NFL Owners Leave Choice to Five-Man Committee

The National Football League’s owners ended another day of quarreling about who should be the next commissioner by appointing another committee Wednesday.

This one is a five-man committee whose mission is to decide unanimously in favor of either lawyer Paul Tagliabue or football executive Jim Finks.

If that can be done, the rest of the clubs will fall into line, and the new commissioner will be selected by noon, other owners predicted.

If it can’t be done that quickly, the committee will get six more days to come in with a verdict before the NFL’s next meeting in Dallas next Wednesday.

In Dallas, if the committee is still split, it would apparently lead to:

--The end of the line for both Finks and Tagliabue, who have been sharing the votes in recent balloting.

--The nomination and eventual election of somebody else.

That was Commissioner Pete Rozelle’s indication late Wednesday night. He said it isn’t 100% certain that another candidate would rise from the ashes, “but it’s likely.”

So for the present, in a novel effort to break the impasse, 23 of the 28 owners have abdicated, and left their fate up to five of their peers.

The five:

Wellington Mara of the New York Giants and Art Modell of the Cleveland Browns, representing the old-guard clubs supporting Finks.

Pat Bowlen of the Denver Broncos and Mike Lynn of the Minnesota Vikings, representing the league’s newer owners who have been fighting Finks’ selection since July and who have lately embraced Tagliabue.

The chairman is Dan Rooney of the Pittsburgh Steelers, formerly a Finks backer who defected to Tagliabue in the last few days.

“If these five people can agree on one man for commissioner, I’m sure we’ll get the (required) 19 votes from the other owners,” Rozelle said.

If they don’t agree unanimously, their work will have been in vain.

A split decision would merely perpetuate the pro-and-anti-Finks stalemate that has persisted through four special NFL meetings in three cities in the last four months--with a fifth meeting just over the horizon.

This is a league divided into two major factions--12 backing Tagliabue, an NFL lawyer, and 11 supporting Finks, the New Orleans Saints’ general manager.

The owners of the five other franchises--Detroit, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Green Bay and the Raiders--don’t much care who gets it. Most have either abstained in the balloting, or voted without much passion for Tagliabue.

Two days of wrangling in Cleveland ended when Rozelle proposed the new committee as a microcosm of the whole to continue the debating on a smaller scale around a smaller table.

“We weren’t getting much done with 28 people shouting at each other,” Modell said. “This gets the (fight) down to a manageable size.”

It also gets it down to some of the most prominent leaders of the two antagonistic factions.

“Finks will never be elected,” Bowlen said not long ago in Denver, echoing Lynn’s view.

Bowlen and Lynn speak for the three other powerful anti-Finks owners, Hugh Culverhouse of Tampa Bay, Norman Braman of Philadelphia and Eddie DeBartolo of San Francisco.

Also in the Tagliabue faction are Dallas, Miami, New England, Seattle, Indianapolis, Houston and the Rams.

“There is absolutely no other qualified candidate but Finks,” Mara said not long ago in New York, speaking for Modell, Ralph Wilson of Buffalo, Lamar Hunt of Kansas City, Ed McCaskey of Chicago and other owners in Washington, Cincinnati, Phoenix, San Diego and New Orleans as well as the New York Jets.

Rozelle, however, noted that Rooney, the committee chairman, once agreed with Mara and Modell--but changed his mind.

“I’m hopeful,” Rozelle said.

This is the third committee the league has called to work on selecting Rozelle’s successor.

The first, the original search committee, helped precipitate the current fight when it recommended only one candidate, Finks, although it promised to offer three or four.

The second committee also recommended Finks but gave the newer owners another candidate to rally around-- Tagliabue.

The third committee has the toughest job yet.