For Tagliabue, CBA agreement a crowning achievement

I don't know who likes the NFL's new labor agreement more -- the players or the owners -- but I know whom it should satisfy most.

Paul Tagliabue.

The league's commissioner since 1989, Tagliabue is scheduled to stay on the job through the 2007 season. Wednesday's agreement guarantees that he completes his tenure without one strike, walkout or work stoppage.

Paul Tagliabue has never overseen a work stoppage. (Getty Images)

Think about it. That's nearly two decades of labor peace, and name me another major pro sport that enjoyed that tranquility. You can't. Sure, it hasn't been easy -- especially when you factor in the latest round of labor negotiations -- which is why Tagliabue can exhale and appreciate what just transpired.

Last week the league's 32 owners were so opposed to what the NFL Players Association was pitching it took them all of 57 minutes to break off talks. Six days later, they agreed to a six-year contract extension with the union, and, pardon me, but they don't go there without Tagliabue.

He's the one who kept the door open, the discussions moving and the owners meeting when talks were at a standstill. Without him, we have no agreement. Without him, your neighborhood football team is busy cutting another veteran today to meet a salary cap of $94.5 million.

Now, according to one NFL executive, the cap will move to $102 million in 2006 and $109 million in 2007. NFL clubs also may gain a one-day break in free agency, with the league seeking to move it from 12:01 a.m. Friday to 12:01 a.m. Saturday to allow clubs to digest what just happened.

And what did? A defining moment in the career of Paul Tagliabue. He walked into a hostile environment in Dallas and somehow convinced a room of gazillionaires to put aside their selfishness and act in the interests of the league.

When he was through, he had an overwhelming victory, with only Cincinnati and Buffalo opposed.

"His greatest achievement?" asked David Cornwell, a sports attorney and former assistant counsel for the NFL. "It's certainly one of his top three. The others would be the USFL trial and being elected commissioner.

"His satisfaction should be immense. He acted on behalf of the owners and the players and the fans and the sponsors and the TV people and took them from a period of uncertainty and replaced it with a period of prosperity."

For weeks Tagliabue insisted a tentative deal could be achieved before owners reached a consensus on revenue sharing, and he was proven right. In essence, he forged a settlement on a new collective bargaining agreement with NFL Players Association executive director Gene Upshaw, then took it to the league's 32 owners -- convinced he could hammer out a settlement if they heard him.

And they did.