Tags to retire in July

[Gdawg]

I for one am glad to see him go. His collusion with Jack Kent Cook to keep the NFL from returning to Baltimore infuriated me; one of the most satisfying football moments I have ever experienced was when he was forced to hand the trophy to Art Modell. Priceless in my book!

Edited March 21, 2006 by Gdawg

[Easy n Dirty]

As far as being any sort of visionary leader, he's an empty suit.

 

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I'm not all that knowledgable on this stuff, but the one thing I do know is that early on in his tenure he argued strongly that the NFL teams should be in the stadium business as well, and he has always pushed hard for teams to build new stadiums. I think something like 75% of NFL teams have built new stadiums during his tenure. Now whether that's good or bad I guess we could argue for days.

 

I thought he handled the September 11 situation very well back in 2001. He has also been instrumental in insuring labor peace during his tenure, certainly he's done better than any other major sport, and that's while implementing a salary cap. And he won the labor war with the officials back in 2001 also. I also give him props for navigating the realignment of teams and divisions a couple years agoi, and he was instrumental in the NFL defeating Al Davis' lawsuit.

 

"Empty suit" is pretty harsh, the guy has done an outstanding job. If you're saying he simply stayed the course set by his predecessor, there may be some truth to that, but I think you're oversimplifying, and besides there is some wisdom in staying the course rather than shaking things up. If you're suggesting that any Joe Blow coulda' stepped in and done the job he did, I think you're way off base.