Saints' Future "Still An Open Question"

NEW YORK--The Saints are back in New Orleans this season in the year after being displaced from their home city by Hurricane Katrina. Outgoing NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue has been a strong advocate of giving New Orleans every chance possible to demonstrate that it can support its football team in the future. But many people within the league remain skeptical that the city can rebuild sufficiently to make the Saints economically viable in New Orleans, and they continue to see the Saints as a future candidate to be moved to Los Angeles.

Tagliabue said Monday that it's impossible to predict the future of the Saints because it's impossible, at this point, to know what the future conditions in New Orleans will be.

"It's still an open question," said Tagliabue, who has made a series of trips to New Orleans over the past year to monitor the repairs to the Superdome and the recovery of the city. "It really depends on bigger developments, bigger than the New Orleans Saints. Specifically I think it depends on how the area fares in future hurricanes. Clearly there are going to be future hurricanes. Clearly there are issues as to how the Gulf Coast and specifically New Orleans fares in future hurricanes and that, in turn, will have a big impact on the future economic recovery of the area.

"It's clear that while some sectors of the economy down there in terms of certain parishes are doing very well--Jefferson Parish, the parishes north of Lake Pontchartrain are doing very well--the overall economy is still troubled, and that's going to be affected by future hurricanes.... Until you can predict how those big issues are going to come out, it's hard to predict how the New Orleans Saints are going to come out."

Those comments came during Tagliabue's hour-long meeting with reporters Monday at the NFL's Park Avenue offices as he prepares to make his retirement official next week. He covered a wide range of topics in addition to the Bryant Gumbel controversy and his intention "to disappear" from league operations once he leaves office, including:

*Drug-testing. The NFL always has been praised by members of Congress for having the best drug-testing program in professional sports. But the lawmakers are always quick to add that football's program remains less than perfect, something that Tagliabue and Players Association chief Gene Upshaw readily acknowledge, and the lack of a reliable urine test for human growth hormone underscores the gap between advances in the science of using performance-enhancing substances and the science of testing for performance-enhancing substances.

"The technologies and the science... are going to create issues for generations to come, not just in terms of what we know today," Tagliabue said. "We are already seeing the change. You're seeing the change from anabolic steroids to human growth hormone, and that's going to evolve into genetic engineering and gene therapy, gene substitution. Those are going to involve scientific and technical and moral and ethical and legal and policy issues that nobody has started to scratch the surface on."

*Los Angeles. Tagliabue says the most significant mistake of his nearly 17-year reign as commissioner was allowing the Los Angeles market to be vacated, and he turns over the quest to return a franchise to the area to elected successor Roger Goodell. The league has taken the approach that it first will try to complete a deal for a stadium, then worry about how to get a team to the city.

"I know Roger is making that a very high priority in the next 30 to 60 days," Tagliabue said. "... I'm still optimistic, and I think Roger's optimistic, that out of those discussions a new stadium project will emerge."

*The new labor deal. Some of the NFL's 32 team owners complained after the sport's labor settlement was approved in March that they'd guaranteed too much money to the players in the deal. Tagliabue said it's too soon to know.

"Anyone who thinks they understand the economics of the current labor deal is either uninformed or kidding you because until they get through the first year or the first two years, no one can understand the economics of this deal because it's a new deal," Tagliabue said. "The first thing you've got to do is wait and experience this thing, let the data come in and compare that with past experience and past data and really have a good understanding of the economics of the deal. To use the colloquial bitching and moaning about the deal, they don't even know what the deal is because they haven't lived under it yet. That's the first thing, to live under it for a while and understand it, and then figure out what has to be done to extend it."

*His successor. Tagliabue praised Goodell, his top lieutenant as the NFL's chief operating officer, as a highly qualified successor.

"I think he'll take it in a positive direction or positive directions," Tagliabue said. "... I think he'll be a strong, assertive leader who sets an agenda. Roger clearly recognizes probably the most important thing to recognize--the commissioner's responsibility is the overall interest of the league and the game, and owners and others for the most part look after their own individual interests."

Several owners have told him in recent months, Tagliabue said, that one of his greatest strengths as commissioner was forcing them to view issues in terms of what was best for the league--as when he got the owners to agree in March to a revised revenue-sharing plan.

"It's understandable that people look after their teams' interests," Tagliabue said. "But you've got to look beyond that to the interest of the league and the interest of the game. I think Roger sees that very clearly.... You can be focused on self-interest until you look at the alternative. If you just stay focused on self-interest, you're not going to have a lot of good alternatives. So I think that once you get beyond the theory of saying, 'This is what I think,' and say, 'Okay, now what do we do?' what you're eventually going to do is going to be in the interest of the league. And I think that was illustrated with the labor deal this year. People are going to have a bunch of opinions until they start to say, 'Okay, now how do we convert my opinion into a program?' It pretty quickly comes back to the league's interest."

*The transition. After Goodell was elected on Aug. 8, he and Tagliabue decided that Goodell officially would take over on Sept. 1. They were going to set the changeover for 12:01 a.m., but then realized that exhibition games on the West coast would be in progress.

"We realized there were some West coast games that would be being played at that time, and I would be the commissioner for the first half and Roger would be the commissioner for the second half," Tagliabue said. "So we decided on 6 o'clock in the morning."

*His departure. Tagliabue said he won't have feelings of nostalgia or sadness when he leaves his office for the final time next week.

"Nostalgia, to me, sort of implies a little bit of, 'Too bad it's not continuing.' I'm glad it's over, and it's the right time for it to be over," he said. "I'm looking to move on to new challenges. So I don't know if nostalgia is the right word. I guess I feel, the words I've used is that I'm really privileged to have been involved in this for 37 years. I have tremendous memories. I've learned a tremendous amount about a lot of things from NFL people going back to 1969.... There will be things I miss. No matter what path you choose in life, you're foregoing other opportunities. I went into the practice of law in 1969, and I passed by an opportunity to go to work in the White House. What might have been? Who knows? But I have no regrets and I've never looked back.... I think right now I have a real positive feeling of satisfaction not only in terms of what we've done over 17 years but what I've done over 37 years, and that includes passing the baton in a relatively smooth process to someone who is so well qualified to step in and lead. I don't have a sense of sadness. I have a sense of release."

*Best and worst moments. Tagliabue said his best moments as commissioner came during the postseason every year. The worst came after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, and after two NFL offensive linemen died after participating in a practice or game. The Minnesota Vikings' Korey Stringer died after suffering a heat stroke during a training-camp practice in 2001, and the San Francisco 49ers' Thomas Herrion died of heart disease after collapsing in the locker room following a preseason game last year.

"It's hard to get much worse than the death of a player," Tagliabue said.

By Mark Maske |  August 22, 2006; 10:19 AM ET  | Category:  Commissioner , Saints
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