Paul Tagliabue, who served as NFL commissioner for 17 seasons as the league experienced tremendous prosperity and growth, died Sunday morning at the age of 84, his family announced.
The apparent cause of death was heart failure complicated by Parkinson’s disease.
Tagliabue became commissioner in 1989, taking over for Pete Rozelle. He was succeeded by current commissioner Roger Goodell in 2006.
“Paul was the ultimate steward of the game — tall in stature, humble in presence and decisive in his loyalty to the NFL. He viewed every challenge and opportunity through the lens of what was best for the greater good, a principle he inherited from Pete Rozelle and passed on to me,” Goodell said in a statement Sunday.
Goodell added: “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.”
The value of many of the league’s franchises increased tenfold during Tagliabue’s time in the commissioner’s chair. When he left, more than two-thirds of the NFL’s 32 teams were either playing in or building stadiums that didn’t exist when he took over as commissioner in 1989. The league also added four teams — the Carolina Panthers (1995), Jacksonville Jaguars (1995), present-day Cleveland Browns (1999) and Houston Texans (2002) — during his tenure, going from 28 teams to 32.
He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a contributor in 2020.
“In examining what makes the NFL so compelling, I always return to the players who make the game what it is,” Tagliabue said during his Hall of Fame induction speech. “The athletes who thrive in the competitive environment of the National Football League tend to be intensely motivated individuals with clear values and exceptional goals. … We need to respect the players for having these qualities and for what they represent as leaders in sports and in society.”
Tagliabue was commissioner during two of the biggest crises in recent American history — the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Tagliabue canceled the weekend’s NFL games in the aftermath of Sept. 11, setting the tone for other sports leagues to follow suit.
“I was convinced that there was no real historical analogue for the [Sept. 11] attacks,” Tagliabue wrote in his 2017 memoir “Jersey City to America’s Game.” “… On a conference call Wednesday with our working group of owners, I told them that ‘This is not the Kennedy assassination. This is not Pearl Harbor. It’s worse.’ I knew that I could not support playing any games on that weekend.”
He also ensured that the Saints would move back to New Orleans after being displaced to San Antonio during the 2005 season because of Hurricane Katrina.
When he announced his retirement in 2006, Tagliabue said the biggest accomplishment of his tenure was “building a strong relationship with the NFL Players Association,” noting that “everyone involved in the NFL in the ’80s saw that as a negative.”
Working with players’ union executive director Gene Upshaw and following advice from late Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney to never give “too much weight to any one owner,” Tagliabue helped restore peace in owner-player relations after labor strikes in 1982 and 1987. There were no labor stoppages during his 17-year tenure. The league also enjoyed historic television contracts, and under Tagliabue, free agency and a salary cap were introduced.
“The system put every team on a roughly equal footing in the football competition, and it took a great player and a great owner,” Tagliabue said of labor peace. “It took a Gene Upshaw and a Dan Rooney to reach that kind of a compromise and that kind of a solution to a complicated problem.”
Tagliabue implemented a policy on substance abuse that was considered the strongest in all major sports. He also established the “Rooney Rule” in which all teams with coaching vacancies must interview minority candidates. It has since been expanded to include front-office and league executive positions.
Tagliabue said his biggest regret as commissioner was allowing both the Rams and Raiders to leave Los Angeles after the 1994 season — the Rams for St. Louis and the Raiders for Oakland before moving to Las Vegas in 2020. The Rams returned to L.A. from St. Louis for the 2016 season, with the Chargers joining them in 2017 after a move from San Diego.
The Browns and Oilers also relocated during his tenure. The Browns moved to Baltimore to become the Ravens in 1996 and the Oilers relocated to Tennessee to become the Titans in 1997.
Post-retirement, Tagliabue was appointed by Goodell in 2012 to hear an appeal by four players who had been suspended in the Saints’ “Bountygate” case. Tagliabue overturned the suspensions, saying that while three of the four players engaged in conduct detrimental to the league, the case had been “contaminated by the coaches and others in the Saints organization.”
Tagliabue also served as chairman of the board of directors at Georgetown University from 2009 to 2015.
Before his legal career, Tagliabue was a standout college basketball player at Georgetown. Before taking on the job of commissioner, Tagliabue was a league lawyer who spent much of that time as the NFL’s representative and unofficial lobbyist in Washington.
He is survived by his wife Chandler, son Drew and daughter Emily.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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