NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue and
NFLPA Executive Director Gene Upshaw
Thursday, September 13, 2001
 

Commissioner Tagliabue:  Good afternoon.  As you know, we decided we would cancel our games this weekend.  We did so after two days of reviewing our priorities and many considerations unique to our sport and our NFL family, which means all of our teams, players, coaches, and fans.  We concluded that given the despicable acts of terrorism, the horrific loss of life here in New York City and in Washington, the priorities of our league, our commitment in our communities, and the impact all of this has had on our players, coaches and others, that we should pause and make this a weekend to support our friends, our family, our neighbors and even strangers.  We will grieve, gather our energies, become even more resolute in terms of what we do and stronger both as a football league and as citizens of the United States.  We decided to cancel our games and will decide certainly by early next week whether to reschedule these games on some basis or whether we would go with a 15-game regular season schedule.  I consulted at length with many, many people and that includes at the top of the list, Gene Upshaw, head of our Players Association, who will give you his thoughts in a minute.  We talked right after the second plane went into the World Trade Center but before the attack on the Pentagon.  Gene and I were on the phone talking about what to do, what to consider, what the process should be, what the timing should be.  I outlined some initial thoughts right away as to what I would expect the process to be on my side with the owners, the governmental authorities and others.  Gene had some similar thoughts on what his process would be.  From that point forward until this morning when we made our decision with the unanimous support of our owners and our players, and Gene is the Executive Director of our Players Association, it was a very intensive period of consultation and trying to be certain to be sensible, sensitive and right, and necessarily quick or superficial.  Gene, do you want a say a few words in terms of your perspective.  Then we can take questions?

Gene Upshaw:  I agree 110 percent with what Paul has just said and the position we took.  He’s also stated that we started these discussions almost immediately and from the onset, we knew eventually we would be faced with this decision.  We didn’t know what the end result would be but I know we made the right decision and the players support the Commissioner 100 percent on that decision.  Obviously, we did have a process to go through and I started that process last night and I will continue it tonight as I have a call we must complete tonight on the events of today and what the players can expect in the next couple of days.  We needed this time.  Everyone needed this time.  It was clear in my discussions with the players all week and culminating last night that they were not focused on the task at hand.  We needed the pause, we needed to stop and reflect and we needed to grieve.  Part of that was not playing this weekend and we expressed that to Paul and the owners and I think it was a wise thing to do.  We will continue next week.  We will play football and we think that will be part of the healing process.  I share everyone’s thoughts on this tragedy and we all need to get through it together.  We need support – the families, the victims -- we all got brought into this because we are in this country and we are under attack.

Q:  Gene and Paul.  If you play a 15-game schedule, what will be the pay situation? Will they get a full season’s pay or 15 weeks?

GU:  At this point, no one is even thinking about that.  We’re trying to get our country through all of this – our players, our owners, our fans.  At the right time, we will talk about this.  It’s the farthest thing from our minds at this point.

PT:  I would agree with that.  We have focused on the principals and the enormous magnitude of the loss of life of innocent citizen and the despicable character of the attacks and that was the sole thing.  We will decide as we go forward and work together.  We’ve been very successful in solving most of our issues across the table as a partnership between the Players Association and the league and I’m confident we can continue to do that.

Q:  How much did the events in 1963 and the decision that Commissioner Rozelle made then factor into your decision?

PT:  I would say marginally.  Certainly I was aware of what Pete Rozelle had decided after President Kennedy’s assassination.  I knew from conversations with him that he had discussions with Pierre Salinger and had very little time to make a decision.  I was aware of what happened in the NFL after Pearl Harbor was attacked.   And we had to deal with the earthquake in San Francisco. There were other situations.  But I emphasized in my first conversation with our owners that this was unprecedented.  We had to take the time to understand why it was it unprecedented -- the magnitude of the loss of life of innocent citizens in New York, in Washington, on four airliners and so forth. Most important of all was to try to understand what our own priorities and values were and are and how we can bring those into an adjustment to our playing schedule.

