A Threat by Rozelle to Go Home : NFL: Owners fail to make progress toward election of a commissioner after yet another vote, with Tagliabue holding a 15-11 lead over Finks.

CLEVELAND —  The stalemate continued Wednesday as weary and frustrated NFL owners, working under Commissioner Pete Rozelle’s implied threat to walk away, tried to find the votes that can produce Rozelle’s successor.

There was one vote taken in six hours of meetings. Paul Tagliabue, the NFL’s Washington lawyer and one of Rozelle’s top aides, received 15 votes and New Orleans Saints’ president Jim Finks 11. Nineteen votes are needed for election.

The meeting was adjourned at midafternoon until 8:30 p.m., EDT, so that representatives of the San Diego Chargers and Raiders could return. The teams’ owners, Alex Spanos and Al Davis, left the meeting on Tuesday when Tagliabue ended with a 16-11 margin--Spanos presumably being the extra vote.

But it wasn’t clear whether that could break the deadlock.

“There’s discussion going on,” said Joe Browne, the NFL’s communications director. “Movement? I’m not sure.”

Said William Bidwell, owner of the St. Louis Cardinals: “There’s been a great deal of progress in private conversations. We hope we can get something done.”

Still, the stalemate seems more like the one that ended with a 33-year-old Rozelle, then the general manager of the Rams, getting the job in 1960 as a compromise candidate after 23 ballots over 11 days.

This logjam was held for 111 days, or since July 6, when a faction led by Mike Lynn of the Minnesota Vikings, Norman Braman of the Philadelphia Eagles and other members of what has become known as the “New Guard,” blocked the election of Finks, who was the sole recommendation of the league’s first selection committee.

A second selection committee came up with four candidates and the insurgent group adopted the 48-year-old Tagliabue as its candidate.