| Early on in my drive to the NFL owners meeting a few days
ago, the late Jim Croce was crooning on the radio about the prospect of putting time in a
bottle. With the Memorial Day weekend just hours away as I write this, Croce’s
words continue to linger in my mind. To a very real extent, the NFL powers-that-be put
time in a bottle this week in the process of finalizing the league’s realignment
plan, set to begin in the 2002 season, as more than a few owners and league officials
credited a strong sense of NFL history for expediting the process.
An air of almost wistful nostalgia hovered over the lobby and meeting rooms at the
Hyatt Regency O’Hare in the league membership’s last scheduled get-together
until October.
A case in point:
While I was patiently waiting around in the lobby along with the rest of the national
media on hand for the second day of these proceedings, Joe Browne, the longtime right-hand
man of commissioner Paul Tagliabue, and Pete Rozelle before Tags, emerged from a
closed-door meeting and caught my eye. He walked slowly toward me, smiling, nodding his
head ever so slightly.
"Dan," he said softly, "I’m looking at you, and I can see your
father standing in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel in New York at these same late-spring
meetings 30 years ago. Where has the time gone?"
That’s a great question, Joe, one that I ask myself quite a bit these days. With a
32-team league right around the corner with all kinds of new touches, circa 2001, the
changes have come fast and furious.
Yet, at the same time, there are still quite a few things that haven’t changed.
Old-guard owners such as Dan Rooney, Art Modell and Wellington Mara are still making their
presence felt in a big-time way, commanding the utmost respect from their ownership
brethren.
Tagliabue emphasized in his first-day briefing at this owners meeting that a sense of
history by the likes of Arizona’s Bill Bidwill and Seattle’s Bob Whitsitt was in
no small way responsible for nailing down a new realignment plan more than two days
earlier than initially expected. Both Bidwill and Whitsitt went out of their way to
explain how much they were influenced by the major sacrifices Rooney and Modell made in
1969, the last time there was a wholesale realignment, when the Pittsburgh Steelers and
the old Cleveland Browns agreed to switch conferences "for the good of the
league."
In a different vein, there was another unmistakable comparison to days gone by at this
meeting — the overwhelmingly negative feelings toward rebellious Raiders owner Al
Davis, who in the wake of his foiled $1.2 billion lawsuit against the league has become
more of an outcast than perhaps at any time in the league’s history.
Davis, it seems, has always prided himself on being a thorn in the side of the league,
sometimes for good reason. At this meeting, though, it appears he might have burned a few
too many bridges to ever get back into the loop, to the extent it appeared he had the last
couple of years — before filing a lawsuit that ticked everybody off to no end, old
guard and new guard alike.
The guess here is that the animosity toward Davis is only going to heighten in the
coming days and weeks. NFL bylaws state that Davis should be responsible for paying the
league’s legal fees in his latest lawsuit — a fee said to be in the neighborhood
of $10 million. The chances that Davis won’t put up a fight in this regard are about
as likely as the Chicago White Sox winning the pennant this year. You could also probably
bet your bottom dollar that Davis and his lawyers will appeal the latest ruling and
continue to irritate the hell out of his colleagues.
And probably enjoy doing it too.
If history prevails, it wouldn’t be surprising if Davis’ Raiders go on to
have a slam-bang season and perhaps make it to the Super Bowl, the same way they did back
in 1984, when Davis’ legal battles with the league shared the national spotlight.
If I could put time in a bottle, though, I’d rather not see that happen.
Davis has become an anachronism worthy more of our pity than any semblance of respect.
In my mind, his time has definitely passed.
Sadly, there are 31 other guys right now who I’m pretty sure feel the same way.
Related stories:
Owners mull sanctions against Raiders' renegade
boss
League quickly approves realignment
Arizona, Seattle OK with move to revamped NFC
West
Agrest: Commend owners for job well done |
