December 15, 1998

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue Conference Call

Greg Aiello: Commissioner Tagliabue just completed a conference call on the competition committee. The members of the committee which is co-chaired by Mike Holmgren and Rick McKay of the Buccaneers. The other members of the committee are Bill Cowher of the Steelers, Dennis Greene of the Vikings, Mike Brown of the Bengals, Bill Polian of the Colts, Jerry Jones of the Cowboys and Charley Casserly of the Redskins.

PAUL TAGLIABUE: I outlined for the committee the pros and cons of the proposal that we had put up for them -- the Coaches Challenge system that got 21 votes last March at our meeting. I basically emphasized on the positive side how many clubs felt that it would be an insurance policy to have this system in place for the postseason and on the negative side, I think the main thing that clubs raised that we were innovating and experimenting in the postseason at a time when a lot was on the line and it probably didn't make sense. I think that was the sense to do that. Ultimately, everyone on the call felt, obviously, there might be so advantages in a given game to have an opportunity for the referee and crew members to look at the television and replay. It was 7-1 against making this change for the postseason. Different people gave different reasons. Jerry Jones felt that while there was some risk of doing something that might be characterized as an experiment in the postseason, as far as the Cowboys were concerned, they would go with it. The other clubs felt that the disadvantages outweighed the advantages. More importantly, people were looking at the long-term. The committee was a strong 6-2 in favor of replay in 1999 for both the regular season and the postseason. Rick McKay was open-minded and wanted to talk to Tony Dungy and look at the specifics of the system. Six of the eight members were definitely of the view that we should have Instant Replay. Mike Brown was the only one who continued to be skeptical and we had a good deal of discussion about the need to limit it, the need to consider systems other than a coaches challenge system, and the importance of coming to the league meeting with an agreement within the Competition Committee on the best system that would take advantage of television technology and help officiating. That was basically the conference call in a nutshell.

Q: What is your personal view of the officiating problems we've had in the last few weeks?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: My own view is that we've had a few high-profile games and we had the Thanksgiving Day game where there were a lot of tough calls to be made. Basically, we have extremely good officiating. ON the call today, people recognized that the postseason, it's especially good because we have the best people out there. I don't think that we've had any decline in officiating. I think what we've had is an increase in the TV technology that holds every play up to a scrutiny with the digital technology and the zoom lens and everything else. It's tougher and tougher for officials because everything gets replayed in slow motion and they are looking at it in real time. I emphasized to the Committee today, I think we need to have replay and we need to take the technology and turn it to our advantage. Those situation where you get consistently good pictures from television, such as on the sideline, such as in the end zone area where you have bright lines to look at, that's where we should focus our emphasis on replay. Jim Tunney pointed out to me last week when he was here. He said the expectations for officials is unrealistic. A great player -- a Joe Montana, a Joe Namath, a Hall of Famer, Roger Staubach. A couple of weeks ago, Elway threw three interceptions. When asked why, on one play, he didn't read the defense right, in another play he didn't see the guy coming in from the left who ended up making the interception. The greatest players in the history of the game can have bad reads and bad plays. We ought to understand that the best officials are occasionally going to have a bad read or a bad play, too. We accept it with players, we tend not to accept it with officials.

Q: What would it have taken to get it to a vote of the clubs? Would it have just taken a majority of the Competition Committee or had you already made up your mind that it was not going to be voted on by the clubs?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: I think if we had a 6-2 today, we would have taken it out to the clubs. The one thing that came up as we talked to people about this -- the Competition Committee had actually voted in March on a separate proposal to have replay only in the postseason. It was voted down 7-0 in March. Rick McKay pointed it out to me when I was in Tampa for the weekend. I was unaware of that, frankly. They had talked about focusing replay in the postseason and people didn't want it. In some sense, they were revisiting a decision they had already made. If we had a 6-2 today or a 7-1 in favor, 8-0 obviously, we would have taken it to the membership. But once seven people said that they could see the plusses, but they didn't think it was worth doing, there was no reason to take it to the membership when you're already got seven opposed.

Q: Who were the two who were against it for 1999?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: Only one was really against it. Mike Brown was skeptical. He did say that he understands the reasoning that supports replay. He wouldn't support it, but he understands the reasoning that favors it. Rich McKay is open-minded more so than the Buccaneers were up until now. The other six clubs were strongly in support of a system. Everyone recognized that you have to find some way to limit it. If it's not a coaches challenge system, there has to be some limiting feature. That goes back to what some of the players have been saying. I notice that Mark Brunell and Steve Young, Terrell Davis in the last week or 10 days, that they are against replay. I think in the case of the two quarterbacks, it's because it slows down the pace of the game and interrupts the game. They made the point that they want to be in charge of the field when they are out there quarterbacking the offense. They don't want interruptions. They don't want the officiating to take away the momentum anymore than is already the case.

