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Sunday, May 06, 2001

Some NFL owners have been known to dress as ghouls and some even play the part, but their outfits will have nothing to do with them spending next Halloween in Pittsburgh.

The owners will hold their two-day fall meeting here Oct. 30-31. It will be held in conjunction with the first Monday night game in the new Steelers stadium against Tennessee Oct. 29. It has been so long since the league held a meeting here, NFL executives could not remember it.

Those meetings traditionally have been near the airports in Chicago and Dallas, but the Steelers and Mayor Tom Murphy helped convince the NFL to come here.

Murphy, while chatting with Commissioner Paul Tagliabue at the Steelers' final game in Three Rivers Stadium Dec. 16, broached the subject.

"Why not have the meeting here?" Murphy said, according to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello.

"We followed up," said Steelers vice president Art Rooney II, "and made a request to do it. It was a little surprising they did it this year. We thought it would be a couple of years down the road."

Rooney believes most owners will arrive for the Monday night game. The meetings attract most of the 32 NFL owners, along with other team executives, NFL executives and news media.

Although details are still being worked out, Rooney expects the meetings to take place at a downtown hotel, probably the Hilton.

"We're excited about it," Rooney said. "We asked them to schedule a meeting here, in appreciation of the city being part of the stadium deal. It'll be a chance to show off the stadium and the city to the owners and the sports media."

Realignment on deck

The next big NFL meeting will take place later this month in Chicago, when the owners will vote on a new league realignment for 2002.

The biggest task left is to decide who will join the Steelers, Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals in the new AFC North Division. Five weeks ago, it seemed certain it would be either Baltimore or the new Houston Texans franchise. But Tennessee and even Indianapolis are still in the picture. The teams that do not join the North will be placed in the AFC South.

There will be four divisions of four teams in each conference.

Odd man out

Tom Modrak left the Steelers three years ago and helped turn the Philadelphia Eagles from doormat to playoff team.

Now, it appears the Eagles will turn Modrak loose as their director of football operations in a move that smacks of office politics.

And, in a twist, he might retrace the route taken by his former Steelers colleague, Tom Donahoe and wind up with a better job and higher pay with another team.

Modrak worked for 20 years as a scout and personnel man with the Steelers before he took a promotion with the Eagles in 1998. The Eagles improved from three wins in '98 to five wins in '99 to 11-5 last season and a first-round playoff victory.

But reports in Philadelphia indicate that Joe Banner, the team's chief operating officer, and owner Jeffrey Lurie will use an out clause in Modrak's contract and cut him loose this month. Banner and Modrak have been at odds the past three years. Modrak also got into a loud argument a year and a half ago with Lurie concerning the team's poor practice facilities. The club since has moved into new offices and practice fields on a par with the Steelers' new facility.

The Eagles cut former Steelers wide receiver Charles Johnson last week without Modrak's knowledge.

In the meantime, Modrak has surfaced as one of the front-runners to become the general manager of the Chicago Bears with complete control. The Bears have not had such a front-office position since Jim Finks was hired in 1974. Donahoe, fired by the Steelers last year, recently became president and general manager of the Buffalo Bills.

Modrak would prefer to stay in Philadelphia, where he has a good relationship with Coach Andy Reid.

"I don't want to go anywhere," he told writers in Philadelphia. "I haven't tried to go anywhere. Hey, winning's nice. I'd like to keep doing it if I can."

Friends to the end

Dermontti Dawson and John Jackson came into the NFL together in the same draft from the same state, had the same agent, started on the same offensive line for nearly a decade and became fast friends.

Now the two buddies may bow out together.

Dawson, who missed half of the games with the Steelers the past two seasons because of a hamstring injury, remains a free agent. He has said he will not take just any deal in order to play again, and would retire instead.

Jackson's days with the Cincinnati Bengals are numbered now that they signed Richmond Webb in free agency to play left tackle.

Cincinnati's passing game was the worst in the league last year and they allowed 52 sacks.

"I still think I have two or three years left," Webb, 34, said. "My job is to protect the quarterback, give him a little extra time in the pocket, and if he can see something down field, it can make the difference between keeping the ball and having to bring out the punt or field-goal team."

Dawson was the Steelers' second-round draft choice in 1988 from Kentucky and Jackson was a 10th-round choice from Eastern Kentucky.

End of an era

Along with Dawson, another link to the Mike Webster era has ended, this one in Kansas City.

After Webster left the Steelers in 1989 to make room for Dawson, he signed with the Chiefs and started at center for them the next two seasons. While doing so, he helped groom young Tim Grunhard to succeed him.

Grunhard announced his retirement from football last week after 11 seasons with the Chiefs.

"Obviously, I'll miss the Sundays," Grunhard said. "I'm looking forward to having that opportunity myself now to throw a couple of slabs of ribs on the grill and coming out and watching the Kansas City Chiefs play."

Sundays only

The colleges have enjoyed Saturday afternoon and night football without competition from the NFL and that will continue despite the NCAA's hypocritical vote to allow the colleges to play on Friday nights, when high schools traditionally play their games.

The 1961 Broadcast Act voted by congress and signed by President John F. Kennedy -- with support from the NCAA -- prevents the NFL from playing on Friday nights or Saturdays during the college football season. The NFL plays some games on Saturdays in December when the colleges are finished with their regular season.

Life after Steelers

Like Donahoe, Kris Farris has found new life with the Buffalo Bills after a year away from football.

Farris, a third-round draft choice by the Steelers in 1999, signed with the Bills and is a candidate to play right tackle.

A 6-8, 322-pound Outland Trophy winner from UCLA, Farris has not played a down in the NFL because he had a foot injury that shelved him his rookie season and he did not play last year after the Steelers cut him in training camp. He failed a physical with the Bengals and had a screw inserted in his injured foot in December.

Survival in Buffalo

Tim Hasselbeck, a rookie quarterback from Boston College, hopes he becomes a better survivor than his fiance, Elisabeth Filarski.

Filarski, 23, was voted off two weeks ago in an episode of "Survivor II: The Australian Outback," on CBS-TV. Hasselbeck missed the show because he was in meetings with his new coaches with the Buffalo Bills.

"I'm happy for her and it's been a lot of fun for both of us and both of our families," Hasselbeck said.

He now gets to compete in his own game of survivor on the Bills, where he will vie with former Pitt and Steelers quarterback Pete Gonzalez for the No. 3 job.

Another free agent rookie, David Dinkins, a Schenley High School graduate, will not compete at quarterback, where he played at Moorehead State. The Bills will look at him in the secondary.

Quick slants

The Dallas Cowboys have only two players with three Super Bowl rings from their run in the 1990s -- Emmitt Smith and Darren Woodson.

Bengals President Mike Brown on the team's latest draft class: "Today is we-all-helped-ourselves day, we all feel good, we're all going to celebrate. In the succeeding weeks -- I'll use the analogy of an iceberg -- in the coming weeks it flows south and turns into a little iceberg."

Dallas wide receivers Joey Galloway and Rocket Ismail, whose seasons were ended by knee injuries last season, have been running and are on schedule to return this season.

The Steelers have put in a call to the agent for wide receiver Charles Johnson, released by the Eagles. He is a long-shot to return here.