From the very beginning it was clear we could not have games in New York or Washington or games involving the Jets, Giants and Redskins – certainly not in those cities.  It was unique.  I think other decisions were at the margin of what we eventually concluded.  You learn from history.

Q:  Two parts – Commissioner, the governmental people, who had the biggest influence on you.  For Gene, is there a ratio in this decision?  How much was emotional grieving and how much was logistics of getting teams where they had to go versus the safety factor for large crowds and stadiums, etc.?

PT:  On the first point, we spoke to authorities at the federal, state, municipal and city level. I would say the conversation we had with Governor Pataki, who was with Mayor Guiliani in the command center here in New York City, was very important.  It confirmed our own judgment.  I have a lot of respect for both the governor and the mayor and that conversation was very important.  Certainly we had conversations between our staff and the staff at the White House and they were very important, too.  In this situation, the national interest is the most important thing.  We wanted to make certain what the President’s priorities were, what his directions were as the Commander in Chief and the leader of the free world, but we also knew ultimately we would have to make our own decision on our little piece of the world of pro football in the United States.  I think that leads to the next question of safety of aircraft and public facilities.  Those, again, were factors that we were thinking about.  They were at the margin.  It was not our responsibility to make judgments about air travel.  That is the judgment of the FAA and others in the federal government.  We are responsible for team charters, but not air travel generally.  It’s not our responsibility for public facilities, generally. We considered those things but it really came down to the loss of life.  As Gene emphasized, we need for the players to absorb what we have all been through.  For them to play football in the right way.  That was the core of the decision.

GU:  I will agree with that.  The one thing I can say with the one discussion I had with the White House yesterday, they made it clear that it was the NFL’s decision to do what was in the best interest of the NFL, and that the NFL was capable of making that decision because we knew what had to be done and they would support it.  Security is always an issue and it was an issue with any of us.  More so now than it’s ever been.  We’re taking a look to examining all aspects of that.  We’re affected by this.  Our players are affected. The fans, the owners, and everyone around the game.  I think we’ll all do what is necessary.  If movements need to be made, we’ll make them.  But Paul is right, we’re not the government agencies that determine if it’s safe to fly or if the stadiums are manned the proper way.

PT:  One further point about what Governor Pataki told me.  He emphasized that we as a people are not going to be intimidated.  At least we’re not going to fear fear itself, as FDR said.  He emphasized that as a people we are going to go forward resolutely and more strongly than ever.  That does not mean we had to go to a sporting event at the first opportunity.  It meant that we had to tend to and care for our citizens, for each other, for family and friends, neighbors and strangers.  And then get back to sporting events after a decent interval.  I thought that was a powerful way of putting it.

Q:  Paul, two parts.  At any time, did you or any member of your staff actually speak to the President?  Did he ever make it known which way he thought it should go.  And what are your options with regard to the season itself.  Fifteen games, 16 games, push the season back?

PT:  First question:  neither I nor anyone on my staff spoke to the President and didn’t expect to.  We spoke to his staff.  Secondly, on the options for the season – whether we play a 15-game regular-season schedule or a 16-game?  Do we reschedule this week’s games at the end of this season?  We do not have an open week between the conference championship games and the Super Bowl.  The alternative, if we want to play a 16-game schedule with each team having eight games at home and eight on the road, which many people feel is important to competitive fairness, would be to modify our Wild Card Weekend format and have the six divisional winners, plus two Wild Card teams – one from each conference – qualify for the playoffs rather than the current system, which is six divisional winners and six wild card teams – three from each conference.  We can eliminate the Ward Card weekend, play this week’s games in that first week in January and proceed with what would ordinarily be the second weekend of the playoffs, the Divisional Playoff weekend, and go from there.  We are looking at both options.  Owners have urged us to look at both alternatives carefully and we’re doing that.  Both from a competitive standpoint and each of the teams having a fair opportunity to present its games to its fans.  About bye weeks – the only alternative that we could have looked at there, which we did at one stage and rejected early on in the process, was that we might have considered playing some games this week at a team option, to reflect the sentiment in a given community and cancel some of the games – certainly in New York, Jets on the West Coast, and the Redskins games, and in Pittsburgh, where the plane crash occurred south of the stadium.  If we had done that, there is a way you can adjust all the byes and bring them in sync and make up the games we don’t play this weekend.  To do that, you have to start arbitrarily assigning opponents to teams not on their current schedule.  That seemed to be a fairly radical departure from our competitive scheduling formula. We considered it, and then dismissed it as not being practicable.

