Paul Tagliabue shares behind-the-scenes challenges of NFL’s pause after 9/11: ‘We’re not playing’
as the 20th anniversary of the tragedy approaches.
“I said on Wednesday, ‘We’re not playing. What we need to do now is get a consensus for why. We don’t want to make it look like we’re divided, and we don’t want to make it look like we can be cowed by terrorists,’” Tagliabue told USA TODAY Sports, recalling internal conversations with team owners, league officials and NFL Players Association leadership in the aftermath of the attacks, which occurred on a Tuesday.
“By Wednesday night, Thursday morning, we worked it out.”
Tagliabue’s leadership amid the national crisis was significant, even though it seems evident that the options were limited. His predecessor, the late Pete Rozelle, maintained that the biggest regret from his reign as commissioner was the decision to play games on the weekend following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963.
‘Worse than Pearl Harbor’
After 9/11, Tagliabue was certainly reminded of that history, in addition to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt urging Major League Baseball to proceed with its season in the months following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 that ignited World War II.
“I said, ‘This is worse than Pearl Harbor. They took an instrument of daily civilian life — a commercial airplane — and converted it into an intercontinental ballistic missile. This is unprecedented. Whoever did it, we can’t play football next week,’ ” Tagliabue recalled. “But there were differences of opinion that had to be resolved.”
Joe Torre, other 2001 Yankees on how country came together after attacksMike Piazza and other former Mets reflect on sports’ return to NYC
TAGLIABUE WORRIED:Former NFL commissioner admits ‘worry’ about league’s association with gambling
The Giants players could see the smoke from the towers from their practice facility at Giants Stadium, where the parking lot was used as an emergency staging location. Washington players had similar sentiments, given the attack on the Pentagon. And Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Flight 93 crashed, resonated with the Steelers and Eagles.