Kickoffs, Dead Time Headline NFL Agenda : Pro football: Proponents say ground-kick rule would make returns more entertaining.

Sports fans will get an answer to a sensitive question this week during the NFL’s annual convention in Phoenix.

Who runs the league--the coaches or the club owners--when it comes to playing-field rules and regulations?

Taking generally opposite sides of the argument over two proposed rule changes, the coaches tend to value personal job protection, among other things, while the owners value football as entertainment.

The two principal areas in which new rules are under consideration:

--Kickoffs. In pro games last season, fewer kickoffs were returned than at any time in the last 20 years, “although this is one of the most exciting plays we have,” NFL Vice President Joe Browne said the other day. The problem: soaring, end zone-bound kickoffs lofted from a tee. The obvious cure--kicking off from the ground--seems too radical for most coaches.

--Dead time. The NFL’s lengthy, legal, boring time delays, 45 seconds between plays, have resulted in longer games, fewer plays per game and fewer points. The obvious cure--shortening the legal period between plays from 45 to 35 or 37 seconds--is also opposed by many coaches.

Addressing the kickoff problem, Carl Peterson, president of the Kansas City Chiefs, said: “It would help to kick off from the 30- instead of the 35-yard line.”

Others say a ban-the-tee rule would help even more. The tee is an artificial device that was introduced to induce longer, higher kicks and shorter returns. It is without historical validity in football, which was a more natural game when the ball was kicked from the ground out of the hands of holders.

According to proponents, an NFL ground-kick rule would make kickoff returns more entertaining as well as more natural for two reasons: (1) the kicks would be shorter, and (2) only nine tacklers would be running down under the ball.

At the present time, most NFL games start quietly and languidly at the 20-yard line after the opening kickoff lands in or near the end zone. With a ground-kick rule--guaranteeing shorter kicks and longer returns--there would be more 40-yard returns in a sport in which long runs are always more spectacular, potentially, than any end-zone kneel-down play.

Don Shula, the Miami Dolphins’ coach who is the veteran member of the rules committee, said: “When we’ve brought it up, most coaches have opposed a (no-tee) rule.”

One reason for their opposition comes from the Raiders’ No. 2 executive, Al LoCasale, who said: “The kickoff return is a dangerous play. The more (returns) there are, the greater the injury potential.”

Another reason is that coaches don’t like surprises--such as uncertainty over kickoff length. They see it as a threat to their job security. They have more control over games in which most possessions start at the 20-yard line, providing 80 yards of maneuver room in which the opposing coaching staffs can make their leisurely calculations.

Along with most fans, however, most owners like livelier games, so they’ll argue it out with the coaches this week.

They’ll also vote on a 37- or 40-second clock to reduce the 45-second allotments of dead time that the coaches want between plays.

The 45-second rule--which, curiously, was voted in several years ago to speed up games--has backfired. The NFL’s average of 38 points a game last season was the lowest in 14 years. The average number of plays was also down to 147 from a 1987 high of 160.

Worst of all, the games, increasingly, have been dragging along while the coaches parlay their 45-second standaround periods to control the ball without even running it.

The average NFL game droned out to 3:01 last season by comparison with a 2:35 average in the ever more distant past.

If offense is the problem, as many believe, Denver Broncos Coach Dan Reeves has another kind of recommendation. Noting that the league’s noise-control attempts have been a crushing failure, Reeves said: “We need to do something to (help) the other offensive players hear the quarterback in the (bedlam of NFL) stadiums.”

Suggesting either amplification systems for quarterbacks or miniature helmet radios for all, Reeves reported that false starts and slow starts, influenced by the roar of the crowd, led to 35 road-game sacks of passer John Elway last season, contrasted with 11 at home.

“People come to see offense,” Reeves said.

He and others are hopeful that when the owners convene at noon today, that is what they’ll be thinking about.

NFL Notes

A system of using full-time officials is under consideration, NFL Vice President Joe Browne said, but not likely to happen. . . . He said 22 NFL officials will work World League games this spring. . . . The NFL expects a total of 125 club presidents and staff members in Phoenix, including all 28 coaches. . . . There have been 11 coaching changes, the most since the 1970s. Pressed to explain it, Ted Marchibroda, the new leader of the Indianapolis Colts, asked: “How many of those teams had losing records (last season)?” Answer: 10--all but the 8-8 Minnesota Vikings, who have replaced Jerry Burns with Dennis Green.

Of the 11 cities seeking NFL membership in 1994, three or more will be eliminated this week. . . . The front-runners seem to be St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn., or Charlotte, N.C. . . . Club executives continue to say privately that the NFL won’t expand without a collective bargaining agreement with the players. They say a handful of die-hard owners still won’t accede to reasonable free agency--which remains the stumbling block. . . . The official NFL position on expansion, Browne said, is, “It doesn’t turn in any rigid way on (labor peace).”

Is it NFL hypocrisy that has led the owners to Arizona? Not long ago, they blocked Phoenix as a Super Bowl site when the state voted down an annual holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said wearily: “As I’ve been saying, the Super Bowl is our (banner) event. It’s the controversy we didn’t want at Super Bowl time. We’ll meet in Arizona. We’ll play (regular-season games) in the state.”