September 14, 2000

VIC CARUCCI: Commissioner, thank you for being with us today and taking advantage of this unique opportunity for you to talk directly to the fans.

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: Thank you, Vic. I am really pleased to be able to talk to the fans. The season is off to a very exciting start as we all know. There is great interest around the NFL. And, of course, as of last week, we have interest in the NFL -- Houston Texans, the NFL's 32nd team.

I also want to thank all the fans for being such a big part of NFL.com. There has been tremendous usage this August and the first two weeks of the season. So we look forward to that growing.

VIC CARUCCI: Very exciting stuff. Here's a format for today's chat. I will be asking the Commissioner some questions, but we especially ask you, the fans, to ask questions to the Commissioner. We greatly appreciate the many, many questions we have received thus far. We are going to try to answer as many as possible during this course of this chat. So let's begin, Commissioner.

After two weeks of regular season action, what is your overall take on what you've seen thus far?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: Two things. We picked up where we left off last year with tremendous games and really tough, tight competition.

The other thing obviously is the offenses have been very exposed, a lot of very high-scoring games. Take one as an example, the Baltimore, Jacksonville game on Sunday, 39-36. As part of that I think you see the emergence of the young quarterbacks. It was Tony Banks but Daunte Culpepper and other young quarterbacks been really playing pretty well, Kerry Collins with the Giants. And so it's exciting for the whole League and for the fans.

VIC CARUCCI: What does the turnaround success of the St. Louis Rams last year say about the NFL to you?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: It says a couple of things. It says that Dick Vermeil showed again what a great coach he is. How he put together an organization that blended some real veteran coaches with some real young coaches like Mike Martz.

The other thing it says is when you get the talent, the Marshall Faulks, the Isaac Bruces, keep that talent, a lot of which came through the draft, such as Isaac Bruce, going back to the draft of '94, that you can build a team.

On a broader plane I think the Rams last year, Atlanta the year before says that we have a League where everyone has got a shot at winning and winning big. That's because of the structure and competitive balance and how the League tries to keep everyone in the hunt.

VIC CARUCCI: Commissioner, I can't think of a more appropriate venue to ask this next question. What are the long range implications of the internet? And do you see it as the ultimate tool in reaching the NFL's fan base?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: In many ways it is the ultimate tool. It is going to give every fan the opportunity to sit on the front stoop, in effect, with players, coaches, other fans, Commissioners and communicate worldwide. So the front stoop is going to be a worldwide platform for fans to enjoy the game and fantasize about the game about their own participation about the game as players, coaches and strategists.

VIC CARUCCI: How have you enjoyed listening to Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football broadcast? What's your reaction?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: Dennis brings humor and also brings a lot of knowledge of football from a fan's prospective. We've only had two weeks of the regular season, but I think he's added a good element. Part of the success of John Madden and other people on NFL, it's been humor and entertainment and insight into what's going on, not just on the field but on the sidelines. I think Dennis will be good, but he's only been playing for two weeks of the regular season.

VIC CARUCCI: TV ratings have been a big topic of conversation lately. There was a story in USA Today this week that Monday Night Football ratings are down. We have several fans who want your reaction to the rating situation in television.

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: We all remember -- many of us remember when there were three networks. Now we have not just three networks but dozens and in some cases hundreds of channels. So you've got viewers moving to a lot of different options.

Monday Night Football is still doing extremely really well. It was the second highest rated show in all of television last week. It was No. 1 in major categories. 18 to 49, 29 to 54. We're pleased that the big audience is there. The energy is there -- in St. Louis in the stadium for the Jets, New England game. And best of all we've had two great football games, and we are looking forward to watching in Dallas this week.

VIC CARUCCI: Commissioner, how do you see the good and bad of the salary cap free agency system? And what is it's future? Is there any possibility that the League and the Players Association might amend the CBA to accommodate the changes in the current salary cap free agency system?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: I think the good part of the system is we've got a very, very competitive League, and everyone has got a shot of winning. And part of that is the limited free agency and some of the player movement where you can add critical pieces to your team now, all the veteran players that you couldn't before there was free agency.

