We all remember last year’s failed strategy with the NFL NETWORK. When Roger Goodell had a game with an unbeaten Patriots squad and the eventual Super Bowl champion Giants playing in Week 17 on the Network, he had to have the worst of both worlds and allow CBS and NBC to simulcast the game under threat from Senators Arlen Specter and John Kerry.

The fans got a classic game on broadcast television (which wound up being a Super Bowl preview), but it wasn’t the business coup that Goodell & Co. had imagined (and did not come off well following Packers-Cowboys a few weeks earlier) since most of the games on the schedule (like Colts-Falcons) were forgettable and fans were carping about the good ones being on a channel very few could get.

Now, the L.A. TIMES relays news from the WALL STREET JOURNAL that the league is talking to ESPN about broadcasting that package of games that its own network was claiming all for itself.

Given the league’s difficulty in getting cable carriers such as Comcast, Time Warner and Charter Communications to sign on to the idea of its network as a basic cable channel, such a move, if brought to fruition, would put the cable muscle of the Disney Corporation behind its efforts.

“If the NFL were to agree to bundle its NFL Network offerings into ESPN’s Classic channel, [cable analyst Derek] Baine suggested, Disney and the league arguably could use their combined leverage to demand a higher per-customer payment from cable operators.”

In business negotiations, leverage is everything, and despite being the top professional sports league in the U.S., Goodell has to know he’s up against a wall when it comes to dealing with cable providers. Despite the number of die-hard football fans out there, you’re not going to have enough willing to cough up money to make the NFL NETWORK a basic cable enterprise on its own. Any association with ESPN, whether the games are on one of its networks or its parent company puts money behind it, can only improve the league’s bargaining position.

There is a caveat, though; it will probably only work with the right personnel. Losing Bryant Gumbel was a start; now, it’s probably a smart idea to keep certain forms of Disney-style synergy away from the Network’s product: