05/27/2001

There was only one surprise in the realignment of the NFL last week – that league owners did not assign the Oakland Raiders to NFL Europe.

The realignment came less than 24 hours after the NFL's resounding victory over Raiders owner Al Davis in his $1.2 billion lawsuit against the league for allegedly sabotaging his deal for a new stadium in Los Angeles.

"The whole lawsuit was uncalled for in the first place," NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said.

That was the overwhelming opinion of the owners who gathered in Chicago last week for the league's annual spring meeting – a meeting that Davis chose not to attend.

Davis previously had sued the NFL to move to LA in the 1980s and won. He still has a few lesser lawsuits pending against the league. Fellow owners are tired of being sued every time Davis has a problem.

"Right now everyone is very, very upset – with justification," Pittsburgh owner Dan Rooney said. "They say time heals all wounds, but I just don't think you can continue to have these problems.

"We're a partnership with a very close association. We're a league. You operate as a league, together. There are two or three cases [by Davis] right now that are still out there. When does it stop?"

Owners are tired of playing defense against Davis. Buffered by that federal-court victory over Davis in Los Angeles, they may soon be going on the offensive. NFL owners asked Tagliabue at the meeting what could be done about Davis.

"In all sports leagues, the bylaws contemplate that the other owners can suspend an owner or take action for conduct detrimental to the league," Tagliabue said. "It's happened in hockey and in football in the circumstance where I suspended [then-San Francisco owner] Eddie DeBartalo.

"Our bylaws are clear that the other owners as the executive committee of the league can evaluate an owner's conduct, determine whether it's a breech of the bylaws and act accordingly. People are going to be looking at this question down the road."

Does that mean a fine for Davis? Suspension? Expulsion? If owners do take any action, whatever it may be, there is one certainty – Davis will sue and the two sides will again wind up in court.

Which is not where NFL owners want to be. As much as they may want retribution against Davis, they enjoy that one-game winning streak they have against him in court.

"It's over with," Ravens owner Art Modell said. "I hope somehow he'll see his way to come back into the tent. But I wouldn't bet on it."

Shuffling the deck

But make no mistake about it – the only division that was bullet-proof was the NFC East with Dallas, Philadelphia, Washington and the New York Giants.

In two of the realignment proposals, the Cowboys were plotted in the NFC West. But there was never a chance that either proposal would be seriously considered, much less passed.

"It was so important to the Cowboys, to our networks, to the league to maintain our traditional rivalries," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. "We want to keep those Redskins and Giants rivalries going."

So do the networks – and when the networks speak, the NFL listens.

Familiar situation

Davis made his NFL debut in Dallas in 1989 as the defensive line coach on Jimmy Johnson's staff. He makes his head-coaching debut in Cleveland this season. But Davis sees one major difference in the rebuilding of the Cowboys and Browns.

"There's no Herschel Walker here," Davis mused.

The Cowboys, of course, accelerated the rebuilding process by trading Walker to Minnesota in 1989 for seven high draft picks, then used them as the backbone of a team that won three Super Bowls.