Paul Tagliabue, former NFL commissioner, dies at 84

Given the size and scope of Pete Rozelle’s legacy as one of the greatest commissioners in sports history, Paul Tagliabue faced a daunting challenge when he replaced Rozelle at the end of his nearly 30-year run as NFL commissioner.

But Tagliabue, the bookish attorney who had worked behind the scenes representing the league on legal matters before taking over on Oct. 26, 1989, became an impactful commissioner in his own right, achieving labor peace that had bedeviled Rozelle and presiding over record growth in a 17-year career that earned him Hall of Fame recognition in 2020.

Tagliabue, who had developed Parkinson's disease, died Sunday of heart failure. He was 84.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said Tagliabue’s family informed the league of his death in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

“Paul was the ultimate steward of the game — tall in stature, humble in presence and decisive in his loyalty to the NFL," commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “I am forever grateful and proud to have Paul as my friend and mentor. I cherished the innumerable hours we spent together where he helped shape me as an executive but also as a man, husband and father."

Before succeeding Rozelle, a former Rams public relations director whose charisma and vision helped build the NFL into America’s most popular sport, Tagliabue had represented the NFL at the Washington, D.C.-based firm Covington & Burling. The one thing that had vexed Rozelle, especially during the final decade of his tenure, was labor relations with the players, but Tagliabue’s ascension proved to be a significant turning point whose impact continues today.

Tagliabue’s first mission was to forge labor peace with the NFL Players Association after a tumultuous decade in the 1980s. There were player strikes in 1982, when the season was shortened to nine games, and 1987, when owners used replacement players for three weeks before a new collective bargaining agreement was struck with the NFL Players Association.

Several players, including former Jets running back Freeman McNeil and Eagles defensive end Reggie White, later filed antitrust lawsuits against the NFL. Court victories eventually set the stage for a compromise in 1993, when the league and NFLPA established a new collective bargaining agreement. It has been renewed several times since and has become a model for other sports with the introduction of a salary cap in 1994.

Tagliabue’s secret meetings with NFLPA executive director and Hall of Fame guard Gene Upshaw  began shortly after he took over as commissioner and were credited with building trust and leading to an eventual agreement.

“[It was] about how to change the relationship with the players association and to make it less adversarial and less confrontational, and build a relationship of respect and trust,” Tagliabue said in a 2006 interview with NFL Network. “We've tried to do that over the years, Gene Upshaw and I, and the owners and the Players Association Executive Committee. He and I have always been on the same page when it comes to trying to make this system work fairly.”

The NFL’s labor agreement became a template for the NHL and NBA,  which mirror Tagliabue’s introduction of the salary cap.

Tagliabue used his powers of diplomacy and consensus to achieve several other milestones during his 17-year tenure:

• Revenue from television contracts soared during his stewardship, starting with a four-year, $3.6 billion deal that was announced at his first owners' meeting in March 1990. At the time, it was the largest in sports television history, and the league has consistently increased that revenue stream since then. On Tagliabue’s watch, the league agreed to TV contracts totaling about $25 billion.
• The league added four teams — the Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers in 1995; the Browns, established in  Cleveland in 1999 after team owner Art Modell moved the franchise to Baltimore in 1996, and the Houston Texans in 2002. The addition of the teams brought the league to its current level of 32 franchises.
• The league went on a  stadium-building effort that lasted years, with 20 new venues constructed during Tagliabue’s era.
• He created the NFL Network, which continues to operate and now broadcasts games.
• Tagliabue  also is credited with the implementation of the “Rooney Rule,” a requirement that NFL teams  include diverse candidates when hiring a new head coach. The rule, which has since been enhanced to include other on-field and off-field positions, continues to be modified to address the league’s diversity hiring practices.

He made some challenging decisions along the way, including the cancellation of games the week after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the refusal of the NFL to play a Super Bowl in Arizona in 1993 after the legislature initially refused to establish a Martin Luther King state holiday, and his refusal to let the Saints move to San Antonio after New Orleans was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2001.

Tagliabue also launched an international effort in 1991 to give the NFL a larger global footprint. The NFL launched the World League of American Football in Europe that year, and although the league has since ended operations, regular-season games have been held in Europe, Mexico and Canada.

His tenure was not without controversy, particularly when he did not offer a more robust response to the problem of concussions during the 1990s. It was one of his biggest regrets and might have been a reason he was spurned by Hall of Fame voters before getting to Canton as part of the Hall’s Centennial Class in 2020.

In 2017, Tagliabue apologized for previous remarks he made about concussions. He had said in 1994 that it was “one of those pack-journalism issues” and suggested the number of concussions “is relatively small. The problem is the journalist issue.”

Subsequent research has indicated that vast numbers of NFL players suffered concussions during their careers, and the discovery that many players suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, commonly known as CTE, forced the league to confront uncomfortable truths about concussions. The league eventually reached a settlement in 2013 worth more than $1 billion after being sued by more than 4,500 players who contended the league was concealing the dangers of concussions.

“Bottom line, it sounded like I was shooting the messenger, which was the concussion issue,” Tagliabue said in a 2017 interview with the Talk of Fame Network. “My intention at the time was to make a point which could have been made fairly simply, that there was a need for better data.”

Tagliabue hoped his greatest legacy was growing the game of football and incorporating it more fully into the fabric of society.

“For decades, the NFL has served to unite people all over America,” he said at his Hall of Fame induction speech in August 2021. “The league has served to unite people irrespective of creed, color and attributes. The league has served as a focal point of shared community interest and civic pride for millions of people. But these qualities and outcomes cannot be taken for granted. It’s up to us to ensure they continue . . .  I’m proud and grateful to have played a small part in shaping the evolution of the National Football League in the last four decades. Thank you all for honoring us and for helping us celebrate the past, the present and the future of pro football. It’s as great as it’s ever been.”

Tagliabue is survived by his wife, Chan, and two adult children, Emily Tagliabue and Drew Tagliabue.

By Bob Glauber

Special to NewsdayBobGlauber

Bob Glauber retired in 2022 after covering the NFL for nearly 40 years. He was selected in 2021 for the Bill Nunn Career Achievement Award by the Pro Football Writers of America, and is a three-time winner of the New York State Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. President of the PFWA for the 2018-20 seasons, he is the author of “The Forgotten First” and “Guts and Genius.”