|
|
 |
 |   |
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE | |
NFL faced 'agonizing decision'
Sports Illustrated's Peter King gave his take to CNN/Sports Illustrated's Ray D'Alessio after the NFL announced it will not play this weekend's games: Ray D'Alessio: How tough of a decision was this for the league? Some of the owners wanted to play, some didn't. What finally went into the final decision? Peter King: I think it was an agonizing decision for the NFL for a couple of reasons. Number one, there was a great sentiment among a good number of people both government officials and ownership in the league that we need to show the terrorists that they're not going to win and that we're going to get on with life as usual. The NFL on Sundays is such a signature event in America that I think there was great trepidation to say, "You're forcing us to cancel the games." But in the end I think just some of the logistics and overwhelming player sentiment to not play the games I think played the biggest part in Paul Tagliabue's decision. D'Alessio: Again, they're considering whether or not to make up these games. Whether to postpone or just cancel them. In the event that they do decide to make these games up Peter, again you've got a certain amount of time frame that you have to do that. Obviously, one would assume they would extend the season one extra week. King: Well, those are the two options. Obviously either you're going to extend the season an extra week and do one of two things. Number one, you can knock out the wild-card games that are scheduled for January 5th and 6th and play these games that weekend which would obviously reduce the number of teams in the playoffs from 12 to eight. That would be a major decision on behalf of the NFL. I think their other choice would be to try somehow, someway although it's virtually impossible to do this because of the logistics in late January, move the Super Bowl back a week. I think that's entirely unlikely and would be very, very hard to do. D'Alessio: Peter, I don't know if you can answer this or not. Obviously, security is of utmost important right now. Have there been any talks with the owners or even with Tagliabue as to whether or not they might even heighten security at these games? King: Oh, there's no question there will be more security at these games. I know in talking to some people in Detroit, they were jacking up security at the Silverdome for this weekend's game against Dallas by quite a few officers and I think they will at every single game. I can't imagine the flanks of security that will be at Giants Stadium for games at least in the immediate future. I think that's very justified because clearly there are bomb threats and bomb scares almost everywhere. It's one of those things that to make people feel safe at these venues, they are going to have to jack up security considerably. D'Alessio: Reading some of the newspapers and listening to some of the interviews on talk radio, a lot of the players did not want to play this weekend specifically because they really couldn't focus on the games. I mean, their minds were still reflecting back to Tuesday. King: Talking to Marco Battaglia, the tight end of the Cincinnati Bengals [on Wednesday], and he has a good friend who's unaccounted for. He's from Queens and there are stories like that in almost every locker room. A Cleveland Browns defensive back had a father who did get out of the building alive but who works there. I think there are a lot of those stories. One of the other things that happened, is that several of the players are just getting back to their teams [Thursday] because they had to drive from all over the country. Normally, Tuesday is an NFL day off and some of the players disappear for a day and a half. Half of Monday and then Tuesday and then come back to practice Wednesday. So, there were all kinds of minor logistical nightmares that really made playing these games this weekend problematic. Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL and appears regularly on CNN/Sports Illustrated and CNN's NFL Preview.
| |||||||||||||||||||||
