There are few things Baltimore has fought for so ferociously or ineffectively as getting back into the National Football League.
Clearly, much of the current trouble lies outside the city's control: Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke is opposed to the city's efforts, and Baltimore has become a virtual Washington suburb in the minds of some league demographers.
But interviews with people in and near the NFL, and in cities that have successfully attracted teams, suggest that strategic missteps have contributed to Baltimore's woes, and that the city is still viewed favorably by much of the league.
To many, Baltimore remains a viable NFL market, rich in heritage and home-team enthusiasm that could overcome opposition from Mr. Cooke and its geographic handicaps with the right approach. But, they acknowledge, it won't be easy or cheap and may require a protracted legal battle.
Among the suggestions of those sympathetic to Baltimore: The state's leaders should halt their vitriolic criticism of NFL owners and officials, unify behind a prospective ownership group compatible with the league, consider building a stadium, and develop stronger relationships with team owners and the commissioner.
"I don't think I'd give up," said Atlanta Falcons owner Rankin Smith. "You take a lot of cities like Jacksonville, and they tried for years and years, and they persevered. The fact that Baltimore had been there before and supported the NFL is enough to keep hope up.
"I think a lot of teams have shown a lot of interest in moving there."
Baltimore has over the past year struck out in the only three ways cities get teams: expansion, persuading an owner to relocate or buying and moving a team. But several franchises are rumored to be either for sale or candidates for a move, largely because of the importance of new stadiums in NFL economics: the Cleveland Browns, Houston Oilers, Cincinnati Bengals, Los Angeles Raiders and Seattle Seahawks.
Baltimore has come a long way since 1984, when it refused to build a new stadium for the Colts, despite the Hoosier Dome ominously rising in Indianapolis.
The current offer, assembled in the failed pursuit of an expansion franchise in 1993, is far more expensive to the state and potentially enriching to the NFL. At its core is nearly $200 million in public spending, including a $180 million football-only stadium at Camden Yards and a $5 million upgrade of the old Colts training complex at Owings Mills so a team can practice indoors or out, on artificial or natural turf.
Thanks to lucrative lease terms, a team playing here would become one of the richest and most valuable in sports. Visiting teams would take home more than $1 million a game in gate receipts, twice the league average. But that powerful attraction has not been enough, even for a sport resentful of the acclaim bestowed on major-league baseball for its new playing fields.
"I think [Baltimore has] got a hope, sure," said Thomas J. Guilfoil, secretary and general counsel to the Arizona Cardinals, a team that nearly moved to Baltimore from St. Louis in 1988 but instead selected Phoenix. "It's obviously a big market. But I don't want to minimize it. It's fraught with a lot of difficulties.
"Does Baltimore really want a team badly enough to pay the price?"
It can be done
Another expansion is probably too far off and will include Canadian or Mexican competition, he said.
Persuading a team to move from another city would pit Baltimore against both the home town and the league office, which doesn't like relocations, he said.
But it can be done, as the Cardinals demonstrated.
"I think it is like a war. You've got to have a strategy, tactics," Mr. Guilfoil said. "You have to have a cohesive group."
Most of all, Mr. Guilfoil said, Baltimore should find a way to work with the NFL, not against it, if possible.
"You don't shoot your way in," he said.
Mr. Guilfoil said the city has shown a weakness in two areas: having a coherent, compatible ownership group and demonstrating insider knowledge of league politics.
"Personalities are important, and I think they were important in the selling of Charlotte and Jacksonville [the cities that received expansion franchises in 1993]," Mr. Guilfoil said.
Although the NFL restricted lobbying of owners during the final stages of expansion, the winning cities had established deep contacts and found ways to circumvent the rule. Representatives of their ownership groups consulted early and often with former NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, general managers, friendly team owners and even the people who landed the 1996 Olympic Games for Atlanta.
"If there was one thing that hurt Baltimore, in my opinion, it was having multiple ownership groups," said Rick Catlett, a longtime strategist for Jacksonville. "The league clearly in recent years has wanted to deal with ownership, not government."
One financial adviser who has worked on behalf of team owners, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said, "If Baltimore had some guy who runs a nice business and is conservative and keeps his mouth shut, they may have a chance."
Even in the recent efforts to lure the Rams and Buccaneers, Baltimore had two competing groups.
One was headed by Orioles managing partner Peter Angelos, the only owner openly defying Major League Baseball's labor policies -- something that scares NFL team owners.
"You've got to understand the effect of that if you're in pro football looking at another league. When the NFL owners fought their players, no one stepped out of line," said one NFL insider sympathetic to Baltimore, who asked not to be identified.
Supporters of Mr. Angelos, including former Gov. William Donald Schaefer, say his tenacity, legal skills and proven ability to close such deals are crucial to the effort, especially if a team has to be purchased and moved over league objections.
But his role as the prospective controlling partner clearly has some in the NFL worried. Mr. Angelos, who says his image of noncompliance with the baseball owners' strategy is a media creation, has said he would step aside if this became a problem, deferring control to another investor in his group.
The other Baltimore group has kept both its members and ultimate goals secret. Represented by local attorney Robert Schulman, it includes former Denver Broncos great Floyd Little, now a major Seattle auto dealer, who said he has lobbied a number of NFL owners and is impressed by the support for Baltimore.
Max Muhleman, a Charlotte-based sports consultant and a key strategist in his city's successful acquisition of major league basketball and football, said "spiritually compatible" ownership is one of several issues Baltimore should address.
