PT: I saw Michael’s comments earlier in the week and we’re not going to fine Michael. We’re going to send him a letter reminding he should be thoughtful in his comments and not lash out. I think the idea is so far-fetched that to fine a player in these circumstances just gives these comments more significance then they deserve. Byron Boston is one of our outstanding officials. He has a well-established record of accomplishment in the league. We had reviewed with the Competition Committee the types of assignments that he should get and we concluded that he should not officiate any Cardinals games but he has done an outstanding job.

PT: We have had a general reluctance to suspend players except for the most serious offenses either on the field or off the field because we have a limited number of games and there is a real competitive penalty. If a player does something that deserves a team-wide penalty, we suspend them. But we have found that fines are a pretty good deterrent and we have increased the amounts over the years but, generally, $15,000 is still important to most people.

PT: You can’t really focus on Jim Miller. You have to focus on our policies. Generally, we have been very concerned about "over-the-counter" supplements. We know that some of them are mislabeled and we have communicated strongly with the Federal Government on that point. In most people’s judgment and certainly in mine there is a lack of adequate Federal regulation in this area. We had some situations going back several years where players who tested positive said they had just used "over-the-counter" or lockeroom type substances. In dealing with those, the first thing you have to decide is whether that’s true or that is just an excuse. You can get into difficult credibility issues. Second thing is, players have to be careful as to what they use and know their risk with a lot of these substances. To have a meaningful policy, you have to enforce it.

I think what we need to do with Gene Upshaw is sit down and take a look at the whole area of "over-the-counter" substances and maybe have an approved list and test the substances in advance. We should give them a clearance and limit players to an approved list because these things proliferate so fast that if you don’t have something like that you can always be subject to mislabeling and have things that have the wrong content in there.

PT: I don’t think so. We test players on a regular basis; they don’t get any advanced notice on when the test is coming. Some players are tested on multiple occasions each season. Most of the substances we’re looking for stay in a player’s system for a period of time. What we have accomplished with this program has been very positive. We have rid the league of substances that are known to be very negative for athletes. What we are dealing with now is some issues where we need to fine-tune the policy.

PT: Absolutely. Leon Lett was out for a year before he was out for eight games. Leon Lett has made a very serious effort to work with counselors, to get assistance. He has a problem that, sometimes inevitably, is going to involve a slip even with the best efforts and the best counselors. Leonard Little was dealt with by the legal system and the discipline he got from the NFL was supplementary. We can say Jim Miller is being sat down for four games for an "over-the-counter" supplement. The problem is that it is a prohibited substance. It gets into an issue of credibility. I don’t know Jim Miller. I don’t know anything about his credibility. If we assume that every time a player says it was on "over-the-counter " substance and we let them off, then we’re being gullible.

Q: Do you watch NFL games as a fan, or do you have to watch the game as commissioner?

PT: I watch as the commissioner. The commissioner’s responsibilities are to the entire league. You can cheer the performances of the great athletes like Jerry Rice and Joe Montana, who are in your ESPN Top 50 Athletes of the Century. In terms of who wins or loses, I just root for a good game.

PT: Absolutely, yes. Instant replay is doing what we hoped it would do. It is giving us a safety valve for dealing with those difficult calls that come up in a football game. It gives you the chance to correct the big play. It is limited so that it does not interrupt the flow of the game and affect the pace of the game negatively.

PT: We had the person in the booth making the call in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s version of replay. Having an official in the booth making a judgment as to what happened on the field is like having a security guard on the 15^th floor of an office building looking at a television camera trying to figure out what is going on in the lobby.

PT: I think so. It’s hard to sometimes decipher how people pick the best athletes. The real question is what does the best mean? Is it the person that ran the mile the fastest? Or is it the person who during their generation exceeded by the widest margin the performance of all of his or her contemporaries? That is a difficult issue. Roger Bannister hasn’t run the fastest mile in the 20^th century but he eclipsed by a very significant margin what any of his contemporaries were able to do. There is an element of uncertainty in there, which I think we all have to take account of. Also, athletes have had such a wide impact on society off the field. Athletes like Jackie Robinson and Muhammed Ali and so many others. How does that get factored into the judge’s decision making? It is a lot of fun for us to debate these things. One thing is clear: neither you nor I are going to be on the list.

Q: No we are not. You have a better chance than I do. You were one of the greatest rebounders in the history of Georgetown.

PT: (laughs) Very slim chance, very slim.

PT: You could put Jim Brown up there. You could put Walter Payton up there. I had some interesting discussions with John Madden at the time of Walter’s death, which was so untimely. Jim Brown, given what he accomplished in football and other sports is at the top of a lot of people’s lists. I think there were many close contenders up there with Jim Brown. Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, Joe Montana and some others warrant consideration.

PT: All the focus on a few theatrics is a little bit out of place. I don’t know what we have in terms of the slashing gesture, maybe half a dozen. We have roughly 35,000 plays every year in the NFL. We have 22 players on the field for every play. That means we have almost 800,000 players participating in plays in a game. We had 6 incidents out of 800,000 and we adopted a policy to eliminate that kind of a gesture. If you put it into context you realize that the overwhelming number of NFL players are playing the game in the great spirit of competition and sportsmanship that has always been true in football.

Q: Is it easy for you to sometimes separate and be a fan when you’re watching a game? Or is that the drawback of the job, that you are always on call as commissioner and you can’t allow yourself to slip into being a fan?

PT: It’s a real drawback of the job. I was at a game Sunday in San Diego, watching the Browns play the Chargers. The Chargers had a number of injuries but were playing hard. The Browns have got a young team with a lot of rookies and they were playing hard. On both sides of the ball there were performances that were appealing but it’s part of the occupational hazard. You have to be neutral.