EDITORIAL NERVOUS NELLIES L.A. GETS CLOSE TO A DEAL TO BRING THE NFL BACK TO TOWN.

THANKS to a smart game plan, Los Angeles has reached the red zone in trying to bring professional football back to the city. Fans throughout the region offer this advice: Don't throw it away - again.

The history of the National Football League in the nation's second-largest city and market is a sorry one. Because the Coliseum Commission is a city-county-state entity running a stadium in state-owned Exposition Park, it has a long history of clashing egos and fumbled opportunities.

The commission stole the Rams from Cleveland after World War II and then chased them away to Anaheim. Then, the commission lured the Raiders from Oakland and so bungled the relationship that Al Davis went back home in 1995 at the same time the Rams headed east to St. Louis.

Now both L.A. and Anaheim are competing for a team with the Coliseum appearing to come from far back to be the favorite. The reason is simple: The commission got out of the way. It left the negotiations to its staff and experts who operated in a businesslike manner to move the deal to the goal line with the possibility of scoring an NFL team by October and the chance to be playing in a rebuilt stadium by 2009.

So the advice to the politicians and political appointees on the commission stands: Don't get nervous and throw it away.