Another: the lack of a new stadium. Funding is in place to build a stadium, but the General Assembly required in 1987 that a lease be signed with a team before construction could begin.
"I'm not suggesting they should build it, but I think that is an issue they may want to revisit," Mr. Muhleman said.
Baltimore has offered two interim facilities for use during the 2 1/2 years it would take to build a stadium, and neither measures up to modern NFL standards: Memorial Stadium and a temporarily renovated Oriole Park.
Mr. Guilfoil agreed the stadium delay would be a big issue for a team seeking to relocate, but suggested the problem could be overcome with subsidies for the home and visiting teams.
"That might be plastered over with money," he said.
Said Mr. Muhleman: "I think Baltimore is a formidable candidate for a NFL franchise. These things are very seldom one big thing, they are lots of small things. Everyone has pluses and minuses, and it's just you've got to bring it all together."
The Redskins factor
J. Leonard Levy, a Tampa businessman who helped secure the Buccaneers for that city 20 years ago, said Baltimore could win a team, but would need a "super sales job."
"You've got some things working against you," Mr. Levy said. "One is the proximity of the Redskins and several other teams. The NFL doesn't seem to be concerned about Baltimore because they think that is part of the Washington market."
On the other hand, NFL officials made no promises to him that the Bucs couldn't be moved to Baltimore, and told him to find a buyer willing to keep it in Tampa or risk losing the team, he said.
Mr. Levy said he even called Mr. Cooke's son, John, the Redskins' executive vice president, who said his team could not get involved.
Under antitrust laws, the NFL cannot legally block a team from Baltimore in order to protect the Redskins' territory. Evidence of Mr. Cooke working against Baltimore could leave him vulnerable to an expensive lawsuit. Some see this as an advantage for the city.
"You can probably make a strong case that the proximity of the two teams would make disapproval by the league of Baltimore more susceptible to antitrust," Mr. Guilfoil said.
But the unwritten rules of the fraternity are clearly the city's biggest impediment, and Mr. Cooke only needs the votes of seven other team owners to prevent a move. Supporters say Baltimore can do little other than arm itself for a legal challenge -- the state has said it will help pay for that fight -- and strengthen the other elements of its package to compensate.
"The greatest impediment to getting a team in Baltimore is the opposition of Jack Kent Cooke. People talk about that all the time, and it's not the statements he has made, or that he will block any move into that market, but there is a leeriness," said player agent Leigh Steinberg, who is working to prevent the Rams from moving from Anaheim, Calif.
A recent development
Mr. Cooke's opposition to a team in Baltimore is a recent development, born out of his spurned offers to build a new stadium for the Redskins in Virginia or Washington. Little was heard from Mr. Cooke until the end of the expansion effort, after Charlotte was named and the second franchise was delayed a month.
But days before the owners met to award the final franchise, Mr. Cooke notified NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue that he wanted to move his team to Laurel, according to Herbert J. Belgrad, chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority.
"The turnabout as far as I'm concerned is the intervention of Jack Kent Cooke, which took our efforts for eight years and shoved them down the drain," Mr. Belgrad said.
Several owners confirmed that Mr. Tagliabue announced Mr. Cooke's plans, and some say the idea of two teams only 15 miles apart, and the timing of the revelation, dimmed the lights on expansion for Baltimore. Mr. Tagliabue's staff also projected a map on a screen, graphically demonstrating the overlap of Washington and Baltimore in contrast to the wide-open Southeast.
The Falcons' Mr. Smith, a member of the expansion committee, said he did not recall any announcement by the commissioner of Mr. Cooke's plans, although he was aware that Mr. Cooke opposed a team in Baltimore. It was not, and won't be, a factor for him, he said.
"I think a great deal of thought was the Southeast was the last untapped area we had," Mr. Smith said. "I'm sure Washington is opposed to a team in Baltimore, and I'm sure they've let their feelings be known, but it certainly wouldn't keep me from supporting Baltimore."
New York Giants co-owner Bob Tisch, who voted for Baltimore in committee, said: "As far as the commissioner is concerned and the league is concerned, Baltimore is as viable as any other city."
Mr. Cooke has grown more forceful over the past year, saying that the region should consider itself one metropolitan area that can only support one team. Mr. Angelos said Mr. Cooke boasted in a meeting with him last year that "I want it all."
The Laurel stadium has been blocked by county zoning laws, but Mr. Cooke is appealing while he considers other sites in the region, including Washington.
But other teams, such as the Cincinnati Bengals, asked for and received assurances from the commissioner that moving the Redskins to Laurel would not keep Baltimore out of the league.
The case against Tagliabue
The case against Mr. Tagliabue is not as clear. The commissioner played a large role in expansion, chairing the committee and advocating the "Sun Belt strategy." He acknowledges having made up his mind about Jacksonville the day before the award.
One committee member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he believes Mr. Tagliabue used Mr. Cooke's announcement to reduce support for Baltimore. But others deny this and say that even if the commissioner preferred expanding to Jacksonville and Charlotte, it doesn't mean he has a continuing, personal objection to Baltimore.
"In no way has the commissioner ever expressed any negative attitudes about Baltimore," said Mr. Tisch.
Another team owner supportive of Baltimore, who asked not to be named, said that winning over the commissioner will be key to Baltimore's future, and that state leaders should stop bashing him publicly.
"I would try and have the commissioner on my side," the owner said.