Q:  You mentioned FDR earlier.  After the attack on Pearl Harbor, he decided that baseball should play and there was a three-to-four month gap between that event and the baseball season.  Brian Billick, for one, expressed sentiment about letting the nation heal.  I wondered if in the decision-making process, was there ever a point to play this weekend to help people through this, to help them heal, as a distraction, and can you talk about who was on the conference calls.  Was it the entire ownership?

PT:  FDR – what I was referring to, without looking at my history books was his statement about fear at the beginning of the Depression.  We have confidence and strength in people.  To me that is very similar to where we are today.  We cannot succumb to fear.  Bill Bidwill was here in New York this week -- was there in 1941 when the Cardinals played on the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked.  Of course, Wellington Mara and others said it was a historical backdrop and didn’t have an effect on our decision.  I think there is a good deal of sense to what Brian Billick is suggesting.  Gene spoke to it earlier.  At a certain point, playing our games will contribute to the healing process.  Our players recognize that.  I saw what Brian Mitchell and other Eagles, they’d like to be helping to work with the victims and the people who have been so severely injured in New York and Washington and by next week, they can contribute to the healing process by playing.  But not this week.  I think that was a pretty wide sentiment.

GU:  I’ve heard from a lot of teams and I’ll hear from more tonight.  Brian believes that we should play through this to heal.  He’s right.  It also explains why I’ve already heard from his players and they’ve been told to report to work and practice tomorrow.  It goes hand-in-hand.  What we have suggested to our players is to take time this weekend to have prayer and remembrance and to do something to show how supportive we are in what the nation is going through.  A lot of players are planning things.  A number have already called the NFL office about how can they donate and who can they donate to to help the victims.  That’s what people don’t write about.  That’s what makes us proud.

Q:  There is a report about players donating their game checks.  Have you heard that?

GU:  I haven’t heard that.  We don’t know if there are any game checks to donate.  I don’t know where we are and I’ll have a better understanding of that after tonight and lay out what the league has talked about.

Q:  Art Modell said there was a select core group of owners on the conference call this morning.  Could you tell us whom you talked to?

PT:  In the last 48 hours, I’ve heard directly or indirectly from every owner in the league and then we had a series of small conference calls, larger conference calls, impromptu conference calls, scheduled calls.  Those have occurred over the last 48 hours – Pat Bowlen, Wellington Mara, Bill Bidwill was here in New York, Lamar Hunt, Art Modell, Dan Snyder, Dan Rooney, Woody Johnson here in New York, Bob Kraft, Jerry Richardson, Al Lerner.  I had also spoken directly with many others, including Red McCombs, Jerry Jones. and Ralph Wilson spoke to my assistant when I was tied up.  The list could go on and on.  Essentially every owner registered an opinion.   Most thoughts ended with one simple observation:  It’s your decision and whatever you do, we’ll support.

GU:  In this situation, they will call you.  I’ve gone through the same process with the player reps and the executive committee.  Clearly we understood it was Paul's decision to make.  We all wanted to make sure we had our opinions heard – the players as well as the owners.  He made his decision.  He made it quickly and he made it the right way and through the right process.  It’s over.  There are no games.

Q: There were reports that Gene’s player reps were 31-0.  Was the ownership quite that decisive?

GU:  My players were not 31-0.  We all supported the decision and it was 100 percent.

