NFL MEETINGS : Owners Weigh the Cost in Giving Up Replays

Across the country, the instant-replay debate continued to take many people’s minds off their real problems Thursday as the NFL headed into an uncertain and what some see as a potentially disastrous future.

Almost every sports fan seemed to have an opinion on the end of instant-replay officiating, at least for next season, and within the league, which concluded its five-day convention in the Arizona desert, criticism of the move was widespread.

“It will be disastrous this year for the league as well as the team that loses a big game on a (call) that should have been reversed,” General Manager Charley Casserly of the Washington Redskins said.

“We play in a lot of hostile stadiums, and I can see the fan reaction now when an instant replay goes up on the stadium screen (apparently) proving the home team was (wronged). If the (disputed call) is made in the last quarter of a close game, you’ll have fans going wild. I don’t know how the (club owners) could have done this to (themselves).”

It was done under the NFL’s voting rules by 11 of the 28 owners.

Instant-replay proponent Don Shula, coach of the Miami Dolphins said: “You can’t correct every wrong in this world, but in our part of it, we were at least trying.”

To NFL-bashers both in and out of the league, the unexpected reversal on instant replay was symptomatic of what has gone wrong with an organization that used to do so many things right.

Many of the owners, having agreed to pay many millions for their franchises, are heavily in debt and facing multimillion-dollar interest payments annually.

This burden, their critics say, influences their attitude on almost every NFL issue.

“Not that instant replay costs that much,” one owner said. “But it is a cost that (some owners) resent.”

He said his partners fear free agency even more, leading them to delay arrangements for a collective bargaining settlement with the NFL Players Assn. That settlement is doubtless a precondition for--among many other matters--the NFL expansion program that is twisting in the wind.

The owners spent most of the week trying to agree on whether to extend their five-network television contract from 1993 to 1994-95. The networks apparently are willing to extend it, paying the NFL about $950 million a year, if the clubs will scale back to that figure by ’93.

“There are just four or five (owners) against it,” Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said.

Raider owner Al Davis, the only active Hall of Fame member in club management except for Kansas City Chief owner Lamar Hunt, said: “If there were just four or five, the (extension) would have passed this week. There are at least 10 teams that want more like $36 million (per club per year) than the (proposed) $34 million.”

Among people juggling those kinds of numbers, the instant-replay issue this week was merely another small headache.

NFL Notes

Starting his third year as commissioner, Paul Tagliabue characterized the negative instant-replay decision as an action giving the NFL “a one-year breathing period”--meaning he expects replays to be restored a year from now. . . . He said he will spend much of the off-season abroad on World League and other NFL business. One trip will take him to Barcelona, “where I hope to see some of the (Olympic) basketball,” he said. Tagliabue is a former college basketball player. . . . The owners will take another vote on a TV contract extension in Dallas on March 30. They will try to make the other decisions that eluded them this week at their May 20 meeting in Pasadena, where the first order of business will be finding Super Bowl hotel suites. The next Super Bowl will be at the Rose Bowl on Jan. 31. . . . Reporting on “No Fun League” business, Tagliabue said the NFL has decided to be more lenient on players who celebrate touchdowns. But, he said, there will be more fines for players guilty of taunting and other excessive non-scoring celebrations.