Owners Don’t Reach Agreement

The NFL was still without a labor agreement after team owners met for most of Tuesday at Grapevine, Texas, without reaching any agreements.

Yet another deadline looms today, with owners trying to decide whether to accept the latest proposal by the players union.

A decision on whether to extend the collective bargaining agreement was unlikely to come down until close to the latest deadline of 5 p.m. PST today. Before making a deal with the union, the owners must resolve their own differences over expanded internal revenue sharing. If they don’t get that straight, a collective bargaining agreement is unlikely.

Much of the early hours of Tuesday’s meeting were spent listening to Commissioner Paul Tagliabue go through details of the union’s proposal. Then Tagliabue outlined revenue sharing, but there was no discussion before the owners broke for dinner.

“We haven’t punched anybody yet,” Pittsburgh owner Dan Rooney said.

League spokesman Joe Browne said Tagliabue had agreed with Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players Assn., that the owners would have a decision no later than today. That would come as the union, which is meeting in Hawaii, holds its executive board session.

Among those who supported Tagliabue was Oakland’s Al Davis, for decades the NFL’s most consistent maverick, who noted that the league has had enough of labor disputes.

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End Courtney Brown signed a contract extension with Denver through the 2009 season.... Dallas signed receivers Terrance Copper and Patrick Crayton each to one-year contract extensions.... Free-agent kicker Jeff Chandler signed a one-year deal with Cleveland.