The cap is also a key because it prevents a team with a deep pocket from loading up with players and taking advantage of that deep pocket on that playing field. It puts the emphasis on the field. So in order to win you have to win with talent and a level playing field and you cant just buy a Championship.

VIC CARUCCI: Speaking of the salary cap, what is the status of the San Francisco 49ers cap case?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: Well, that's gone forward on two tracks. The first track is to get ready for presentation to arbitrate it before the special master under the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The other is an effort to settle that case. But also to come up with some stricter ground rules for the future, some new ways of enforcing the cap. We've worked out those arrangements with Gene Upshaw and the Players Association. Hopefully we can get this resolved in the very near future one way or the other.

VIC CARUCCI: This is from a fan in California: Wanted to know what, if anything, the League can do to avoid the sort of off-field troubles that it recently encountered with certain players? Have you considered making penalties and fines and suspensions even stronger? And he wants to know the negative publicity that has been accrued, what is your reaction to that whole picture?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: The most important thing we can do is work with the players and work with the teams and the coaching staffs. Because we've got young men coming into Pro Football who face some unusual pressures. They're expected to be super men, they're expected to be great performers in front of 60, 70,000, 80,000 fans in the stadium, millions on television. And they have some pressures on them that people 21, 22, 23 years old need help to deal with. We've intensified everything we're doing to help the players, where do they live, what do they do with their spare time, what do they do in the off-season, which is a big challenge, how do they get direction in investing for the future, saving their money, staying away from people who might be seeking to take advantage of them and get them in to trouble.

Overall, we've got a group of players that behave really well. And the big thing we are trying to do now is NFL Tuesday. We've got a lot of teams who take the players on their day off, which is every Tuesday, and put them into the community. Dennis Green did this up in Minnesota with the leadership from Cris Carter and other players. So we're trying to get more focus on what the players do in the community with youth football, with children, with elderly people and try to get some balance in the coverage.

VIC CARUCCI: In light of some of the injuries suffered this summer, is there any thought on your part or the League's part to cutting back on the number of preseason games and perhaps extending the regular season to an 18-game season?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: That's always something we discuss with the coaches and with the football people during the off-season. And right now, the coaches, I feel, last time we surveyed them, feel that those four preseason games, sometimes five preseason games, are very important the way we have it. We've got young players in key positions. We have some player movement that we didn't have in the past because of free agency. We've been absorbing expansion teams and that's created some movement of players and created a need for teams to play together, such as the Browns did in the preseason last year.

Right now I feel the coaches believe that four preseason games is a very, very important part of getting ready to play in the NFL.

VIC CARUCCI: In your 11 years on this job and some three decades around the League, there has been a large turnover in owners. How do you deal with the new high-powered owners? How do you bring this whole group together on key issues?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: I try to deal with the new high-powered owners the same way I try to deal with the old high-powered owners, which is on an evenhanded basis and through our Committee System. When you have 32 owners, which we have now, 32 teams, lots of different points of view about the game, fan service. Lots of different situations in terms of new stadiums, old stadiums and so on. You have to build consensus. We do that through our Committees. And we've had a mix of owners in the League for many decades like Lamar Hunt, Wellington Mara acted on our committees. People who came in in the '70s and '80s, like Pat Bowlen, Tom Benson and others. And then the more recent owners, Jerry Richardson, Wayne Weaver, Bob Kraft. They're all involved in our committees. We try to build consensus that way. So it's the Commissioner plus teamwork that enables you to deal with high-powered owners of any type.

Lee from Austin, Texas and Bjorn from Germany both have questions regarding realignment with the Houston Texans in the League. What is the philosophy at first trying to keep old rivalries, be geographically correct, balance the conferences? How does the League plan to address these issues?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: I think the first thing would be to try to understand what creates an intense rivalry. Obviously here in New York, Jets and Giants, it is part history, it's part the current competition between the AFC and the NFC. People remember Joe Namath and they remember Frank Gifford, so there is history there. It also comes up to AFC and NFC, who is dominant.

