COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE INTERVIEW
WITH MIKE FRANCESA FOR "NFL NOW"
NOVEMBER 28, 1997

What are your thoughts on the 1997 season?

It has been outstanding. Throughout the league, the fans have had tremendous football. The competition on the field has been phenomenal.

You have to be very happy with the dramatic resurgence in New York football this year.

We’ll see how dramatic it is at the end of the season. As Coach Parcells and Coach Fassel say, it is the end of the season that counts.

A lot has been talked about concerning the officiating. I know that there is an abnormal number of first year officials this year. Has that been a problem? How do you think the officials have done over the course of the season?

The officiating has been very strong. When have as many close games as we have had this year, you are always going to have a focus on a few calls. Officiating is not an issue when you have blowouts. I think one of the reasons we have had some focus on officiating this year, including in New York, is because of the number of close games we have had.

Is instant replay in the future?

I think replay will be up for discussion again. The experiment we did a couple of years ago with the on-field monitor showed a different way of approaching it in terms of not having the official upstairs overruling the crew on the field. I think we will discuss that again after the season is over.

Would you give it a good chance for passing for next season?

I would be skeptical of going that far. I think the clubs which still question replay will probably still continue to question it. Most of the difficult calls are the pass-interference calls and they tend to be the big penalties and the plays which involve three players or more – two defenders on one receiver. When you get down to the specifics, replay wouldn’t address that. I think you would still find a split among the clubs.

The other thing – which comes back to the Dallas-Washington game – is owners and owners’ conduct on the sidelines. The Redskins were saying that Jerry Jones was vociferous with the officials maybe trying to grab a call. Is anybody going to discuss whether owners should be allowed on the sideline during a game?

We have discussed that in the past. We have rules and policies which cover that. An owner, if he does anything that is inappropriate while he is on the sidelines, can be flagged for a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty just like a coach or a player. Our officials are aware of that and, I am sure, wouldn’t hesitate to do it if it came to that.

Don’t you think it is easier to flag a coach rather than an owner, who might have a say in somebody’s future?

Our officials are people who will not shy away from doing the right thing. If they felt anyone on the sideline whether it is a coach -- like Don Shula, where people used to say that he was on the Competition Committee and therefore gets an edge -- an owner or anyone else our officials know that the integrity of the game is the key and they are going to throw the flag.

From your standpoint, is Jerry Jones too active on the sidelines getting involved – far more than any other owner even if an owner ventures down on the sideline? Are you concerned how active Jerry Jones is on the sideline during the game?

George Halas was the founder of the NFL. He was also a coach for many years. He was an owner-coach for the better part of four decades. It is part of the tradition of our league to have owners involved. I think the biggest concern, probably is from the players’ perspective. I have seen some comments from Cowboys players that sometimes they would prefer to be responding to the head coach – and not the owner, too – on the sideline. We will look at it. But, as I said, we want owners who know the game. We want owners who, like a George Halas, are involved in the tradition of the game. Jerry played college football and Jerry Richardson, our new owner down in Carolina, is the first owner who was a former NFL player since Halas. I think that is a positive, overall, for the game, as long as they abide by the rules that apply to everybody else.

Would the league have a problem, in this day and age, if an owner wanted to coach a team?

I think it is a question of qualification and ability. If he could get down there and produce a winning and exciting football team, I don’t see why we would have a problem. The game has progressed -- in terms of cap management, selection of players, free agency, acquisition of good veteran players – to a point where owners are best advised to own, general managers are best advised to be the G.M., and coaches are best advised to coach. But if someone thinks they can blend all of those roles and do it well, it would be an interesting challenge for the rest of the clubs in the league.

As far as expansion, where do we stand right now?

We are looking at expansion to Cleveland as one possibility for meeting our commitment there to have the Browns back on the field in 1999. We have made every deadline there, the stadium is under construction and we will have the Browns back on the field less than two years from now. That will be our first priority in terms of considering expansion. Beyond that, we have to look at Los Angeles and Houston as other possibilities at the top of the list.

So we are looking at Cleveland and probably one other?

We might be looking at a phased expansion. If we put an expansion team in Cleveland, I think you could see a 31-team league for a while. Everyone would have a bye week and then we would have a second expansion team on a phased basis with top priority going to Los Angeles and Houston. I don’t think you need to expand two at a time. In the past we had 15 teams in the NFL, nine in the AFL. We played schedules with an odd number of teams. It works well especially when you have a bye week in the schedule as we already do.

The TV negotiations are obviously going to expand salary caps and give teams a chance to maybe keep some players and do some things. From a fan standpoint, what should the fans think about how these TV negotiations impact their clubs?

The biggest thing from the fans’ standpoint is that we are expecting to continue with the type of the coverage that we have now with all of the games on the broadcast, free, over-the-air television. We will continue to have the same strong Sunday afternoon and Monday night packages. We will still have the strong cable package with the over-the-air delivery in the markets of the participating teams. From the fans’ standpoint, that is the biggest impact.

The second area, as you say, is the impact on the salary cap. That becomes two edged. You can get players on the one hand and you can keep players on the other hand. The dynamics of free agency remain pretty much the same, just with some increases of player salaries.

There has been talk of an expanding schedule that would somehow create a hybrid for CBS. Any chance of an expanded package or will they have to bid on existing packages?

They will be seeking to bid on the existing packages and I think the chances of any expanded package are unlikely.

I have it at home. DirecTV and what it can bring to the viewer in his home is remarkable. It is a good price. It’s actually a cheap price for a season if you love the NFL. Where do you see that expanding? What role does that play, if any, in your thought process?

It is really subsidiary to where we are with the two Sunday afternoon packages – currently NBC and FOX. That is where we get our big audiences. Of course, Monday night is the biggest audience of all for a typical big game. For most of our fans, it is that combination of Sunday afternoon, good cable coverage on Sunday night, and Monday Night Football. Sunday Ticket will continue to be a subsidiary part of the total television we have.

As far as the money it produces, it is not significant in your overall plan, is it?

It is not that significant.

Do you see that growing quickly or not as a big factor?

I think it will grow but most of our fans get such good, strong coverage – two game or three games depending upon whether the home team is at home on Sunday afternoon, Sunday night cable and Monday nights – that people don’t need to get the special package to get great coverage on their set.

Everyone wants new stadiums everywhere. NFL teams getting stadiums by themselves – obviously the use of that stadium is a question mark in that particular city. Is this going to be a big problem? Is it going to mean a whole lot of movement or problems in cities over the next decade as teams look for new stadiums in cities where baseball teams are looking for them?

I think it will shake out with some real stability. We learned from the last three or four years how to get ahead on the curve of some of these stadium issues. We are much more heavily involved now, as a league, trying to anticipate issues, working with local officials and trying to get problems resolved before they really flare up. We didn’t do that obviously in a couple of situations – Cleveland, Houston and Los Angeles – but since then, we have worked very successfully in places such as Tampa Bay and Seattle and a number of other locations where new stadiums are coming on line because we worked well with our teams, with local officials and with the public. We will try to continue that and continue to have team stability.