Tagliabue

NEW YORK — Whoever replaces Paul Tagliabue as NFL commissioner can thank him for setting up a six-year cushion of labor peace and flowing riches.

The 65-year-old commissioner will step down in July after a 16-year tenure that was the most prosperous in NFL history.

"I really want to emphasize how much of a privilege it is to spend most of your adult life with the NFL. This is not an easy decision for me," Tagliabue said Monday, a few hours after he had notified the 32 owners that he was stepping down.

"As difficult as this decision is, I also know it's the right decision," he said. "Right for me. Right for the league."

Tagliabue has been in charge since 1989, when he succeeded Pete Rozelle, and agreed last March to stay to complete the TV deal and a long-term contract with players.

He finally got that done 12 days ago, finishing the most arduous labor negotiations since the league and union agreed on a free agency-salary cap deal in 1992.

Who comes next is the big question.

Tagliabue said it was wide open, although names of potential successors have been circulating for years, the most prominent being Roger Goodell, the NFL's chief operating officer, and Atlanta general manager Rich McKay. More recently, Baltimore Ravens president Dick Cass and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have also shown interest, although Rice's spokesman said Monday that she is happy with the job she has right now.

Owners will begin the search for a new commissioner at their meetings next week in Orlando, Fla., hoping to avoid what turned into a deadlock between Tagliabue and the late Jim Finks, then the New Orleans general manager 17 years ago.

There's the potential for that if McKay and Goodell become the main candidates — Finks was a "football man" favored by some, while Goodell is a league office man, as Tagliabue was when he was elected.

Tagliabue said he is proudest of "building a strong relationship with the NFL Players Association."

Tagliabue had made no secret that with labor and television deals done, retirement was near.

Last week, he told players' union executive director Gene Upshaw that he would spend the weekend at his vacation home in Maine. Tagliabue also said he might look at buying a boat for retirement.Upshaw heard about Tagliabue's decision while vacationing in Hawaii, and e-mailed him: "I didn't expect I'd start my Monday morning this way. I guess you bought the boat."He didn't — he shopped, but didn't buy, then retired anyway.Tagliabue first phone call with the news went to Pittsburgh's Dan Rooney, the NFL's longest-tenured owner. The other owners learned of his retirement by e-mail."Pete brought us into the modern times with the television and other things. Paul has really taken us and made us a business entity," Rooney said a few hours after Tagliabue called him to tell him he is stepping down in July.Tagliabue will stay on with the NFL as a senior executive and a consultant through 2008, part of the contract extension he signed last July.His term will be remembered most for labor peace following strikes in 1982 and `87. His close relationship with Upshaw finally led to a long-term agreement after five years without a contract.But the bargaining was hard this time, with three straight deadline extensions needed. The agreement avoided the prospect of entering free agency this year with the possibility of an uncapped year in 2007.It came at the expense of expanded revenue sharing among the owners, an issue that had divided high-revenue and small-revenue teams and contributed to the deadlock. He did it with what has been considered his greatest skill as commissioner, patching together a coalition of nine teams with differing viewpoints to reach a compromise considered satisfactory by all but two teams.He also oversaw a massive stadium building program. More than two-thirds of the NFL's 32 teams are either playing in or building stadiums that didn't exist when he took over as commissioner in 1989.He said his biggest regret as commissioner was allowing both the Rams and Raiders to leave Los Angeles after the 1994 season — the Rams for St. Louis and the Raiders for Oakland. The league has been trying to get a team back in Los Angeles ever since.