Paul Tagliabue, NFL commissioner of
17 years who led an era of riches and expansion, dies at 84
[November 10, 2025]
By BARRY WILNER and ROB MAADDI
NEW YORK (AP) — Paul Tagliabue, who helped bring labor peace and
riches to the NFL during his 17 years as commissioner but was
criticized for not taking stronger action on concussions, died
Sunday from heart failure. He was 84.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said Tagliabue’s family informed the
league of his death in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Tagliabue, who had developed Parkinson’s disease, was commissioner
after Pete Rozelle from 1989 to 2006. He was elected to the Pro
Football Hall of Fame as part of a special centennial class in 2020.
Current Commissioner Roger Goodell succeeded Tagliabue.
“Paul was the ultimate steward of the game — tall in stature, humble
in presence and decisive in his loyalty to the NFL,” 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."
News of Tagliabue's death came shortly before seven games kicked off
Sunday at 1 p.m. EST. Several teams held moments of silence
throughout the day for Tagliabue and Marshawn Kneeland, the Dallas
Cowboys defensive tackle who died on Thursday.
Tagliabue oversaw the construction of myriad new stadiums and
negotiated television contracts that added billions of dollars to
the league's bank account. Under him, there were no labor stoppages.
During his time, Los Angeles lost two teams and Cleveland another,
migrating to Baltimore before being replaced by an expansion
franchise. Los Angeles eventually regained two teams.
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.
When he took office in 1989, the NFL had just hired its first Black
head coach of the modern era. By the time Tagliabue stepped down in
2006, there were seven minority head coaches in the league.
In one of his pivotal moments, Tagliabue called off NFL games the
weekend after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It was one of
the few times the public compared him favorably to Rozelle, who
proceeded with the games two days after President John Kennedy was
assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963. A key presidential aide had advised
Rozelle that the NFL should play, a decision that was one of the
commissioner’s great regrets.
Tagliabue certainly had his detractors, notably over concussions.
The issue has plagued the NFL for decades, though team owners had a
major role in the lack of progress in dealing with head trauma.
In 2017, Tagliabue apologized for remarks he made decades ago about
concussions in football, acknowledging he didn’t have the proper
data at the time in 1994. He called concussions “one of those
pack-journalism issues” and contended the number of concussions “is
relatively small; the problem is the journalist issue.”
“Obviously,” he said on Talk of Fame Network, “I do regret those
remarks. Looking back, it was not sensible language to use to
express my thoughts at the time. My language was intemperate, and it
led to a serious misunderstanding.
“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. There was
a need for more reliable information about concussions and
uniformity in terms of how they were being defined in terms of
severity.”
While concussion recognition, research and treatment lagged for much
of Tagliabue’s tenure, his work on the labor front was exemplary.
As one of his first decisions, Tagliabue reached out to the players’
union, then run by Gene Upshaw, a Hall of Fame player and former
star for Al Davis’ Raiders. Tagliabue had insisted he be directly
involved in all labor negotiations, basically rendering useless the
Management Council of club executives that had handled such duties
for nearly two decades.
It was a wise decision.
“When Paul was named commissioner after that seven-month search in
1989, that’s when the league got back on track,” said Joe Browne,
who spent 50 years as an NFL executive and was a confidant of
Rozelle and Tagliabue.
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Paul Tagliabue, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Centennial
Class, receives his gold jacket during the gold jacket dinner in
Canton, Ohio, Aug. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
“Paul had insisted during his negotiations for the
position that final control over matters such as labor and all
commercial business dealings had to rest in the commissioner’s
office. The owners agreed and that was a large step forward toward
the tremendous rebound we had as a league — an expanded league — in
the ’90s and beyond.”
Tagliabue forged a solid relationship with Upshaw. In breaking with
the contentious dealings between the league and the NFL Players
Association, Tagliabue and Upshaw kept negotiations respectful and
centered on what would benefit both sides. Compromise was key,
Upshaw always said — although the union often was criticized for
being too accommodating.
Tagliabue had been the NFL’s Washington lawyer, a partner in the
prestigious firm of Covington & Burling. He was chosen as
commissioner in October 1989 over New Orleans general manager Jim
Finks after a bitter fight highlighting the differences between the
NFL’s old guard and newer owners.
Yet during his reign as commissioner, which ended in the spring of
2006 after pushing through a highly contested labor agreement, he
managed to unite those divided owners and, in fact, relied more on
the old-timers who supported him than on Jerry Jones and many of the
younger owners at the time.
Tagliabue was born on Nov. 24, 1940, in Jersey City, New Jersey. He
was the 6-foot-5 captain of the basketball team at Georgetown and
graduated in 1962 as one of the school’s leading rebounders at the
time — his career average later listed just below that of Patrick
Ewing. He was president of his class and a Rhodes scholar finalist.
Three years later, he graduated from NYU Law School and subsequently
worked as a lawyer in the Defense Department before joining
Covington & Burling.
He eventually took over the NFL account, establishing a close
relationship with Rozelle and other league officials during a series
of legal actions in the 1970s and 1980s.
Tagliabue was reserved by nature and it sometimes led to coolness
with the media, which had embraced Rozelle, an affable former public
relations man. Even after he left office, Tagliabue did not measure
up in that regard with Goodell, who began his NFL career in the
public relations department.
But after 9/11, Tagliabue showed a different side, particularly
toward league employees who had lost loved ones in the attacks. He
accompanied Ed Tighe, an NFL Management Council lawyer whose wife
died that day, to Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a few blocks from
the NFL office.
Art Shell, a Hall of Fame player, became the NFL’s first modern-day
Black head coach with the Raiders. He got to see Tagliabue up close
and thought him utterly suited for his job.
“After my coaching career was over, I had the privilege of working
directly with Paul in the league office,” Shell said. “His
philosophy on almost every issue was, ‘If it’s broke, fix it. And if
it’s not broke, fix it anyway.’
“He always challenged us to find better ways of doing things. Paul
never lost sight of his responsibility to do what was right for the
game. He was the perfect choice as NFL commissioner.”
Tagliabue is survived by his wife, Chandler, son Drew and daughter
Emily.
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