Tagliabue Calls Race Bias Report ‘Utter Nonsense’

Paul Tagliabue, unveiling a blunt, to-the-point style today at his first Super Bowl news conference as NFL commissioner, called a Washington television station’s report accusing racial bias in NFL drug testing “a journalistic Molotov cocktail.”

In his first national exposure as successor to Pete Rozelle, Tagliabue pulled no punches. “If you throw enough mud against the wall, some of it might stick,” the commissioner said of criticism leveled at the league’s drug policy and Dr. Forest Tennant, the NFL’s drug adviser.

Tagliabue dismissed the WJLA report as “a smear, a gross distortion, utter nonsense.”

“It was a smear in that it did not name people. Until you have facts that make it credible, you don’t publish the story. If I were still practicing law, I’d like to cross-examine some of the people they spoke with.”

The commissioner dismissed the station’s charge that positive drug tests were covered up for three white quarterbacks. “Why would the league let a player go on with an addiction?” he said. “Why would they think that was doing a player a favor?”

Tagliabue viewed the report as scattershot. “Watching that report, you might think Dr. Tennant was under this podium, testing me,” he said.

The commissioner defended the league’s drug policy, saying, “I know enough to stand by it in every form.”

However, Tagliabue would not issue a blanket endorsement of Tennant’s operation or say that the doctor would continue to head the drug program.

On other subjects, Tagliabue said he favors retaining instant replay because he believes that fans like it, expects international play to extend to Germany with an exhibition game next summer, and hopes for a collective bargaining agreement and expansion early in his administration.

Tagliabue also said that he is concerned with the length of games, some stretching to as long as four hours, and that he intends to impose “stiff fines” to control taunting on the field.