PRO FOOTBALL NOTES : Expansion Finally Seems on Right Course

This time, it may not be a false alarm.

When Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said Friday that the NFL will name two expansion teams in October to play in 1995, it had the look of the real thing.

Of course, Tagliabue has been overly optimistic in the past.

In the spring of 1990, he said in a conference call that the league would expand “possibly by 1992, certainly by 1993.”

It didn’t reach that target, and then in May 1991, the league passed a resolution calling for the naming of two teams in the fall of 1992 to play in 1994.

There one proviso. If labor problems became an “impediment,” expansion could be delayed.

Sure enough, they were a problem. At least they were in the league’s eyes when it didn’t reach a settlement with the players and the target was delayed.

This time, Tagliabue didn’t add any ifs, ands and buts to the declaration now that he has reached a settlement with the players.

He still has to get 21 owners to agree in March to go ahead with expansion, and there are some who are bound to quibble that they should get the next television contract sorted out first.

But the odds are that Tagliabue will get the owners to go along with him this time.

He also has a carrot to offer them. According to the settlement with the players, the expansion fees won’t be counted in the designated gross revenue the way the TV money is.

That means the owners get to put all of the expansion money in their own pocket instead of giving 60 percent of it to the players the way they do with the TV money.

That will offset the sting of having to split the TV money 30 ways instead of 28 ways in the future.

Scott Norwood remembers the miss. He just doesn’t want to talk about.

The former Buffalo field-goal kicker, who was wide right with a 47-yard field-goal attempt at the end of the Bills’ 20-19 loss to the New York Giants two years ago, lost his job when the Bills signed Steve Christie last spring.

Norwood, who lives in Virginia, now has an unlisted number, and he asked the Bills not to give it out. He didn’t want to rehash that miss.

It’s an indication of how cruel the Super Bowl can be for the losers.

For the winners, it can make their careers. Just ask Joe Namath.

For losers, especially a player who becomes goat, the glare of the Super Bowl spotlight can last a long time.

A lot of Buffalo players didn’t play well enough to win the Super Bowl against the Giants, but Norwood’s miss is the one that is remembered.

Thurman Thomas is in a similar situation. The Bills would have lost last year’s game even if he hadn’t misplaced his helmet and had played the first two plays. But Thomas is remembered for losing his helmet.

Jackie Smith can relate to that. In Super Bowl XIII, he dropped a pass in the end zone in the third period. It wouldn’t have made much difference if he’d caught it. The Pittsburgh Steelers had a 35-17 lead in the final seven minutes and gave up a couple of prevent-defense touchdowns to win, 35-31. If Smith had caught the pass and the Steelers would have been ahead 35-21, the Steelers wouldn’t have gone into their prevent defense.

Smith’s drop is remembered, though, and it’s forgotten that Smith had a distinguished career with the St. Louis Cardinals.

That’s what happens when a whole nation watches an event. One play can become larger than life.

The new salary cap may make it more difficult for the free-spending organizations such as the San Francisco 49ers and the Washington Redskins to stay on top.

But the teams that are willing to spend money may still have an edge.

Look at what the 49ers did last week. They gave their offensive coordinator, Mike Shanahan, a contract that made him the highest-paid assistant in the league to keep him from taking a job as the Denver Broncos head coach. He reportedly got more than $300,000 a year.

The 49ers were eager to keep Shanahan because if they lost him, they would have had their third offensive coordinator in a little over a year. They lost Mike Holmgren to the Green Bay Packers after convincing him to turn down the New York Jets two years ago when the New York Jets wound up hiring Bruce Coslet.

Shanahan also was concerned about the direction the Denver franchise is going under the direction of Owner Pat Bowlen. He figured he could stay with the 49ers and wait for a better opportunity.

Since there’ll be no cap on the spending for coaches, 49ers Owner Eddie DeBartolo could afford to pay to keep Shanahan.

It’s an indication that the good organizations will have an edge even in the era of free agency.

When Bill Parcells, the former Giants’ coach who’s taking over as the head coach of the New England Patriots, couldn’t get permission to sign either Ron Erhardt, who’s now a Pittsburgh Steelers assistant, or Dan Henning, now a Detroit Lions assistant, he tabbed Ray Perkins as his offensive coordinator.

The same Perkins who flopped with the University of Alabama and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

But there was a connection. Perkins once hired Parcells as an assistant coach when he was the head coach with the Giants.

Parcells then replaced Perkins when Perkins left the Giants for the University of Alabama.

Now Parcells does his old friend a favor.

Which explains why the league still has such a problem with minority hiring. The coaches still tend to hire their buddies, and the minorities don’t tend to have the right buddies.