Commissioner Tagliabue With ESPN’s Bob Ley
January 8, 2003

BL: What adjective would you apply to the officiating at the end of the Niners-Giants game?

PT: Disappointing.  It was a chaotic game.  It was a chaotic second half.  But it was such a critical play, and the officials seemed to get caught up a little bit in the bedlam, in the chaos.  With the benefit of hindsight, it seems the decisions were made with less than full information, and that’s very disappointing. 

BL: What's the worst mistake that was made?

PT: I think it was just the breakdown of communication within the crew in the sense that flags were thrown with respect to one player being an ineligible receiver downfield.  As I understand at this point, most of the crew conference, if not all of the crew conference, focused on those flags. 

BL: What’s going to happen to these officials?

PT: The most important thing to do as a leader is to support your people and to reinforce your people and their confidence and their conviction.  In this case that means all of our officiating crews.  Madden and Parcells and other coaches have always told me, ‘Criticize your players when they do great and when they win.  Don’t criticize them when they lose or when they have a bad game.’  So we’re going to put off those decisions and discussions until after the Super Bowl.

BL: Mike Pereira, your director of refereeing, said everything is up for review.  What do you think he means?

PT: I know what he means because I talked to him yesterday for about two hours and talked about these subjects.  We’re going to make some changes right away in terms of guaranteeing that if there is any kind of situation in any way similar to this at the end of a game, the crew conference will include all officials, not just the officials who have thrown flags or not just some of the officials.  So that’s one thing that will occur.  That will begin this weekend.  And then we’re also probably going to implement some changes as to how we’ll officiate field goal attempts in terms of the responsibilities on the field with a greater focus on the potential that a kick can break down and there can be a running play or a passing play.  I don’t know whether they’ll get those in place this weekend or with the conference championship games.

BL: Given the circumstances and the stakes at the end of the game, and a playoff game, was this the worst ‘failing,’ to use your word, in officiating that we’ve seen?

PT: I think it is in my 13 odd years as commissioner.  You can’t tell whether what occurred on the field in terms of how the crew functioned was egregious or whether you regard it as egregious because it was such a critical juncture in a playoff game.  As all sports do, we’ve had our gaps with officiating.  But certainly the combination of what occurred, what you could see on television and what seemed apparent in terms of interference with regard to the potential receiver, to me it’s the most disappointing.