NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell hopes to get pact with players’ union soon

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Friday that team owners are committed to working out a collective bargaining agreement with players and are ready to engage in “intense negotiations” with the NFL Players Assn. to get one done.

The current deal expires after March 3, opening the door to a lockout that could threaten training camp and possibly games in the 2011 season.

Goodell, speaking at his annual pre-Super Bowl news conference, said he hopes something can be worked out “in the next few weeks.”

“This is the window of opportunity to get this done right,” he said. “Otherwise, uncertainty is going to seep into all of our operations ... I say, let’s get to work, let’s get an agreement that works for everybody.”

Goodell spoke on several other topics:

•On an 18-game regular season: “Repeatedly, the fans have said the quality of the preseason doesn’t meet NFL standards. That is one of the basis on which we started to look at the 18-and-two concept, by taking two of those low quality, non-competitive games and turn those into quality, competitive games that the fans want to see; they want to support.”

On the $700-million naming-rights deal for a potential stadium in downtown Los Angeles: “It’s obviously a positive development because it’s an important revenue stream, but even with that positive development the financing of the stadium in Los Angeles is still a very difficult proposition. We have to get the Collective Bargaining Agreement addressed in such a way as to make it so that it is a smart investment that can be financed so that we can create the kind of economic activity in Los Angeles that I believe can happen if we’re successful, whether it be in downtown or out in the City of Industry.”

On reports that Philadelphia quarterback Michael Vick was planning a Super Bowl party, and whether that was appropriate for a man with his past: “I spoke to Michael three times in the last two weeks about his schedule here — what he’d be doing. He has said that on numerous occasions people have been using his name about being involved in some type of party, but that he had no intention of participating in that.”

Pouncey won’t play

The Steelers ruled out Pro Bowl rookie center Maurkice Pouncey, who suffered a high ankle sprain in the AFC championship game and was hoping for a miraculous recovery in time for the Super Bowl. He will be replaced by second-year center Doug Legursky.

Before the official announcement was made about Pouncey, Packers Coach Mike McCarthy said his team wasn’t preparing differently for Pittsburgh’s offense either way.

“I don’t think their protection schemes or their run concepts will change very much based on who is playing center, because Ben Roethlisberger is going to make that offense go,” McCarthy said. “It will not change our approach, defensively, based on who is playing under center.”

sam.farmer@latimes.com