He’s Hoping to Bring NFL Back to L.A.--and Elway

They were sitting together in a Hyatt Regency suite, discussing the on-line sporting goods venture they launched Wednesday with Michael Jordan, when Wayne Gretzky asked John Elway for a favor.

“John, will you bring a team to us? We really need football in L.A.”

Considering that it was Gretzky’s 39th birthday, Elway wanted to make him a promise. But he did all he could for Los Angeles last year, agreeing to oversee the football operations, much as Jordan is overseeing basketball operations with the Washington Wizards, if the Eli Broad-Ed Roski or Michael Ovitz-Ron Burkle groups could secure an expansion team.

Elway didn’t commit to one over the other because the NFL wanted him involved with whichever one prevailed.

“With my father coaching and me playing all those years, last fall was going to be the first one in my life when I wasn’t going to be going to games on either Saturday or Sunday,” he said.

He didn’t have second thoughts about his retirement from the Denver Broncos. He said the only time he even felt an urge to return was last Sunday, when he watched the AFC and NFC championship games on television.

“If I did miss something, it was the excitement on the faces of the guys after they won, knowing they were going to the Super Bowl,” he said. “That’s the only time it has hit me.”

But the front office appealed to him.

“I told myself that if the opportunity was right I’d consider it,” he said. “I knew in L.A. that I would be getting into a situation that was all-consuming. But I got to the point where I wanted it to happen, and I really thought it was going to work. When you look at the size of the market and the weather, L.A. would be a great franchise if you do it right.”

The NFL chose Houston for its 32nd team instead. Elway said, however, that he would welcome another call from Los Angeles. After all, he didn’t win in his first three trips to the Super Bowl.

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Gretzky seemed embarrassed when presented a cake by Elway and Jordan during a news conference to announce their involvement in MVP.com. . . .

But he recovered quickly, saying, “I was fortunate enough to grow up watching these two guys play.” . . .

Jordan said new Dallas Maverick owner Mark Cuban didn’t ask him for advice on whether to sign Dennis Rodman. . . .

“I wish him the best of luck if he does decide to hire Dennis,” he said. “He’ll have his hands full.” . . .

Mike Martz, St. Louis’ offensive coordinator, denied that the Rams went into the Tampa Bay game with a conservative game plan. . . .

But he said that quickly changed after Kurt Warner threw an interception on the first play from scrimmage. . . .

“We were a little jittery,” he said. . . .

If Warner was nervous in the NFC championship game, imagine how tight he might feel in the Super Bowl. . . .

Martz, who has been guaranteed that he will be become the Ram head coach when Dick Vermeil retires, said he is not reveling in the attention he has received as the genius behind the team’s success. . . .

“You would think people would get tired of hearing about Mike Martz,” he said. “I know I am.” . . .

He reminded reporters that he wasn’t so well considered when he was Larry Marmie’s offensive coordinator at Arizona State. . . .

“That was his big opportunity as a head coach, and we weren’t good enough to allow him to keep his job,” he said. . . .

How many high schools can claim that they currently have one alum coaching in the NFL and another managing a major league baseball team? One is Taft High in Woodland Hills. They are Jeff Fisher with the Titans and Larry Dierker with the Houston Astros. . . .

Titan tight end Frank Wycheck said the team was at its lowest two years ago when it played in its first temporary home in Tennessee, the Liberty Bowl in Memphis. . . .

“We played in front of 50,000 fans one game, and 40,000 of them were cheering for the Raiders,” he said. . . .

The Titans are still not Tennessee’s team. A Knoxville News-Sentinel poll before they played Indianapolis in the AFC divisional playoff revealed that 65% of 500 respondents were pulling for favorite son Peyton Manning and the Colts.

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As screenwriter William Goldman once said about Hollywood, nobody knows anything about the NFL.

At this time last year, after quarterback Chris Chandler had led the Atlanta Falcons to the Super Bowl, the conventional wisdom was that Fisher was shortsighted because he let Chandler go in 1998 and turned over the team to Steve McNair.

Now that McNair has led the Titans to the Super Bowl, Fisher is lauded for his vision.

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Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.