In other parts of the country rivalries don't depend on proximity or geography, they depend upon some great games. Redskins, Cowboys obviously don't share geography but they share the legacy of George Allen, Joe Gibbs and Tom Landry. They share the legacy of Roger Staubach and Sonny Jurgensen. You have to understand what creates rivalries. And it's a lot of different things.

We are going to be spending a lot of time having every owner, every team involved between now and our meeting next March on realignment. And I think there's going to be good opportunities for the fans to express their opinions in that six-month period.

VIC CARUCCI: Fans are expressing their thoughts and concerns about this. How many teams do you envision right now? Any sort of working plan with qualifying for the playoffs? How many wild cards would be available?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: Well, on the playoffs, we will be going from six divisions to eight divisions, so you'll have the eight division winners qualifying for the playoffs.

 Right now I think the feeling is we'll keep the number of teams in the playoffs where it is now. You don't want to delete the regular season, you want to reward those teams that finish at the top of their division with a playoff participation. We might be looking at some seeding of playoff teams, like you do in college basketball or other context. And so with eight divisions we might change the way the first wild card games are played or who participates in the playoff matchups.

The bye-week schedule is another part of the new scheduling format that we are working on. I think the biggest change will be that all teams will play each other on a fixed rotation over a short period of time. So you'll be able to see all the great players in the League in every city on a rotating basis, which is not the case under our current schedule.

VIC CARUCCI: What does the future hold as far as having a team in Los Angeles once again?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: Right now it is a little hard to give a specific answer to that. I think a lot of hearts have been broken by the fact that we don't have a team in L.A. It's a tremendous history there, it goes back to Elroy Hirsch, for some of the older fans, Vince Ferragamo. And of course football in that part of the country at the high school and college level is still producing great players and great teams. We want to be back in L.A. We just wrapped up the launching of the Houston team. And now we've got to figure out that there's a gameplan that we can execute, both get a stadium and get a team in Los Angeles. It's a priority for the League. And we know there are millions of fans out there both in L.A. and elsewhere that want to see that happen and we'll try to get it done.

VIC CARUCCI: What is your reaction to the vote in Green Bay approving a stadium financial plan for the renovation of Lambeau Field?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: I think the word renovation of Lambeau Field is the key, because the Packers have had a great tradition and this plan will continue that tradition. It will keep a focus on what Green Bay has been as a unique community asset and an asset for the whole State of Wisconsin and for the NFL for that matter. So I think the way they put together the renovation plan, it's going to preserve the tradition, build on it and keep the Packers competitive in the NFL as it is today.

VIC CARUCCI: Yours is such an intense job, how and when and what do you do to relax?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: Well, during the season, most relaxation comes from enjoying football games. I try to get to a game every week in the stadium, sometimes two. I will be going to Miami for the Dan Marino Retirement Ceremony and then up to Washington to the Redskins, Dallas game. So that's relaxation. If I can't get to stadiums, I enjoy watching it on television.

In the off-season we have NFL Europe and training camps to visit. And I try to escape with my family in places where there are no telephones, which usually means we head to some remote place in Maine or maybe out in one of the National Parks.

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: We're still working with Fox to keep those NFL Europe games available on Fox. I think we'll get that done. They've had a few changes in terms of some of their spring sports program. But I think we'll be able to work through that and get the completion done, to use that football terminology.

Expansion of NFL Europe is under active consideration. I was over there this spring, in some cities where we might consider expansion teams. I'll be going back over again later this fall. And we're hopeful maybe by 2002 that we can take the League up to eight teams and create some more rivalries over there. We've got tremendous rivalries with the teams in Germany and we want to build on that success.

VIC CARUCCI: What is the future of the League's relationship, the NFL's relationship with Arena League Football?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: I view that in the border context of our relationships with football generally. The two most important relationships that we have is with youth football and college football. Pete Rozelle made those priorities. And I've tried to make those priorities. The sport is really healthy at both levels. This week we have all been reading about not only the great offenses in college football, but the great young quarterbacks. And so we have our eligibility policy, which encourages players to stay in college and play at that level. And we have our youth football fund which invest in the game at that level.

