Green doesn’t mind losing home game

Thursday, March 24, 2005 | 9:02 a.m.

SUN WIRE SERVICES

KAPALUA, Hawaii -- Arizona Cardinals coach Dennis Green is all for hosting a regular-season game in Mexico City, which his team will do on Oct. 2 against San Francisco.

"I'm very proud the league selected us," Green said Wednesday at the NFL's annual meetings. "We have severe weather issues at our place that time of the year. We just have seven home games instead of eight this year."

Most coaches have cringed at the idea of giving away a home date, citing the home-field advantage as being too significant to ignore. However, the Cardinals regularly draw small crowds to Sun Devil Stadium -- they will open their own new building in 2006 -- and the Sunday night game on ESPN figures to draw more than 100,000 fans to Azteca Stadium, not to mention an international TV audience.

"The league asked and we said we would make the sacrifice," Green said. "The game would not be televised in our area because we don't sell out and it would probably not have been on Sunday night football, either.

"There is a strong influence of Mexican people in Arizona and also in California, so it's a natural having two border states involved."

The proposed change was perhaps the most important in a package of rules changes approved by the league's competition committee. It would have allowed the referee to use replay cameras to look at fumbles even though the whistle had blown, something that currently ends the play regardless of what the cameras might see.

It did get 20 of 32 possible votes but not the 24 required to implement it for the one year it was being proposed.

Edwards said Pennington, who underwent extensive right rotator cuff surgery -- a difficult injury for someone who has to throw a football -- has been a regular at the team's complex.

"There's a lot of issues relative to personal and professional that really he needs to make decisions on," Saban said. "It's really, 'We're going to facilitate and help you out where we can for you to make those decisions and do it. And if you decide to do it, we'll support you relative to that. That's basically all there is to it. There's no plan. There's no, 'We're at Point B,' and all that."

Some Miami players resented the retirement of Williams, whose abrupt departure sent the Dolphins staggering to a 4-12 record, their worst since the 1960s. Saban, hired in December, said he believes players would be willing to take Williams back.

Just look at them.

There is the Coliseum, which has the NFL wondering if the Coliseum Commission is up to its tricks again, asking for the moon. Then there is Anaheim, which sat on the sidelines until last summer for a reason -- it wasn't invited. And there is Carson, which didn't work out when Michael Ovitz's schmoozing failed to cover its warts.

The only site that the league hasn't accompanied down this long, tired path is the Rose Bowl, which has this little problem of being populated by enough people of means and influence that it isn't ready to supplicate itself before the league.

To the owners, this is like asking for the dessert tray with a taste for creme brulee only to find out that all that's left are jello squares, distinguished only by their color.

"I don't sense any enthusiasm for any of these sites" one team executive said as the league meetings were breaking up.