BY PAUL DAUGHERTY
The Cincinnati Enquirer

It's not that Mike Brown isn't a hostage taker. He is. He's just more patient than most. In allowing us to pay for his new stadium, he has endured a two-year wait.

Some owners wouldn't hang around for their free $270 million, or whatever Paul Brown Stadium's price-of-the-moment happens to be. Not when they could get it quicker somewhere else. Brown has allowed us some time. He is not Art Modell.

His is still a shakedown, though. Just not at gunpoint.

Until now. City and county ''leaders'' have until Saturday to close a deal on riverfront development, or the Bengals can walk. Now - dum-de-dum-dum - the time is nigh.

What if it comes and goes?

What if Brown decides he has had enough of the local circus and chooses to allow another burg the pleasure of tossing cash-wads his way?

If Bob Bedinghaus or Dave Krings or one of the other dedicated public servants said, ''We need more time'' or suggested the lease be redrawn to make it an equitable deal and not the Manhattan-for-beads that we have now, what then?

At this point, if Mayflower arrived at Spinney Field and started wrapping the ashtrays in newsprint, how might we react?

Height of arrogance

I don't blame Brown. He was promised something, and he hasn't gotten it. In this town, without deadlines, nothing gets done. If Brown has to stomp his foot, so be it.

It's the attitude.

It's the arrogance of the NFL and other sports leagues. They are bullying, arm-twisting, hostage-taking, heartbreaking thugs. They would take your money and have you believe they are doing you a favor.

NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue says having an NFL team in your town is a once-in-a-lifetime economic bonanza you'd be crazy to pass up. In San Diego last week, during his annual state-of-the-monopoly address, the commissioner decided the NFL's obscene new TV package would provide each league town ''over half a billion dollars of economic stimulus over the length of the (eight-year) contract.''

It will do nothing of the sort.

''The revenues go back into the economy,'' he said.

No, they don't.

The TV swag is swallowed by the owners. And by the players, most of whom don't live where they work. When the season stops, the players go.

On the day Tagliabue spoke, the Los Angeles Times published results of a poll. The Times asked this question: ''How important is it to have an NFL team in Los Angeles?''

Fifty-nine percent answered either ''not too important'' or ''not important at all.'' To the query, ''How willing are you to spend public money to build a stadium?'' 62 percent answered either ''probably unwilling'' or ''definitely unwilling.'' The NFL should not expect a visit from the L.A. Welcome Wagon. Yet Tagliabue insisted the league ''will do well'' there.

NFL: You want us.

L.A.: Oh no we don't.

NFL: We're coming anyway.

Of the NFL blackout rule for local TV, Tags said, ''(It) contributes to the quality of the game and the quality of the experience. We don't want our stadiums to be studios for television.''

No, we'd prefer they stand as monuments to suckered electorates.

Blackmail backlash

But there is a national mood coalescing, and the mood says, Take a hike. Voters in Columbus rejected a plan to build an NHL arena. The Minnesota Legislature kissed off the Twins. The electorate in Pittsburgh said no to the Pirates and Steelers.

Good for them. Good for them all.

Here, the Cleveland card is being played again. Ever since Baltimore stole the Browns, the Cleveland card has been played so much, it's dog-eared. If the deadline is missed, the Bengals could go to Cleveland. Well. OK.

Deadlines, threats, ultimatums, eleventh hours. Bullying. Baltimore. Cleveland.

My goodness. Haven't we had enough?

BENGALS PAGE

Enquirer columnist Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.

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