NFL Reorganizes With Surprising Ease
R O S E M O N T, Ill., May 23, 2001 -- When the NFL decided a year and a half agoto realign into four eight-team divisions, one plan seemed thesimplest.
That plan, enacted unanimously by the owners on Tuesday, littlemore than a week before the June 1 deadline, will begin in 2002,when the expansion Houston Texans become the league's 32nd team.
Why did it take so long? A high-ranking league official whorequested anonymity noted that it took that long to convince theowners this plan was best for them.
Better Geography
"We couldn't look at personal choices," said Dan Rooney,president of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who shifted from the NFL tothe AFC when the NFL and AFL merged in 1970. "A lot of peoplewanted a lot of things. I think this is best for everyone."
Rooney, in fact, is credited with coming up with this alignment,which contains fewer geographic anomalies than the current lineup.
It also keeps 22 of the teams in their current divisions. Five ofthe eight divisions have four teams from the old alignment, withthe most drastic change moving Seattle from the AFC West to the NFCWest.
Ravens and Browns, Texans and Titans Face Off
It also places two expansion teams in the same division withteams that abandoned their cities — Cleveland with Baltimore andHouston with Tennessee.
"I'm glad it came out that way," said Bud Adams, who took hisOilers out of Houston after the 1996 season and eventually turnedthem into the Tennessee Titans.
Cardinals Lose Re
In addition to Seattle, the team most affected might be theCardinals, who move out of a division with Dallas, the only team todraw capacity crowds in the desert. Arizona owner Bill Bidwillfought hard to stay in the same division with the Cowboys, but saidhe was happy after the league agreed to a new scheduling format forexhibition games that will retain old rivalries.
Bidwill was even happier after Dallas owner Jerry Jones said hewould be glad to play the Cardinals in an exhibition game everyyear they aren't scheduled to play in the regular season.
"I'm very happy that Jerry agreed to do that," Bidwill said."The NFC West fits for us geographically."
Seattle president Bob Whitsitt, said the same, noting that theSeahawks will have preseason games against the Broncos, Chargers,Chiefs and Raiders, whom they've met in the regular season sooften. "I think this is good for the league and good for theSeahawks," he said.
Another plus for most of the owners is the new schedulingformat, under which every team will meet every other at least oncein four years. There will be six home-and-home divisional games;four against teams in another division within a conference; andfour more against a division in the other conference on a rotatingbasis.
The final two games will be against conference teams based onthe previous year's standings: first against first, second againstsecond, and so on. For the time being, there will be six teams fromeach conference in the playoffs — the division winners and two wildcards.
Less Opposition Than Expected
In the end, the biggest surprise in the plan was the speed withwhich it was done.
Although various proposals had been under study for 18 months,no vote was expected until Thursday. But there was only an hour'sdebate and the consensus was to get it over with.
"I think everyone realized that everything that could be saidhad been said," commissioner Paul Tagliabue said.
There also were memories of the problems of the last realignment31 years ago, brought to the fore by old-timers Rooney, the Giants'Wellington Mara and Baltimore's Art Modell.
"That old realignment was the toughest thing I've beenthrough," said the 84-year-old Mara, who has been involved withthe NFL since starting as a ball boy for the Giants when his fatherbought the team in 1925.