Q: In Miami, you had mentioned that it probably won't take the form of a coaches challenge, whereas last week, when the idea was put it, it was a coaches challenge. What happened in the week or so between that time that it was proposed that changed your mind and people's mind about the coaches challenge?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: The coaches have weakened on the coach's challenge system. They're the ones who first brought the coach's challenge up two or three years ago. I remember when George Seifert was on the committee. He and I spoke at great length after his first meeting with the Competition Committee. He felt it met all of the objections that had been raised to replay. It was self-limiting, it was in the hands of the coach. He could use it where he felt it was important. If he felt the change of possession was where he wanted to use it, then that would be his approach. If he felt he wanted to hold it for his end zone plays, touchdown, no touchdown. The coaches felt it would enable it to be tailor-made to each coach. The other side of the coin, I think now they're realizing that it puts your coordinators in a position where they're focusing on officiating rather than what their job is, focusing on the offense, focusing on the defense. So the more we talk to the coaches, the more they want to get out of the middle and leave the officiating to the officials. I think they've also seen with the monitor on the field that the call stays with the crew, and that if anyone is in a position to make use of the replay in an intelligent way, it's that crew on the field. In fact, one idea that was raised with me was that maybe you would only trigger replay when there was already a crew conference. Now I'm not sure that's practical, but the coaches are beginning to realize that the officials are in the best position to know when television might help. You're standing on the sidelines, there's a lot you miss in a football game, especially if it's happening down in the end zone, which is where a lot of the big plays occur.

Q. You mentioned Steve Young. He also said that officials often say to him, "Why do you call that?" Officials says, "I get a memo on that." Dan Rooney also brought up the grading of the officials as a problem. Guys are too uptight the way they're graded. Are you looking at all in the way you're running the internal operation on the officials?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: Absolutely. We did that about three years ago when we had that Don Shula special committee, where we had Don and Chuck Noll, Jim Tunney, a bunch of people in that special committee. We looked at the whole grading and evaluation system. I haven't found anybody, like I say, I spoke to Jim Tunney last week, spoke to Jerry ^ Markbreit this week, I haven't found anybody who feels that's a major issue. I think as Jim Tunney has said, what we've got is many, many good officials out there under extreme scrutiny. But I told the committee today that in January I would be talking to some very highly respected retired officials, including Jim Tunney and Jerry Markbreit, about every aspect of our program, including the grading aspect, and we'll be reporting to the committee at the ^ combine on all of that.

Q. I agree with what you said about they're just under the spotlight now, but don't you think it's become more of a Committee decision on the field than it used to be in the past?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: Well, I don't think it's Committee decision. I think what we recognize is that a crew conference is often the way to get the two sets of eyes rather than one set of eyes. You saw that in Sunday's game.

Q. Do you think whatever plan gets voted on in March will definitely do away with the coach's challenge potential? Did you get enough of a sense from talking to the competition committee that that will not even be proposed?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: I don't think you could say that. There were several people on the call who felt that the one clear advantage of the coach's challenge system was that it was limited and self-limiting. We did have a little conversation about taking a coach's challenge system and adding to it a discretionary element where the referee in the final two minutes of the game can ask for replay review of any play that he felt he might be helped by television. So I don't think you can declare the coach's challenge system dead today. What I do think is right now, there are more people who are of the view that you should leave officiating to officials, and coaching to coaches, and that we should be able to take advantage of television on that basis.

Q:  By "limiting," do you include limiting the scope?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: Yes, absolutely. One of the things I've been talking about with Bill Polian and Charley Casserly and others on the Committee is, start with the sideline calls, and then go to the end zone envelope, did he break the plane, was he in or out of the end zone, was it a catch or no catch in the end zone? In those areas of the field you get good, clear television pictures on a consistent basis. Once you take it elsewhere on the field, other kinds of plays, fumble, no fumble, the camera has to look under the pile and see if the left knee hit the ground before the guy punched the ball out of his right hand on his way down. You can look at three, four, five different angles, then all you get is inconclusive and a two and a half minute delay. So "self-limiting" means limiting the types of calls that are covered.

