Commissioner with Simms

Network Pregame Shows Week 14
December 3, 2000

CBS Interview – Phil Simms with Commissioner Paul Tagliabue:

Phil Simms: "You’ve really got to be happy with the way things are going with the league. This weekend there are so many big games going on, and I just have to ask you if you’re going to go to any of the games?"

Paul Tagliabue: "Well I was at the Carolina game Monday night and of course they were excited with their victory over Green Bay. I may be at the Jets-Indy game this Sunday. When it gets to this time of year I kind of slow down a bit in turns of travel, go to my office, watch NFL Sunday Ticket, and pick up all the big games. I might watch the early games in my office this week and then head over Giants Stadium."

Simms: "Sounds like a great weekend for a fan. How often do you get to go out to the sites? You said you were in Carolina on Monday. How many games do you think you attend a year?"

PT: "I’d say between 20 and 30. This year I’ve been going to maybe two games a weekend, Sunday and Monday night. I was at the opening Monday night game in St. Louis. I’ve been to a quite a few Monday Night games this year. You’ve got to follow Dennis Miller around to make sure he’s meeting all of Don Ohlmeyer’s directions "

Simms: "You know that’s not a good word on this show, Dennis Miller. You know I don’t want to hear that name. But that’s okay. No it’s working out fine. He’s having a good time. We had a laugh just before we came on the air. I was saying a word that I haven’t heard much this year that I’ve heard so much the past few years like it was a dirty word. The word parity. Everybody made the connotation that parity is a really bad thing for the National Football League. I haven’t heard it much this year."

PT: "You haven’t heard it much. What you see that there is really tough competition out there. I said that last year, prior to the Super Bowl. We have two teams, the Rams and the Titans. Not too many people expected them to be there, but they had great players. Marshall Faulk and Eddie George just to take two running backs on each side of the ball. That’s the great thing about this year. So much good, young talent all around the league and tough competition. Here we are four weeks to go in the regular season and a lot of the players are talking how it’s already like a playoff game. I saw Dwayne Gordon the other day saying that about the Jets upcoming games."

Simms: "I think it is the truth. You know I get the chance to travel to different cities every week. There are very few coaches that I meet that don’t say this: ‘Hey, why can’t we win it all? Who’s out there that’s a good team that scares you?’ When you hear comments like that, you’ve got to feel good about the system that you’ve created, or helped create."

PT: "It goes back a long way. I give a big part of the credit to Gene Upshaw of the Players Association and agreeing with the system we have. It was a big change, as you know, back in the early 90’s. It’s worked out pretty well. It’s not perfect. Nothing is. The players are as competitive as ever, there’s a lot of balance in terms of how the players are out there, being allocated. The key thing is the good, young talent that you see at the quarterback position and other positions around the field."

Simms: "The other issue that’s always up in the NFL is new stadiums. All these owners, or some owners, not all of them, want new stadiums because they can get private boxes. There are a lot of different ways to generate revenue. A couple of things come up. New stadiums, when you talk about them, always come down to if the tax payers are going to have to give up some money. How do you feel about that?"

PT: "That’s true in many cases. For instance, in Denver, they built Coors Field for baseball and then they decided to extend that tax to a state-wide tax that’s really pretty nominal. Now they are having this big debate about the naming rights. The Broncos owner put a very heavy investment in there. The New England Patriots owner is building a new stadium all privately financed with support from the league. So you have sort of a whole spectrum. It started with Carolina and Jacksonville. There you have one, in Jacksonville with tax money - Carolina with private money. So we are trying to build the new stadiums that are built for football. Not the old dual-purposes stadiums, that were shared with baseball. It gives us the grass fields, gives us a lot of advantages from a fans stand-point."

Simms: "You know a couple of weeks ago I had Mayor Giuliani on the show and we talked about the New York Jets. How about a stadium in New York City, and of course he went crazy and he said, ‘yes we need one.’ He brought up a lot of wonderful points. If you had a stadium here in New York, it would almost guarantee that you’re going to have some Super Bowls up here. Is there anything you can tell us about maybe the Jets coming into the city and building a stadium?"

PT: "You know I go back on that one to Mr. Hess. He told me several years ago, before his death, that he was going to visit with the mayor. He did that and he spoke to me about joining him at a future meeting. Low and behold he had his very unfortunate and untimely death. Woody Johnson has been pursuing the idea. He wants the Jets to have their own persona, they’ve got that this year with the team they have. He would love to see the team be in New York someplace, and I know he is exploring a number of different alternatives.

Simms: "I think it would be a tremendous thing for the league and for Jet fans if they did have a stadium in New York. The other thing I hear a lot about is the realignment of the league. I think it is going to be a big topic of conversation this off season."

PT: "There’s two topics there. Number one is realignment. Taking the six divisions we have now and creating eight divisions with four teams in each division. But part of that will be a new scheduling formula. The big feature there will be that every team will play every other team in the league on a rotating basis. Within your conference it will be every three years against every opponent. You’ll have your home and away division games, and then across conferences you’ll play every team every four years. We haven’t had that now. There have been some big attractions over the last 10 or 15 years. Elway and Marino, played each other once over 15 years. The new formula is going to address that. It will be a big plus for the fans. Of course the alignment will be a difficult thing to get done. But we’re making progress. We have another meeting with the owners this week and there is a consensus building around some good ideas."

Simms: "There might be a few owners that might get upset because they are going to have move divisions and lose maybe a rivalry or a team that brings in a lot of fans when that team comes to town. Right off the bat, it reminds me of the Dallas Cowboys going to Arizona, there could be a switch there."

PT: "That’s one possibility. The biggest challenge we have in some ways is that if you draw a line that sort of begins in Minnesota, runs through St. Louis to New Orleans, we only have 12 teams west of that, and we’ve got 20 teams east of that line. So we’ve got to figure out how to restructure those Western divisions. That’s a challenge that will involve San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Arizona, Dallas and some others."

Simms: "…I know you get bombarded with this question. A lot of people are unhappy there are not more black head coaches in the NFL. There has been turnover already this year, but no black coaches. There is going to be turnover this off-season of course. What is your take on that?"

PT: "It’s frustrating in one sense, but in another sense you have to see that this is one of the most competitive positions in the world - to be an NFL head coach. There are only 31 now, soon to be 32, and there are a lot of people out there competing for it. We’ve tried to do a lot of things. The biggest thing that is happening is the success of Dennis Green and Tony Dungy. Their success gets over some of the perceptions that some people have had. The other big thing is the growing number of assistant coaches and coordinators who are African-American. We’ve got to open it up in the college ranks and I’ve been hearing some reports now about some African-American NFL coaches being pursued by some of the colleges. We hope we can get there. Just as we have with the quarterback position, with people like Donovan McNabb and Daunte Culpepper getting us way beyond where we were in the past years at that position.

Simms: "Well they’re doing quite well. Commissioner, thanks for coming on today. I know the schedule is tight."

PT: "Thank you. Good to see you."