Then you come to the professional level and we've got real good relationships with the Arena League, CFL and we've tried to support both of them. We allow our owners to own teams in the Arena League and several owners are stepping up and doing that; such as Dan Snyder in Washington and Jerry Jones in Dallas, just to take two. So we think the Arena League is a great way for our game to be close up to the fans at a different time of the year of the NFL, just as the CFL is for Canadian fans. So we support them both and look forward to them growing.

VIC CARUCCI: Why not Friday night nationally televised NFL football? He mentioned that there may be issues of cannibalizing Sunday night and Monday night's prestige, but why not have games on Friday night? That of course is a major high school football night.

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: I think that's the key right there. As I said a few minutes ago, we respect and support high school football. And that is the big night for high school football. We don't want to do anything to damage that. But just as important, Congress has recognized this many years ago and there is actually a Federal Law that says NFL games cannot be televised on Friday night and for that matter, on Saturday for most of the fall to serve the interest of both high school football and college football. That's the reason why you don't see NFL games on Saturday until we get into December when most of the big college games are behind it.

VIC CARUCCI: Commissioner, what do you see as your top five priorities for the NFL over the next five years?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: No. 1 is to invest in fan service and reaching out to new fans. Fan service starts in some ways in the stadium but it's also on television and on the internet. So what we're doing here today, that's one of our top priorities, which is serving the fans, having them connect with the players and the teams in new and better ways and the internet is a part of that.

Reaching out to new fans is a part of it we have more and more women playing flag football. We have women playing tackle football. We are trying to support those kinds of activities. We're reaching out in Hispanic communities, where you have more and more kids playing youth football and high school football. So No. 1 for us is fans and fan service.

No. 2. is to keep the structure of the League strong to continue to have a League that has a Green Bay Packers, has small market teams with real success.

On top of that, another priority is labor peace. We have had it through the '90s, we are in the process of extending our Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Players Association. We want to keep the game focused on the field and not with any talk of strikes or lockouts, which is a terrible thing for the fans and for the game.

Another area is maintaining and growing the respect that our players have and the role that they have in their communities. It's something we touched on earlier. We recognized that young people and parents want to respect the athletes they're rooting for. We've got hundreds of players in the NFL that have that respect in the community, we want to grow that.

The fifth area for us is the internet and new media. We want fans to get up close and personal with the NFL through their PC, through the internet, through their team website, through the NFL internet network.

VIC CARUCCI: David of California writes: Thank you for your leadership and stewardship as Commissioner of the NFL.

As a fan, the decisions you and the owners make truly affect how I can enjoy and perceive the game.

Thank you for putting us, the fans, at the forefront.

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: As I said earlier, we have people like Wellington Mara, who has been in our League since the 1920s and Lamar Hunt has founded the American Football League and the other AFL owners have been around now for 40 years. They know what fan service is. And Buffalo we have not only Ralph Wilson Stadium but we have Ralph Wilson still keeping all of the League focused on the fans. And I appreciate those sentiments.

 VIC CARUCCI: Commissioner, a question on your future plans. With your contract with the owners running through the 2005 season, have you given any thought to staying on the job beyond that point?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: I guess if I have given thought to that, my wife is always the ones who says at some point maybe she would like to spend more time in those National Parks and a little more time relaxing. I am energized right now. Everybody in the League is energized. We talked about the young quarterbacks. We can see the young coaches like Jeff Fisher and Tony Dungy. And when you see so much energy in the League, it becomes infectious. Right now I have no plan for retirement, and I am a looking forward to the next decade.

VIC CARUCCI: This is from a fan in Kentucky: Wants to know why the League cracked down so hard on celebrating after a team scores.

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: When we talk to the coaches and many of the players, what a fan might view as a celebration, the opposing player looks at it as an insult and a taunt. We don't want fistfights in the end zone. We don't want players humiliating an opposing player. In the heat of the battle, celebrations can get misinterpreted and become mean-spirited. So we feel having a strict rule in that area is good for sportsmanship and ultimately probably prevents a couple of unnecessary fistfights.

