National Football League

Roger Goodell, the National Football League's vice president of business development, says he does not know if the Los Angeles Rams would qualify for a franchise move under the league's relocation rules. His views were misrepresented in reports in The Sun last week.The Rams have not asked, and the league has not considered, whether the team would meet the requirements. The team is among a handful reported to be considering a move to Baltimore.

Jack Martin Cloud, whose career as a coach and educator at the Naval Academy spanned more than 30 years and who later became a Navy football radio broadcaster, died June 19 of kidney failure in the hospice unit at Spa Creek Center in Annapolis. He was 85. Mr. Cloud, who was part Cherokee Indian, was born in Britton, Okla., and moved in 1935 to Norfolk, Va. He was an outstanding football player while a student at Maury High School in Norfolk. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Army Air Forces and served as a waist gunner aboard B-17 Flying Fortresses in Europe with the 429 t h Bombardment Squadron.

If Baltimore's football fans are serious about obtaining a National Football League expansion franchise, they had better start lining up at Memorial Stadium early Saturday morning to buy tickets for a late-August exhibition game between the Miami Dolphins and the New Orleans Saints. NFL owners will be watching carefully to determine the depth of this city's devotion to the football league that left here under cover of darkness eight years ago.This is Baltimore's chance to impress pro football's moguls.

Sundays in the fall, Leigh Ann Curl has the best seat in the house. From the sidelines, she watches linebacker Ray Lewis blow up ball carriers and tight end Todd Heap run over defenders. But football being what it is - a contest whose essence is violent collision - pleasure gives way to business. Consider the Baltimore Ravens' Oct. 26 home game against the Denver Broncos. On the first play, linebacker Bart Scott hurts a knee and limps to the sidelines. Curl - a college basketball star who became the NFL's first female team doctor - examines Scott on the bench, finds no damage and clears him to play.

After 10 years of empty autumn Sundays, of desperate pleas to the NFL, of feeding crab cakes to team owners, there was no rest for Baltimore last night. The city's struggle to replace the Colts, the National Football League decreed, will go on another month.All day, the football freaks and the civic boosters had agonized, waiting for news from Chicago. A cold drizzle started to fall, just like the stinging rain on that morning in 1984 when the Colts left.But in Chicago, the National Football League owners could not decide on a second city for an expansion franchise.

In a chart of area prospects for the National Football League draft in yesterday's editions, Mitch Suplee's hometown was incorrectly listed as Edgewood. Suplee is from Edgewater.The Sun regrets the error.By the end of the 1988 college football season, Eric Jonassen thought he had it all. He had a national championship ring, was a starting offensive tackle for Penn State as a sophomore, and a career in the National Football League seemed almost certain.A year later, it all seemed to disappear.

Ten days ago, I didn't know much about football. I didn't know that offense sells tickets and defense wins championships. I didn't know that the tight end is both a blocker and a receiver. I didn't know that Scallops Parisian is a rich blend of scallops in a cream sauce with shallots, mushrooms and bouquet garni.Now, thanks to the National Football League, I know all of this. At least, I think I do. To be honest, I'm still not sure what bouquet garni is. But as former New York Jet Ken Schroy told me during Football 101, a clinic for women at the Meadowlands in New Jersey:"Football is life.

WHAT humiliation! No, not just for Baltimore, but also for St. Louis -- two world-class cities. The two largest American cities without an NFL team. The two cities whose fans had supported National Football League teams in the past and desperately wanted the chance to support them again.On first blush, the selection of Jacksonville was startling news. .. "Jacksonville?" asked The Sun's front-page headline. But the NFL owners, it seems now, were never serious about awarding an expansion franchise to either Baltimore or St. Louis.

I've been busting to tell you the stunning news in my life, but I'm afraid nobody out there will believe me. But I can give you witnesses. My wife saw it happen. My kids, raised to tell the truth, can testify. I'll swear to it on a stack of libels.I watched two National Football League games last Sunday, and I didn't even fall asleep once.Now, I know what you're saying.You're saying: Liar.You're saying: Nobody's stayed awake through one NFL game in the decade since the Colts left, so how come you, Olesker, a man who's practically a professional sleeper, a man who's turned snoring into a cultural art form, how come you managed to stay awake through two?

If, as Maryland officials allege, Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke sought to keep Baltimore out of the NFL, it would violate the nation's antitrust laws, according to an attorney with a strong record of winning such cases against the league."

