The professional football world today is celebrating the life and contributions of
PAUL TAGLIABUE, who led the National Football League to unprecedented heights as its seventh full-time commissioner.
Tagliabue died Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025, according to the League and Commissioner Roger Goodell, who succeeded Tagliabue’s 17-year tenure in the office. A member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Centennial Class of 2020, Tagliabue was 84.
“The mission of the Pro Football Hall of Fame is to honor the greatest of the game – whether they play, coach or contribute – and Commissioner Paul Tagliabue certainly can be counted among its foremost contributors,” Hall of Fame President & CEO Jim Porter said Sunday. “Many will remember how he skillfully led the League’s widely respected and appropriate response to the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001. Also noteworthy: the labor peace the League enjoyed under his tenure, record broadcast deals, the establishment of international games and the expansion to the current 32 NFL teams.
“You simply cannot tell the history of the National Football League without repeated praise of the job Paul Tagliabue did as commissioner, and also as the league’s lead attorney before taking that top role.”
Tagliabue succeeded longtime Commissioner
PETE ROZELLE in 1989 and served through Sept. 1, 2006. Under his guidance, the NFL:
- Expanded from 28 to 32 teams.
- Developed talent and grew the game internationally through the World League of American Football and, later, NFL Europe.
- Adopted instant replay.
- Built the first internet site by a major sports league.
- Navigated the challenges of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
- Signed record television rights deals.
- Enjoyed labor peace with lengthy collective bargaining agreements.
- Increased league-wide revenue sharing, adopted a salary cap and expanded free agency, all of which helped create parity in the league and the opportunity for teams to rebound quickly from losing seasons.
- Oversaw several new stadium projects.
“After he became commissioner, it’s like he grew in leaps and bounds,” Carmen Policy, a former executive of the San Francisco 49ers and Cleveland Browns, said when Tagliabue announced his retirement from the NFL. “He had a global vision, but unlike dreamers and people who [only] can see beyond the horizon, he was also able to effectively engage in down-to-earth, day-to-day implementation.
“I think, just recently, a lot of people, including even some owners in the NFL, are starting to understand the wonderful spectacle of talent and leadership and vision that this guy brought to the job.”
Tagliabue’s success in the role took some by surprise. His ascension to the position required three owners meetings, in three cities; the aid of a New York-based executive search company; three search committees of NFL owners; more than 50 hours of debate and 11 ballots for the owners to choose him over
JIM FINKS, the vice president and general manager of the New Orleans Saints at that time and himself a future Hall of Famer (Class of 1995).
Ultimately, owners came to realize the steady Tagliabue could continue the work Rozelle started while bringing a new approach and fresh ideas.
In his Enshrinement speech in 2020, Tagliabue said his “journey in pro football began in 1969, quite a few years ago, as a young attorney in Washington, D.C., representing the NFL. Over the next two decades, I was privileged to learn a lot about the game and the business of football, working with Commissioner Pete Rozelle and league leaders, giants of the league, such as the New York Giants’
WELLINGTON MARA, the Chiefs’
LAMAR HUNT, the Steelers’
DAN ROONEY and the Cowboys’
TEX SCHRAMM.
“It was Dan Rooney who explained to me early on, and I quote him. He said, ‘Paul, some teams are a lot better at winning than others, but when it comes to League business, we're all equal. So in deciding what the League should do, don't give too much weight to any one owner.’
“It was good advice,” Tagliabue continued. “Commissioner Rozelle was superb at persuading owners to put aside their own agendas for the overall good of the League. When I succeeded him in 1989, I knew I wanted to maintain his fundamental principle: ‘Think League first.’ Those were the three words he said so often. ‘Think League first.’”
In his memoir “Jersey City to America’s Game” published shortly after his enshrinement, Tagliabue reiterated that mantra.
“Think league first and clubs second. It’s never about I or me; it’s always we or us,” he wrote.
When Tagliabue took over as commissioner, he wrote in the memoir: “… there had been decades of acrimony between the clubs and the Players Association; divisive and protracted litigation over team relocation; no League expansion with new teams in almost in 15 years; flat television revenues; and sometimes a concern that other sports were shrinking the League’s once unquestioned lead in popularity.”
Tagliabue said he learned by entering the belly of the beast – the NFL locker room. Over his first few months as commissioner, he met with players from several teams to hear their views on pension and health care benefits, drug testing, artificial turf, free agency and other issues of importance to them. He later started a Player Advisory Council and, importantly, heeded its advice regularly.
One author called Tagliabue “a brilliant engineer who anticipated many of the League’s challenges and addressed them with skill and vision.”
