The expansion pick won't end the chaos

Sporting News, The, Nov 29, 1993 by Chris Mortensen

When the NFL convenes Tuesday to select its 30th franchise, the expansion soap opera won't end. Questions will continue to abound.

If St. Louis doesn't get a team, will James Orthwein move the New England Patriots there? If Baltimore gets shut out, do the Rams or Bengals come calling? If Jacksonville is passed over, does it woo the Buccaneers? If Memphis fails, can it attract a team?

That doesn't even take into account the possibilities of lawsuits from the likes of Leonard (Boogie) Weinglass in Baltimore and Fran Murray in St. Louis.

There also is a possibility that NFL owners will announce Tuesday that a new study will commence immediately to determine whether the league should expand by two more teams by 1997.

In fact, a few owners want to make the commitment now for two additional teams in 97, but other owners are more cautious. New Orleans Owner Tom Benson, the chairman of the finance committee, says the league should wait until it fully knows the impact of the new labor agreement. NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue also is correct when he says the league must determine whether the talent pool is deep enough to sustain more teams.

An immediate commitment to further expansion would, in theory, retard potential raids by cities shut out this year and voyages by the Raiders, Rams and Bengals. Oh, yeah, here's a new one: Al Davis takes his Raiders to San Antonio or Sacramento. Los Angeles without two teams or even one? The league believes a vacancy would be filled immediately.)

But another expansion doesn't guarantee that this year's losers would be winners in 97. The NFL surely will look to international sites such as Toronto and Mexico as San Antonio and Sacramento strengthen their bids.

Expansion '97 also undoubtedly would lead to distasteful ownership scenes played out in St. Louis or Baltimore. The confusion that emerged in both cities' ownership groups could continue. When the NFL set a deadline of November 15 for potential ownership groups to meet financial obligations, it settled the dust in one city, St. Louis, and kicked it up in another, Baltimore.

The deadline proved Murray was not to be taken seriously. He couldn't muster a 20-million letter of credit for the St. Louis NFL Partnership. That left Stan Kroenke as the lone bidding majority owner. It also appeared that Kroenke would be able to add Walter Payton (formerly of the other St. Louis group) as a minority investor.

Baltimore's bomb came when Al Lerner stepped forward to head a third group and was able to get the only endorsement from Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer and the Maryland Stadium Authority. That left previous bidding owners, Weinglass and Malcolm Glazer, out in the cold.

"It's a whole new ballgame; it gives us a whole new dimension," Schaefer says. "Mr. Weinglass and Mr. Glazer fought hard, but we didn't get the franchise last month. We think Alfred Lerner will strengthen our bid. I think if we had stayed pat, we would have been out altogether."

Schaefer probably was accurate in his assessment. Glazer was viewed as a "corporate raider," one expansion committee member says. Weinglass had some supporters, but not enough who reached a comfort level with him, not to mention his ponytail.

Weinglass, a bright man with Baltimore roots, was livid about Schaefer's endorsement of Lerner, Weinglass also pointed out that Lerner, a financier and Fortune 500 entrepreneur, had approved his loan for the Baltimore bid and therefore was privy to his financial data and projections for the new NFL club. (Smells like a lawsuit, right?)

Lener, 60, does add clout to the Baltimore bid. He is 5 percent owner of the Cleveland Browns and 50 percent owner of Cleveland Stadium. In fact, league insiders previously thought Lerner eventually would buy out Browns Owner Art Modell. In such an agreement, Modell's son, David, would run the team.

So Lerner has the backing of Modell, who is influential with the longstanding NFL owners, known as the "old guard."

St. Louis gets support from the bottomline owners, mostly the "new guard" group that sees the size of market influencing current TV negotiations. St. Louis is the largest TV market without a team.

If St. Louis and Baltimore kill off each other, the safe pick has been designated as Jacksonville. Memphis has been hanging by a thread.

Jacksonville has the most attractive owner, J. Wayne Weaver, and is supported by the notion that "the only game in town" is a proven formula for success. It would meet the "hot market" criteria. Hot markets have presented good images for professional leagues, regardless of market size.

Two weeks before the meeting in Chicago, two expansion committee members were adamant that if the vote had been taken that day, Jacksonville would have won.

Still, as we have already seen, two weeks can be an eternity in the NFL expansion race.

Until now, the thought of the Dolphins trading Dan Marino was unfathomable, unspeakable.

But because of Scott Mitchell's encouraging performance (before his shoulder separation) as Marino's replacement, there will be sentiment to make a mega-Marino deal (it's already a hot topic on the Miami airwaves). The reasoning: Mitchell could be signed for a lot less (say $2.5 million), and the Dolphins could ensure their future with high draft picks acquired in a Marino deal. Plus, they could free up some immediate money to pursue a free agent or two.