FOOTBALL is fast eclipsing baseball as the talk of this town. In elevators, at water coolers, at bus stops and on talk radio, the Ravens, not the Orioles, are the rage. And why not? This afternoon, our Ravens play host at PSINet Stadium to the first National Football League playoff in this town since Dec. 24, 1977. It's been a l-o-n-g wait. The Baltimore Colts lost that playoff game 23 years ago to the Oakland Raiders in a heartbreaking sudden-death finish. An even worse blow came on a snowy night in March, 1984 when owner Robert Irsay made an unseemly midnight moving-van exit with the team's belongings, stripping the city of its beloved Colts.

Maybe you're surprised at the severity of the crime, or that one of the Ravens' best and most popular players was involved. But if you're really surprised by the news that Ray Lewis has been charged in a double murder, your head has been in the sand for a long time. This is the National Felony League, er, the National Football League, where player-related crimes and off-field violence have become as routine as touchdowns and tackles. Sports pages are full of it, fans are sick of it, front offices are terrified of it and there's no end in sight.

THIS IS TO announce, with proper dignity and respect for the occasion, the end of all guilt when it comes to Baltimore and the National Football League. Anger and disgust, we hold onto. Contempt, absolutely. But any lingering guilt concerning that business with the Browns of Cleveland and the alleged sanctity of tradition in pro football is declared officially kaput as of today. On this Super Bowl Sunday, four years after the arrival of the Baltimore Ravens, it is enough. Sorry, Cleveland.

Ten days ago, I didn't know much about football. I didn't know that offense sells tickets and defense wins championships. I didn't know that the tight end is both a blocker and a receiver. I didn't know that Scallops Parisian is a rich blend of scallops in a cream sauce with shallots, mushrooms and bouquet garni.Now, thanks to the National Football League, I know all of this. At least, I think I do. To be honest, I'm still not sure what bouquet garni is. But as former New York Jet Ken Schroy told me during Football 101, a clinic for women at the Meadowlands in New Jersey:"Football is life.

Clevelanders may be about to learn the cruel lessons of Baltimore, circa 1984: Despite years of support, there is very little anyone can do to prevent a football team from leaving town.Cities from Oakland, Calif., to Baltimore have tried various legal tactics to keep their teams from moving, but with little success. And the authority of the National Football League has diminished with the abandonment of the Los Angeles market, according to legal experts."Cleveland doesn't have much. They are victims of a monopoly exercising monopolistic powers sanctioned by Congress," said Stephen Ross, a law professor and antitrust expert at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

NFL nonsenseHere are a few random thoughts after the last round of National Football League nonsense:When watching high-ranking government and business people attempt to obtain an NFL franchise, does anybody except me think of "Peanuts" characters Charlie Brown and Lucy in the annual "kick the football" classic?Do we really want to obligate ourselves to guarantee skybox sales, etc., like those granted by St. Louis to a team with the worst record in organized sports?Will we be satisfied with entertainment quality exemplified by the mismatched play and uneven officiating shown in the first couple of rounds of NFL playoffs?

NFL nonsenseHere are a few random thoughts after the last round of National Football League nonsense:When watching high-ranking government and business people attempt to obtain an NFL franchise, does anybody except me think of "Peanuts" characters Charlie Brown and Lucy in the annual "kick the football" classic?Do we really want to obligate ourselves to guarantee skybox sales, etc., like those granted by St. Louis to a team with the worst record in organized sports?Will we be satisfied with entertainment quality exemplified by the mismatched play and uneven officiating shown in the first couple of rounds of NFL playoffs?

Clevelanders may be about to learn the cruel lessons of Baltimore, circa 1984: Despite years of support, there is very little anyone can do to prevent a football team from leaving town.Cities from Oakland, Calif., to Baltimore have tried various legal tactics to keep their teams from moving, but with little success. And the authority of the National Football League has diminished with the abandonment of the Los Angeles market, according to legal experts."Cleveland doesn't have much. They are victims of a monopoly exercising monopolistic powers sanctioned by Congress," said Stephen Ross, a law professor and antitrust expert at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

I've been busting to tell you the stunning news in my life, but I'm afraid nobody out there will believe me. But I can give you witnesses. My wife saw it happen. My kids, raised to tell the truth, can testify. I'll swear to it on a stack of libels.I watched two National Football League games last Sunday, and I didn't even fall asleep once.Now, I know what you're saying.You're saying: Liar.You're saying: Nobody's stayed awake through one NFL game in the decade since the Colts left, so how come you, Olesker, a man who's practically a professional sleeper, a man who's turned snoring into a cultural art form, how come you managed to stay awake through two?