Posted on 03/30/2004 10:33:22 AM PST by nypokerface
PALM BEACH, Fla. - NFL owners voted to keep instant replay for at least five more seasons, and they added a twist Tuesday: A team successful on two challenges in a game will get a third.
Only once last season did a team have two successful challenges.
The vote at the NFL meetings was 29-3, with Cincinnati, Kansas City and Indianapolis against the five-year extension on replay.
The owners were given several proposals on instant replay, including one that would have made it permanent. They chose to go with the five-year option and the extra challenge.
"It's time for voting on it permanently," competition co-chairman Rich McKay said. "This rule has been tried and tested in our minds. I think we should be a league of permanent rules."
The owners also made it clear they want commissioner Paul Tagliabue around for the next few years.
Tagliabue will be offered a contract extension of as long as three years, Steelers owner Dan Rooney said. The 32 owners agreed unanimously to lock up Tagliabue, 63, beyond the May 2005 expiration of his current contract, which pays about $5 million a year.
He's expected to get about $8 million a year under the new deal.
"He's taken the league to a new level," Rooney said of Tagliabue, who replaced Pete Rozelle in 1989. "The television situation is phenomenal, the relationship with the players' union is great. We're entering an important period, and we want him to continue to lead us through it. It's obvious what we think of him."
Upcoming matters the league faces are negotiations for a new network television contract — the current eight-year, $17.6 billion deal expires after the 2005 season — and an extension of the collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association.
"We've had back-to-back stewardships not seen anytime before in any league," retiring Ravens owner Art Modell said of the Rozelle-Tagliabue years.
Several other rules changes will be voted on either Tuesday or Wednesday.
Changing overtime to allow both teams a possession is unlikely to be approved. The competition committee doesn't favor it.
The committee also recommended instituting 15-yard penalties for choreographed celebrations and suggested some minor changes to the fair catch rule that will eliminate any returns by the receiving team once the signal is made.
An expansion of the playoffs from 12 to 14 teams won't be on the agenda after Kansas City withdrew the proposal. Although many coaches said they favor the idea, the Chiefs felt there wasn't enough support among the owners, and the competition committee was strongly opposed.
Concern about the disparity in cash flow between the 32 teams has been a main topic of the meetings. Rooney, Buffalo's Ralph Wilson and Indianapolis' Jimmy Irsay expressed their concerns Monday.
"With our stadium and ticket pricing and market, we are 32nd out of 32," said Irsay, who went into his own pocket to pay a record $34.5 million signing bonus to quarterback Peyton Manning, last season's co-MVP. "There has to be some way to create a shift there, and it's the issue in the NFL right now, revenue sharing."
Tagliabue predicted renewal of the NFL Trust, through which teams share revenues from the sale of licensed merchandise. That amounts to about $4 million per team a year. Washington's Daniel Snyder and Dallas' Jerry Jones want to market their own products without cutting in others, although neither has indicated opposition to the NFL Trust. They do seek modifications.
That concerns small-market owners.
"I can't see why we're talking about selling a few more bobblehead dolls in Buffalo," Wilson said. "And I wonder how many Cowboy hats Jerry is going to sell there. There's a far more fundamental issue: the money disparity that will end up making it a league of haves and have-nots."
AWWWWWW...NO FAIR!!!!! Their running backs have more bling than ours!
Bengal football is painful enough to watch the first time. Who wants to watch it multiple times?
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