NFL Today: ‘It All Went Out Window’ : Pro football: Owners say Browns’ move to Baltimore seemingly changes the rules about moving franchises.

GRAPEVINE, Tex. —  After eight hours of finger pointing, name calling, back scratching and chest thumping, two things at the NFL fall meetings became starkly clear Tuesday.

The Cleveland Browns’ move to Baltimore eventually will be approved.

And the league’s future is growing more unsettled by the moment.

“This is all about one thing, and one thing only,” Denver Bronco owner Pat Bowlen said, shaking his head. “Money.”

Art Modell, Brown owner, claimed he doesn’t have it.

Mike White, Cleveland mayor, called Modell a liar and said he ignored the city’s offers to give it to him.

Paul Tagliabue, NFL commissioner, said the league owners need more of it.

Jerry Jones, Dallas Cowboy owner, said owners can start printing it if they would just follow his plan.

That plan, by the way, is being challenged with a $300-million lawsuit by the league that is being countered with a $750-million lawsuit by Jones.

Still following?

Lost in the rhetoric were several dozen Browns fans who flew from Cleveland to picket the airport hotel here with signs such as “Benedict Arthur.”

“I appear before you with a very, very heavy heart,” said one notable man. “I feel a profound sense of remorse, almost a despondency.”

That was not one of those fans.

That was Modell, who less than 36 hours earlier had taken guarantees of a new rent-free stadium and sprinted to Baltimore.

It was that kind of day.

“When the Rams moved without meeting the guidelines, it all went out the window,” Buffalo Bill owner Ralph Wilson said. “Now, anything goes. Our rules mean nothing. Anybody can do what they want to do.”

One moment, Modell was making jokes about a possible change of heart and return to heartbroken Cleveland.

“That bridge is downed, burned, disappeared, there’s not even a canoe there for me,” Modell said with a big smile.

The next moment, Houston Oiler owner Bud Adams was reveling in the soon-to-be-announced move of his team to Nashville for $29 million.

“Nashville seems like such a small city, but when I told some of the owners what was going on there, they were quite elated,” he said.

The next moment, New York Giant co-owner Wellington Mara was warning that other teams will follow.

“There are more stadium problems in this league, and I don’t know what we’re going to do about it,” he said.

Then Jerry Richardson, owner of the Carolina Panthers, was presenting the owners with possible sites for a new stadium in Los Angeles.

Sources said he listed three leading choices:

--Dodger Stadium, to be built by Peter O’Malley.

--An area in El Segundo near the airport, to be built by the Disney Corp.

--Hollywood Park, to be built by R.D. Hubbard.

The only surprise is that Hollywood Park is still in contention after being scratched from earlier lists.

Because of owners’ worries about the financing, though, it is still a distant third.

The league hopes to cut a deal with a site and stadium owner by next March, at which point bidding will begin for a potential team.

That is where the impact of the Browns’ move will be most felt by Southern Californians.

Because the league is going to let Modell walk, it will have to offer the same opportunity to any team needing a new stadium deal.

With so many of those teams existing--the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Cincinnati Bengals, the Seattle Seahawks, the Minnesota Vikings, the Chicago Bears--the league will be hard-pressed to find homes for everyone.

Good-bye, expansion. Hello . . . anybody but the Green Bay Packers.

Because they are owned by the community, it seems they are the only team that cannot move.

“I see Los Angeles getting an existing team now, yes,” said Bob Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots. “There is not much appetite right now for expansion.”

Modell hinted that he considered moving to Los Angeles before deciding on Baltimore. “If I didn’t go to Baltimore . . . I would have considered something in the Los Angeles area, yes,” Modell said. But sources said it was never a close call.

Until there is a stadium plan, the Southland doesn’t have chance for a team.

“Even the Hollywood Park deal, compared to Baltimore, wasn’t even close,” one source said. “Los Angeles was never an option for Art.”

Above the din, Tagliabue offered something less than a voice of strength.

He refused to commit himself to forcing teams to remain in communities with solid fan bases. He wouldn’t even comment on whether he personally approves of the Browns’ move.

“I don’t have a personal position. . . . I’m the commissioner,” Tagliabue said.

White, the mayor of Cleveland, was more forceful.

After Modell accused the city of failing to support his efforts to build a new stadium or renovate aging Cleveland Stadium, White produced documents that offered different accounts.

Letters from the mayor’s office to Modell in recent months show that the city was committing $175 million to stadium renovation efforts while Modell was secretly negotiating with Baltimore.

Both parties agree that Modell placed a “moratorium” on stadium talk during this season so he could concentrate on football and then proceeded to begin talks with Baltimore.

“We have been treated wrongly, we have been treated unfairly,” said White, who then referred to Modell’s recent statements as ‘purposeful duplicity.”

Yet, apparently, there is little he can do. A three-fourths majority approval vote is expected when the issue is addressed at a special meeting in January.

“[Owners] didn’t stop the two Los Angeles teams from moving, why are they going to stop him?” Bowlen said of Modell. “We need changes in our system. This is obvious.”