Q. A couple of weeks ago Dan Rooney said there's no question that there are 24 teams that want replay, the question is finding a system that everybody could agree on. As you sit here right now, do you think that there are 24 teams that will agree on one system, whatever that is, in March?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: I think so. I think if you realize that this past March we had 70 percent in support of a system, and then with the further analysis we can do now, and the recognition that this type of insurance policy can be out on the field, I think we'll get to 75 percent, which is where we have to get. It's not as if we're coming from zero to three-quarters. We're coming from 70 percent to three-quarters. I think we'll get there.

Q. Is the full-time official or maybe perhaps one full-time official on each crew, is that totally out of the picture?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: I would say that that's something we've studied every year probably in the last decade. We looked at it real hard in the context of the Shula committee. I haven't found many people who can tell you what an official is going to be doing in April, May or June, or what an official is going to be doing on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning in the office that's going to help him make those tough calls that you have to make when there's incredibly fast action taking place on the field. The issue is not quality of men. The issue is not quality of training. The issue is dealing with the pace of a game which is furious, athletes who are incredibly fast, action on the field that goes way beyond what you see at other levels of football, and trying to make those calls that are required in that kind of an environment. It's there where you hope that you can get some pictures from television that will help.

Q. You talked earlier about John Elway a few weeks ago throwing three interceptions. The difference between that and officials making a pass interference call on a Buffalo-New England game is that we can talk to John after he throws three interceptions. According to the pool report, judgment call doesn't come under the purview of a pole report. Would you like to see the officials have a little more opportunity, if there's a bad call, even during the week, for Jerry Seeman to talk out publicly to the media, maybe a little more openness in the officiating department?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: No. I think that doesn't serve any purpose. All it does is put people in a position where you get more and more speculation as to why they did X or what happened. We can see what happened. That's not the question. The question is giving them some television that helps, if it can, make the call right. The biggest difference is that players are dealing with changing defenses on a week-to-week basis, and there's a strategy element in getting ready for particular defenses or particular offenses. That's what fans are interested in, the strategy of the offense versus defense, Jimmy Johnson against Bill Parcells on Sunday night. Officiating is a neutral element of the game. There's not a strategy that goes with officiating, which in our judgment is of interest up to the fans.

Q. Don't you think with the fans, perhaps when you don't address these things in a more public forum, there's some loss of credibility perhaps?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: We've been speaking about officiating, but the point is that it doesn't have to be the official, the emotion that is there after the game with the two teams. The problem with officials commenting on officiating is that until you can take a look at what actually happened, most of the criticism that gets leveled at officiating is off base, it's erroneous.

GREG AIELLO: We do make the crews available after the game to answer questions about plays. That's the pole report procedure you mentioned.

Q. Again, Greg, the pass interference call in New England, because it's a judgment call, doesn't fall under the purview of a pool report.

GREG AIELLO: Sure, it does. You can go down there and ask them what their call was, they explain it, absolutely.

PAUL TAGLIABUE: I think the other point I would make here, something that came up as I talked to the coaches in the last eight or nine days, which is that when you boil it all down, you win and lose at the line of scrimmage, player against player, offense against defense. You don't win and lose because of officiating. A number of the coaches said to me, when it comes down to the playoffs and when it comes down to the conference championship games, the teams that are going to be on the field are going to be there because they dominated over the course of the season with good players, with outstanding plays, strong offenses and strong defenses, not because of officiating in Week one, four, seven or 11.

Q: Can you clarify, were you in favor of bringing the replay back for the playoffs? If not, why was this even put out in a proposal?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: What I was in favor of was giving the clubs the option. I was in favor of that back in May when I directed Jerry Seeman to conduct the experiment in the preseason and the ten nationally televised games last year. What we had done with the experiment in prior years, when Jerry and I discussed before our May meeting last spring, I told him that I was going to ask him to do the experiment again, not for the purpose of seeing whether it would work - we knew it would work from the prior years - but to continue to give the men the opportunity to work with the system, to continue to give the coaching staffs the opportunity to figure out how they want to coordinate between the coaching staff on the sideline and the coaching staff up in the booth. Most of the time it's your guy up in the booth who is looking at television and has got the full vision of the field who is going to make the judgment on whether you're going to throw the challenge. In fact, that point was brought up today. One of the members of the committee, I think it was Bill Polian, felt there might be an element of competitive unfairness, where certain of the teams in the playoffs were in those experiment games last summer, and therefore their staffs had worked with the system. Other teams hadn't been in those games, and that was even a factor that was raised in the call today. I felt that my job was to give the clubs the option, if they wanted it, and I think that's what we accomplished in the last eight or nine days.

Q. Were you yourself in favor of bringing it back for the playoffs?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: I told them today, if you want an insurance policy, you can have the insurance policy. But basically you people out there, you eight clubs on the call, are the ones playing the games, not me, so it should be your decision. I didn't express an opinion one way or the other.