VIC CARUCCI: When will the NFL adopt the college style of tiebreaker where coin toss does not stack the odds of who wins in overtime? Wouldn't a format where both teams are given an equal opportunity to score be better for the NFL?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: We've looked at that ever since we've had the overtime. It's right down the middle. About half the overtime games are won by the team that receives, about half are won by the team that kicks off in the overtime. And the reason for that is you can win as much with a good aggressive defense in an overtime period as you can with offense. You can fumble the kick off. So the fact that you're kicking off rather than receiving seems to be pretty neutral in our overtime experience. We like the way the overtime has worked and we are going to stick with it. Although we sometimes review the college system and recognize it's also an exciting way to wrap up those games.

What have you heard about it? Is there the possibility that if it reduces the stress on joints and injuries, the way it is purported to, would the NFL mandate that as a uniform playing surface? You know, it's been installed in Husky Stadium courtesy of Paul Allen's gift to the school.

 COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: We've looked at the field turf. In fact, we've got it installed in a youth football field that we have at an NFL Youth Center right near the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. We're studying it. There was some commentary on Sunday about some of the possibility of sand kicking up into the faces of the players. We will continue to monitor it. Our priority isn't one particular type of turf, it's just good fields throughout the League. In some cases that's going to be artificial turf such as in the Bills' stadium in Buffalo. In other cases it may be turf on pallets, fresh turf, such as that of Giant Stadium this year. And in other cases it may be what they're calling field turf. The key to us is quality. We can get quality, I think in different climates in a variety of different ways.

VIC CARUCCI: We've opened this up to the fans, really in terms of questions, I can't think of a more compelling issue to have you address right now. This is Gary from Kentucky. He is a Fantasy Football League player. This is week three. And he wants to know should he start Amani Toomer of the Giants or Germane Crowell of the Detroit Lions, you make the call.

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: I've seen the Giants play in person as well as on TV. I've seen the two Lions games. I spoke with Germane Crowell earlier this year in training camp. They're both doing well with reception yards, average yards and touchdowns. I am going to leave that to someone else to make that call because I don't want to tilt either in favor of New York or Germane Crowell.

VIC CARUCCI: You mentioned earlier in your travels, and a lot of fans in the Miami area want to know about this as well: Give us your take on the career, you are going to be part of the festivities, the farewell for Dan Marino, your take on his career and what he's meant to the NFL.

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: Dan is in some ways one of a kind, because he is larger than life on the football field. So many of his opponents will learn that. I just saw the footage the other day, again, of that game here against the Jets where he faked the spike as if he were going to stop clock and then threw the touchdown pass. And you see over the years many people try to do that, but they don't actually execute it. And then off the field Dan has been a great leader. So for me to be a part of his ceremony Sunday night is a real privilege. And one of our goals as a League should be able to figure out how to get more and more Dan Marinos out on the field in the NFL.

VIC CARUCCI: You have Dan Marino's retirement, Steve Young's retirement also this year and recently John Elway and Jim Kelly leave the game. It seems as if with the departure of those premiere quarterbacks, new young premiere quarterbacks are coming into the game. Do you sort of see the new guard taking hold now, especially these first couple of weeks of the season?

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: I think we do. It's ironic in some ways that you have that class of '83, '84, those two classes that produced some great quarterbacks. Now we have -- they're all beginning to perform really well, but it's not just that one class. It's Brian Griese and Tony Banks, as we mentioned before and other young quarterbacks. As we look forward to college football too, we see more and more of a passing game in college football, so we feel really good about the college football.

VIC CARUCCI: Commissioner, I want to thank you for your graciousness of taking time out of your busy schedule.

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE: I'd wrap up by saying for the first time this year you've got Fantasy Football on NFL.com. And my son and daughter are selecting their teams. And one of the things I have to make time for this week is to select my team.

VIC CARUCCI: Thank you so much for being part of this exclusive presentation of NFL.com.

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