PT:  The owners were 32-0 at this point because everyone I spoke to said it was our decision and it was supported with great enthusiasm.  Along the way we had many different points of view and as I said before, we had considered a number of alternatives and very quickly reduced them to two alternatives.  One was to cancel all the games, which we did. The other was to cancel the games involving the Giants, Jets, and Redskins. We concluded the most appropriate thing was to take a pause and do what all citizens do in this situation -- to focus on this loss of life and what we can do for others.

Q:  Did you go back and forth on this much?  There was a report that you told Bud Selig last night that you were leaning toward playing.

PT:  I had conversations with a number of sports leaders, including Bud Selig, Bill France, and Tim Finchem, and some in college sports.  People called us and we returned calls.  I did tell Bud that we had two alternatives.  If the national day of mourning were Friday, we’d consider whether we’d play some of the games on Sunday.  I also emphasized some difficult points of principle for us.  When we finished that process, the cancellation of all the games seemed the wise and appropriate course.  Bud was listing a variety of alternatives himself and we brainstormed.  His thoughts and his perspective were very valuable and similar to my own.

Q:  Are there any thoughts to moving the Super Bowl back and is that logistically possible and have you talked to organizers in New Orleans about it?

PT:  We didn’t really have time to do that other than to note that theoretically it’s possible but we didn’t spend much time on it.  We had to make a decision on what to do this weekend and what to do about the future of the schedule – regular and postseason – it is still in front of us.

Q:  Has any thought been given to how to open major stadiums are in terms of letting people in and out of stadiums?  Mostly into stadiums.  In the future, has anything been discussed in terms of changes that could be made?

PT:  We feel that those are subjects we’ve reviewed extensively in the last decade.  Certainly we had the experience of the first attack on the World Trade Center in the early ‘90s.  Then the nation had the experience of the Oklahoma City bombing.  Those matters have been reviewed rather intensively by our security department, and club and stadium security people and we continue that on an ongoing process.

Q:  As the events began to unfold on Tuesday, how close did you come on Tuesday to canceling the games?

PT:  I didn’t come close to canceling at all on Tuesday.

GU:  We’re all just trying to take in what is going on around us.

PT:  The first conversation that Gene and I was before the Pentagon, but after the two planes went into the World Trade Center.  We focused more on the safety of his employees and the safety of the league employees here in New York. What arrangements were we making to help employees who had family members or neighbors or friends working in the World Trade Center area or the Pentagon?  Gene had some employees in that situation.  We had some employees.  We had employees who by the middle of the day knew that their spouses were missing. They are still missing.  A lot of Tuesday was focused on those very intensely personal experiences of employees and family members and it was late in the day when we felt that we could start to spend the dominance of our time on the issue of canceling games or playing games.  When I spoke on an organized basis to a group of owners late on Tuesday, around 5:00 or 6:00 on a conference call, the first thing I told them was that we are not going to make a decision today.  I want to identify for you what I see as an unprecedented set of questions, challenges and decisions, where I am in my conversations with Gene Upshaw, what I think are the alternatives.  When we finish this call, we’ll sleep on this and work on it the next morning.  I knew from the first moment that we were not going to make any decisions, unless of course, there had been an escalation of the attacks and as horrific as it was, theoretically it could have been more horrific and more extensive.  Then it might have been a foregone conclusion on Tuesday.  A lot of it was focused on the grief of individual employees on my side and I assume the same for Gene.

GU:  It was a strange conversation when we open a conversation with “are you OK and is everyone accounted for?” and watch the news and gather information.  You make sure everyone is OK.  We did what everyone else was doing.  We weren’t thinking about the games this weekend.

Q:  How did the vote come down?  Were you afraid of a wildcat walkout with the Jets and Giants seemingly so adamant that they would not play?

GU:  I was not worried.  Last night on the call, the players were diplomatic about what they had to say.  They let every player express his thoughts.  At the end of the day, we knew it was clear the players supported not playing the game.  I told Paul that is how strongly they felt.  We have another call scheduled for tonight.  Let’s see if we can do something.  We clearly understood that the Commissioner has the authority to make the decision and we wanted to be on board with that decision.

 END