NFL MEETINGS : Owners Talk of More Regional Scheduling

The arrival of labor peace this year has left the NFL with one remaining major problem, the thorny issue of realignment, and at their annual meetings here Wednesday, the club owners addressed it.

They considered a proposal to realign not the teams but the schedule.

It’s the hot new idea and when it is implemented, some owners say, it will build more public interest by creating more regional rivalries for each NFL franchise.

For example:

--In a Far West rearrangement, the Rams would retain their present divisional opponents and add home-and-home games each year against the Raiders and, perhaps, the San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos.

--The Raiders’ new home-and-home opponents could be the Rams, San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys, Phoenix Cardinals or Houston Oilers. Present Raider rivalries with AFC West opponents would be undisturbed. The club would simply add more regional games.

“With this kind of realignment, you’d keep division (membership) the way it is now,” Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said. “Team won-lost records would be (computed) as they are now. The change would simply (substitute some regional opponents for some present scheduling).”

Some fans can’t see much rhyme or reason to the present system. The Rams, during their 16-game regular season last year, played four AFC East teams--Buffalo, New England, Miami and the New York Jets--although there has never been any rivalry with any of them.

“The tough thing is that we had to travel across the country to play two Eastern teams in the first three weeks,” Ram Coach Chuck Knox said.

“Everybody talks about expansion,” Phoenix owner Bill Bidwill said. “But the name of the committee is the Expansion and Realignment Committee, and I hope we’ll get some tangible evidence on realignment as well as expansion at our next meeting.”

That will be in two months, when the NFL will consider its future as a 30-team league with the incorporation of two expansion clubs this fall. The new teams will begin play in 1995.

Said Knox: “The schedule realignment plans I’ve heard have a great deal of merit.”

Everybody has a plan. And, said Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones, there are many ways to do it.

“You could play regional home-and-away games the way college teams do,” Jones said. “We could have Houston at Dallas one year, and we’d be at Houston the next year.

“Or you could play home-and-home games with two or three regional teams each year. I can’t begin to tell you how much our fans would love to see the Cowboys playing home-and-home every season with Houston, New Orleans and Kansas City.

“Or you could have a combination of home-and-home and home-and-away regional scheduling.

“We should work out our new plans with the networks when we start our new TV contract in 1994. And the time to begin regional scheduling is 1995, as soon as the two new teams come in.”

When the NFL is a league with six five-team divisions in 1995, the following basic system would work for each franchise, Jones said:

--Eight games, home and home, against division teams. In Dallas’ division, the Cowboys would play these eight games as usual against Washington, Philadelphia, Phoenix and the New York Giants.

--Six games, home and home, against regional teams. For Dallas, these might be Houston, New Orleans and Kansas City or the Raiders.

--Two games against other NFL opponents, enabling every team in the league to meet every other team at least once every 14 years.