From NFLMedia.com
COMMISSIONER GOODELL INTERVIEW
WITH RICH EISEN and NFL NETWORK CREW
NFL DRAFT – New York – April 28, 2007
NFLN: Commissioner Roger Goodell, thanks for joining this program.
Roger Goodell: I am glad to be here.
NFLN: The last voice, not Paul Tagliabue’s, to be heard in a first round in the NFL
Draft is Pete Rozelle. Now you carry on this mantle. What are your thoughts as you
get set to conduct your first draft as a commissioner?
RG: It is an exciting day for everybody in the NFL to see these young kids now getting a
chance to make their NFL dreams come true. You can’t beat it. It’s an exciting day for all
of us.
NFLN: You’ve got your throat and voice ready?
RG: I’ve been practicing. I’ve been doing my best Rich Eisen.
NFLN: Okay. I will take that, Commissioner. Let’s talk about this draft in terms of
the topic du jour: player conduct. A lot of people believe that based on your year-
long suspension of Adam Jones and half-season suspension of Chris Henry that
teams will be drafting differently this year. Do you believe that is the case?
RG: Every club is going to have their own strategy in how they are going to approach the
draft. Character has always been an issue for teams when they look at players, talent is
obviously critically important, and how the player fits into their organization. But I do
think that clubs are more sensitive to the character issue and what they need to do to get
players that are going to fit into their team structure.
NFLN: The thing I hear around the league is that the most significant piece of this is
that you are effectively taking autonomy away from the individual clubs in certain
instances. And the clubs who have a history of great character applaud that because
if you take a good player out of somebody else’s lineup, competitively it helps them.
Do you see that happening a lot?
RG: I do. We have a lot of great players who have great character in this league. We have
very few players that don’t have great character. Our teams understand that. Our teams
have great people. I am very proud of our players in the NFL.
NFLN: Roger, you were nice enough to meet with us when we came to your office
the other day and you mentioned that it will change, yes, because you came down
and put a suspension on some players. But the teams will still police themselves and
have the ability to make decisions to suspend or fine players. And really only the
league will come into it with repeat offenders or possibly real flagrant conduct
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misactions. How will you do that with the teams? Will you allow the teams first to
make decisions and then see if you like them or will you step in immediately?
RG: It’s complex. There is no simple answer to that question. We would love to have the
clubs take responsibility for their players and discipline their players. They would love to
do that. The Players Association, also, on the other side wants to balance that by making
sure that it is done consistently and fairly among all 32 clubs and within each team. So
we’re going to look at it to try to do it in a way that is fair to the players. But one thing
should be clear here: we are not doing this to end careers. We are doing this to save
careers. We are trying to get our players back on the field doing what they do best. That
is playing football.
NFLN: Commissioner, speaking of saving careers, what are you implementing to
the teams that they do now to help some of these players to find out about their
character? When they come in, we don’t know about their character. When they get
their money, then we get to see what the real guy is like. What does the club have to
do? And if they don’t do those things, what kind of actions are you going to take
against them?
RG: We developed a lot of programs for our players over the last several years that are
designed to give resources to those players to help them deal with issues that they might
have off the field. We want to use those resources, build those resources up and make
sure that all 32 clubs are doing that intensively with their players. If they don’t, that will
be taken into consideration when I look at discipline for a club. I believe all our clubs are
going to aggressively be pursuing best practices in this area.
NFLN: How about the team that drafts a player with character issues? Do you
address that team differently? If that guy gets in trouble and they haven’t provided
the things for him, do you attack the team now? Do you take something away from
them? Do you fine them?
RG: One thing you know I don’t do is select players. I can’t control it nor do I want to
control that. I think clubs are going to be a little more sensitive to the kind of players that
they can bring into their organization and that they can mold into the kind of team that
they want. If they don’t make it for any reason and they have provided the resources,
clearly that will be taken into account. If they have not provided those resources, that will
be disappointing to me and that will be taken into account.
NFLN: What is the future of the draft? What is the possibility of playing the Super
Bowl overseas?
RG: This draft has become an incredible event for us not just today and tomorrow but
also over the last several months. The focus on the incoming class of players is just
extraordinary for us. We think that it’s great. We are looking at ways in which we can
build that. There are talks about moving it around the country. There are talks of moving
it into prime time. We have been talking about how we can bring more football to more
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fans. As far as the international piece, we do believe that our game has a great deal of
appeal internationally. We’re playing our first regular-season game as part of a series
over in London this year and we’re going to do more of that. We’re looking at how we
can get more football to more fans globally.
RE: Since you said you were doing your best Rich Eisen impersonation, can I do my
best commissioner impersonation and demand to get the helmet phones back here?
What happened to the helmet phones?
RG: Rich, that’s a good question and I’m going to follow up on that immediately.
RE: Please do. I appreciate the follow-up on that. Commissioner, thank you for
joining us.
RG: Thanks guys. Good luck guys.
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