Q. What is your opinion?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: My opinion is that the committee's judgment is correct, that our focus should be on next year, and that we should have it beginning in the '99 season.

Q. Can you tell me how long the call lasted and whether the idea of reviewing pass interference was brought up?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: The call went for about an hour, I guess, all told. On the pass interference, I'll look to Greg. The only thing we did bring up was when we get to the Combine, we will be spending probably more time on the overall issues of the rules of the game, the clarity of the rules of the game, the ability to officiate within the rules, officiating generally, and that instant replay will be an important part of the discussion, but only one part of a much broader discussion.

Q. What do you say to people who lose their jobs on bad calls, to coaches who lose their jobs on bad calls?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: Coaches who lose their jobs usually lose a number of games. Any coach who ends up 8-8, there were eight other games where mistakes were made that contributed just as much to one game where officiating might have contributed. I've never seen a coach who's been fired when he was 15-1 and he lost one game due to officiating. It's an accumulation of mistakes and shortcomings over time, perhaps an officiating call here or there, that leads to people being hired and fired in the real world.

Q. The vote was 6-2, and you're saying  Rich McKay was one of the two votes?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: The vote was seven to one against bringing it back.

Q. The next vote that you made reference to.

PAUL TAGLIABUE: It was not a vote so much as an expression of an opinion. Six people were strongly in favor of replay, Rich McKay was open-minded, and Mike Brown was openly skeptical.

Q. So Rich and Mike are the two you're saying?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: Yes. The other six were strongly in favor.

Q:  Why did you want Jerry Jones to come back on the committee?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: Well, Jerry and I had talked last year about the committee. We were making some changes in the membership of the committee. He was heavily involved in his own head coaching search. He was heavily involved earlier in the year in television negotiations. He and I talked. "If you want me to rotate off, get other people on there, do it this year, I'd love to come back at some point in the future." I spoke with him recently, said, "Are you ready to come back? He said, "I'd like to. Chan Gailey is doing a great job. Some of the things preoccupying me late spring and winter of last year are no longer there." He's back on the committee.

Q. I just want to be clear on one point. Time-outs were not involved in the system that was considered today, right?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: They were, because the system that we talked about here today was the system that got 21 votes last March, and that did involve the linkage of time-outs. I don't think there's much disagreement on that. If you don't link the system to the time-outs, at least in the final two minutes, then you run the risk that a coach's challenge can be just another time-out. It's kind of a sham challenge, which concerns everybody, including the proponents of the system. You can have a sham challenge, which gives you a fourth or fifth time-out in a game.

Q. Have you decided on a fine against Ralph Wilson or William Clay Ford? Have you spoken to either of them since Ralph's outcry against your letter?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: Yes, absolutely. I spoke with both of them. I told them, bottom line, I understood what this was all about was the passion for winning, and that the passion for winning is what's great about the NFL, and we would worry about their public statements after the season. In the meantime, the Bills and Lions, league office, are going to be focusing on playing the rest of the season, not focusing on that issue of their comments in that week following Thanksgiving.

Q. Does that mean you won't fine them?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: It means we're going to talk about it after the season. I think they both understood. When we spoke, it's important that direct comments on officiating be internal, but we also understood that football is a passionate game and a passionate business. When you're coming out of the stadium after a game, sometimes you get passionate about it.

Q. Was the proposal today, just to clarify, it would only cost a time-out in the final two minutes of a half or a game if you were wrong, and then if you're out of time-outs or challenges, that the official in the last two minutes has discretion to review a play?

PAUL TAGLIABUE: No. I think the way it was, the linkage under the system we talked about today, let me just make sure I've got it here, George Young is here, let me see if George has got it. We have so many pieces of paper here. The linkage was that if a challenge is upheld, the time-out is restored, but a challenge is never restored. I think in the final two minutes, you need a time-out to make the challenge, right? In the final two minutes, you need a time-out to make the challenge, otherwise you can have a sham challenge, which is just to get you another time-out after your normal time-outs have expired or have been used up.

Q. There was some talk last week if a coach is out of time-outs or challenges in the last two minutes of a game, to avoid a Testaverde-type play, the official on his own could review the play.

PAUL TAGLIABUE: The basis of what we presented to them, what got 21 votes last March. We did discuss that point on the phone here today. Several of the people said they would like to look at that feature as a possible amendment for '99 to a coach's challenge system. But what we put in front of them was what got 21 votes with the idea that having been 70 percent of the way, if it was worth trying to get the 75 percent of the way, have it voted in, that was the way we would approach it.

END

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