hotel, Rozelle and the leaders of the Tagliabue group were spending early Wednesday trying to convert at least three of the Finks voters they needed to break the deadlock.

Finks’ backers argue that Tagliabue’s backers don’t really want Tagliabue, they’re just against Finks.

But Tagliabue’s backers don’t appear to be against Finks as much as they seem to be against the old-guard committee that originally nominated Finks last July.

There wasn’t a single vote for Tagliabue at either of the first two meetings the league has had in its seven-month hunt for a new commissioner.

The current 11 Finks backers include club owners from Chicago, Phoenix, New Orleans, Washington, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Cleveland, Atlanta and the New York Giants and Jets.