STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

There was NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue, standing behind a small dais at the steps of L.A. City Hall, the historic city tower rising behind him. All positive and everything.

``My focus is on the Coliseum,'' Tagliabue declared.

And just like that, the mind went reeling, the flashback difficult to fight.

``The critical thing now is we're at the point where I think it's recognized by us - and certainly the mayor (Antonio Villaraigosa) emphasized this - the timing to get something done is ripe. And with the progress we've made on term sheets, I think in the next couple of months we can bring this to fruition.''

Yeah, it was real, live deja vu. They should have cued the eerie music or something. Spirits of the NFL past should have floated behind him, or at least Eli Broad.

It was six years ago when Tagliabue stood before a small dais at the Coliseum, the historic peristyle end rising behind him. He was all positive and everything, as he announced the NFL was coming to the Coliseum.

``This is the culmination of five years of discussions,'' Tagliabue said. ``The (expansion) committee was given a mandate to select a site for a 32nd team.

``This morning, the committee selected the Los Angeles Coliseum as the site that offers the best opportunity for the National Football League ... to create a state-of-the-art stadium that will benefit the fans, the league and the city for years to come.''

The best opportunity, of course, unless Houston antes up fast $700 million.

So here we are again - the more everything changes, the more it remains the NFL.

Tagliabue is still talking about coming to the Coliseum, still singing the praises of Los Angeles and working together with the community. Somebody wake us when a team actually shows up.

Now Tagliabue is talking about term sheets, and just how wonderfully they've gone, and how the NFL really could approve returning to the Coliseum by its meeting next March.

You know, like it did back in 1999.

The new millennium then arrived, the world didn't crumble and Paul ``Chicken Little'' Tagliabue - The NFL is coming! The NFL is coming! - didn't go away. We really need to get a team here just to end this insanity.

During that '99 news conference, Tagliabue also called Michael Ovitz a ``visionary,'' and we all know how that went.

It appears they are actually close, not that appearances and the NFL ever have been deceiving.

But Tagliabue was making the rounds for some reason Thursday, not that it was particularly obvious. He is a lawyer, after all, so if you were searching for something to truly clarify the situation, this was the wrong news conference.

``We're well behind a courtesy call at this point,'' said Assemblyman Mark Ridley-Thomas.

``He hasn't been definitive enough in my view.''

Compare those comments to what Ridley-Thomas, then a city councilman, had to say at the 1999 announcement: ``This is a great day for the Coliseum and a great day for Los Angeles.''

And the second time, shame on me.

Understand, normally you don't report what Tagliabue says, as much as you attempt to interpret it.

Now this is fine, if you're into deciphering tea leaves, but it can prove a tad frustrating for those working hard to have a team back in L.A. for the first time since 1995.

The most significant thing to come out of Thursday was the Coliseum's apparent lead over Anaheim for a team - and Tagliabue's first overt interest in possibly placing two teams here.

``We're not looking at this as an either/or,'' Tagliabue said. ``There's the potential we would have teams in both places.''

Tagliabue said the term sheet in Anaheim was coming along nicely, too.

``I said my focus is on the Coliseum,'' he said. ``We have to get agreements finalized. The agreements have to include arrangements for USC to the stadium on terms that are satisfactory to USC.

``We will be pursuing all those things and simultaneously be pursuing agreements with Anaheim. But those agreements are not necessarily mutually exclusive.''

Hmm. Two teams. Now just how could that work?

Expansion teams in both cities? That's a seriously expensive proposition, and the NFL currently seems loath to expand and share the existing pie.

Two existing teams relocating? The poor Saints coming to L.A.? And who to Anaheim? Maybe the Chargers?

The NFL could be playing one city against the other, but my tea leaves are saying they actually are interested in a double return.

Or is that what they said in 1999? Deja vu can get so confusing.