Anyone who has negotiated with a used-car dealer must surely appreciate the position in which Paul Tagliabue found himself this week. The National Football League commissioner might have agonised a day or two more than was necessary before postponing the games scheduled for the weekend following the September 11th attacks in New York, but no one doubted he had acted properly once he did so.

It was Tagliabue's immediate predecessor, the late Pete Rozelle, who made the ill-conceived decision for the NFL to proceed with its games two days after the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy. Haunted by the decision for the rest of his life, Rozelle went to his grave believing it was the biggest mistake he'd made in the course of an otherwise illustrious tenure.

Tagliabue was apparently so eager to do the right thing this time that neither he nor his minions appear to have given much thought to what was supposed to happen next. The announcement that the NFL would suspend play for the weekend of September 16th was accompanied by a vague plan to make up the postponed games on the first weekend in January.

The NFL had four wild-card play-off games on the calendar for that weekend. In the initial scheme enunciated by the league, the wild-card games would have been done away with this season. Only eight teams, four from each conference, would qualify for post-season play and the tournament would proceed in knockout fashion from the second weekend in January.

This plan seemed perfectly acceptable to all concerned, at least until the television networks were heard from. The rubble that used to be the World Trade Center was still smouldering when the TV folks put the NFL on notice that if there were no wild-card games to televise, they would expect substantial rebates (the figures we've heard range from $80 to $100 million) on their contracts with the league. Oops.

Back to the drawing board went Tagliabue and his staff, in an effort to contrive a post-season formula that would allow the full complement of games to be played.

It should be noted that under normal circumstances this should not have presented a problem. With rare exceptions, the NFL builds in a two-week breather between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl, but this season none existed. The NFC and AFC championship games are slated to be played on January 20th, with Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans a week later.

The solution, from the NFL's standpoint, appeared simple: they would merely push the Super Bowl back a week, playing the grand finale in February for the first time in its history.

Alas, the NFL had not reckoned on the collective might of the NADA.

The National Automobile Dealers Association had long scheduled its annual convention for February 2nd-5th, and was not at all anxious to move its event. The automobile dealers pointed out that their convention attracts 30,000 participants and 600 vendors, who have booked an aggregate 16,000 hotel rooms in New Orleans for the first weekend in February.

Their first response was "No Way!" Their second was "How Much?"

"We would certainly have to be indemnified by the league for the cost of changing convention dates," said David Hyatt, an NADA spokesman.

The NFL, the way we heard it, was willing to cough up $8 to $10 million to get the car dealers to switch dates - a lot of lettuce by any standard, but a trifling sum alongside what the networks would have been looking for if the NFL couldn't come up with a workable solution.

New Orleans mayor Marc Morial has flatly ruled out any attempt to hold both events simultaneously, but he'd rather not see his city lose either one. Neutral economists claim the Super Bowl pumps $400 million into the host city over the week, but our distinctly unscientific survey of Bourbon Street saloons and French Quarter sporting house proprietors suggests these car dealers are wont to throw their money around pretty well, too.

Hyatt said NADA had not put a precise figure on what it would cost to alter the dates of its convention. The cost of the convention per se runs at around $10-$15 million, but there may be other issues, including contracts signed with vendors.

"If there is a way to make this happen, we are going to make it happen," said Hyatt, presumably with his hand out. "The fact remains, we're looking at a logistical nightmare, and who knows what kind of liabilities will be incurred? We still have to see what the league can do about those."

In the event they can't come to an accommodation with the car salesmen, the NFL is also mulling over alternative plans, most of which would involve playing the Super Bowl in another city on February 3rd. (The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, just outside Los Angeles, would be the first choice, followed by Miami and last year's venue, Tampa.) That would create yet another sticky problem. Probably as many football fans as used-car salesmen have already made their travel plans for New Orleans. Were the league to bolt for greener pastures, a secondary plan would call for throwing New Orleans a sop by playing both conference championship games there the weekend of the 27th.

The initial problem may have indirectly been precipitated by terrorism, but it hasn't taken long in reducing itself to what appears to be greed and avarice on both sides.

"People keep acting like this is only about money, but it really isn't," claimed New England Patriots vice-chairman Jonathan Kraft. "It's about preserving the integrity of the season. Nobody complained about baseball pushing back its schedule and finishing its post-season in November."

Representatives of the NFL and NADA began negotiations outside Washington yesterday. The league's position might be aided by the fact that Minnesota Vikings owner Red McCombs is a member of the NADA Hall of Fame, while two other NFL owners - William Clay Ford of the Detroit Lions and Tom Benson of New Orleans - are charter members of the organisation. All three have been leaning heavily on their brethren car salesmen.

Anyone who's shopped for a car recently knows what it will ultimately take to tip the balance here: Tagliabue is going to have to agree to buy the extended warranty.