NFL Expansion List Cut to Five; Oakland, Sacramento Out

Meeting in the Los Angeles area for the first time in a dozen years, NFL owners made only one change in the status quo Tuesday.

They eliminated Oakland and Sacramento from consideration as expansion-team sites in this century, leaving five in the running: St. Louis, Baltimore, Memphis, Tenn.; Charlotte, N.C., and Jacksonville, Fla.

“Those are the finalists,” Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said. “We expect to make a final decision this fall,” when two will be chosen.

Most owners seemed confident that, on the day the expansion teams kick off in the mid-1990s, St. Louis will be one of the two.

During their long day at a Pasadena hotel, the owners talked about the negatives and positives they see in each of the four other cities.

They also talked a lot about the problems they are having with their players. But on the long road to labor peace, they broke no new ground.

Their labor approach at this time, with the draft endangered and with more than 1,000 non-union veteran players suing them for free agency, was summarized by Hall of Famer Lamar Hunt, owner of the Kansas City Chiefs and president of the AFC.

“I’m concerned--but optimistic,” Hunt said after the meeting. “The game will continue in some form with or without free agents or the draft. Nobody wants pro football to go away.”

Regardless, the game will clearly take a different form if Freeman McNeil and seven other NFL veterans prevail against the owners in next month’s trial at Minneapolis, where they will charge that the owners conspired to restrict their rights as free citizens.

Asked if Tuesday’s meeting moved the league closer to peace with the NFL Players Assn., Tagliabue said: “We’re no closer than we were yesterday.”

The two groups signed their last collective bargaining agreement 10 years ago. They have been playing without an agreement for five years. Two different federal courts have agreed with the players that the NFLPA is no longer a labor union and that the provisions written into the bargaining agreement 10 years ago--including one authorizing the draft--no longer apply.

If another court reaffirms all that in the McNeil trial, the NFL is a different league--and yet, the dominant mood of the owners again this week seemed to be complacency. There seemed no sense of urgency.

“We could spend a few days at the beach and still get a (collective bargaining agreement) with the players before the (McNeil) trial (June 15),” Tagliabue said.

The NFLPA doesn’t see it that way.

“It was almost too late before the NFL’s meeting this week,” Doug Allen, the NFLPA’s assistant executive director, said from Washington. “One problem is that our only legal negotiators this year are the lawyers working on the McNeil case--and that’s taking all their time.

“Another problem is that even if (the owners) agree on free agency for all players after X number of years, they’ll couple it with 10 other things that we can’t get the answer to from all of the players on a day’s notice--or even a month’s notice.”

Said Raider owner Al Davis, when asked what’s holding up peace: “Intransigence on both sides.”

Before adjourning, the owners tabled a proposal to reduce game-day squads to 40 players this year.