COMMISSIONER ROGER GOODELL PRESS CONFERENCE AT ANNUAL MEETING

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1 COMMISSIONER ROGER GOODELL PRESS CONFERENCE AT ANNUAL MEETING RG: Good morning, we had a very productive few days and covered a lot of subjects. The NFL made a lot of improvements this week and I feel very good about what we did. I d be happy to take your questions. With respect to the L.A. situation in 2016 commentary regarding the possibility of the NFL being in L.A. for 2016 can you clarify that? Because from a development perspective, it would seem unrealistic unless you re going to play in a temporary stadium at that point. We re focused on doing this right. If we go back to the Los Angeles market we want to succeed for the long-term and we have a lot to do to get to that place. So we re not focused on 16. Obviously, if it did happen in 16, you d have to play in a temporary facility. We could not possibly construct a stadium in that timeframe, but right now our focus is on the process, making sure that we re evaluating the opportunities and their existing markets. We re also making sure that we understand what it takes to be successful in Los Angeles long-term. When Adrian Peterson was suspended in November the letter said that he would be eligible for reinstatement no sooner than April 15. He s now after the federal judge made the decision moved back to the exempt list, not the suspended list, so is April 15 still a relevant date or what is the timeline for his status to change? Yes, it is. We re going to continue the evaluation. We ll have our people, and I will expect to meet with Adrian before we make a final determination on his status. But we expect to keep that timetable. Your thoughts on the St. Louis stadium plan? Do you see progress, do you want to see more progess? You always want to see more progress. I ve spoken to the governor and our staff have been there. I think Dave Peacock has done a terrific job of formulating a plan and they have a great site. They have a site that is important for St. Louis to re-develop, makes the perfect stadium site as the governor told me and I think they re working toward making it become a reality. We need to continue that momentum. We need to continue the focus of making it a reality and that s a positive. The efforts that are going on there are very positive. What s the status of Ted Wells investigation into the deflated football matter, does it have to be completed by the Draft? We have not put a timeframe on Ted Wells. We ve asked him to be thorough, complete and when he s finished then he ll give it to us and to the public in general. Do you feel the league office handled everything appropriately and correctly or do you have any regrets over the way that the incident cast a pall over the two weeks and dominated the conversation and may have prematurely stained the reputations of the Patriots and Tom Brady and Bill Belichick? I made it very clear at the Super Bowl that we were not making any judgments and that we were obligated, as part of our role, to make sure we understand the facts whenever there is a charge, potentially, of a violation of our rules. We take it very seriously and that s our obligation. It s our obligation to the other 31 clubs. Ted Wells will be going through the report and if there was anything that we as a league did incorrectly, we ll know about it in that report. The Browns have admitted to texting to the sidelines during the game, which apparently in a violation of the electronic device rules. How serious is this and will there be discipline coming?

2 Again, the same point, any violation of our rules is something we take seriously. It effects the integrity of the game and all 32 teams need to be operating under the same rules. Our clubs expect that and our fans expect that. So any violation is taken seriously. I have not been brought up to speed on that in the last couple of days, obviously I ve been here, but I m sure there will be a focus on that in the next couple of days. How would you characterize the discussion here on expanded playoffs and what do you think the likelihood of that is in future seasons? We had a healthy discussion on that. This is something we ve been evaluating over the last couple of years and several factors went into the decision to at least postpone the expanded playoffs. Some of them would be on the competitive side. The last two years, interestingly enough, it s been inconsistent with our experience in the past in that the last two weeks we actually would have had five less teams that would have qualified for the playoffs under the 14-team format than the 12. And that s a little bit counterintuitive due to the experience we had. So whenever we make a change like this we want to look at what are the positives and negatives? What are the unintended consequences? We want to make the regular season more important, more exciting and have more teams in the race. If we re not doing that, we want to make sure that we understand why and what else we can do to affect that. We also have scheduling issues, as far as when we could play the games Saturday, Sunday. We ve looked at a Monday night but college football has the National Championship on Monday night and we certainly don t want to conflict with that. So there are a number of factors that are going on that we just felt the right thing for us to do was to take another year, evaluate all this, and make the right decision long term. On expanded playoffs and the games potentially being aired on the network that also has the Thursday night package: There is no question that an extra playoff game would be attractive to anybody on the Thursday night package. So that is a reality that, of course, there would be interest in. I know we would have interest from the networks on an expanded playoffs regardless if it was part of the Thursday night package. During the anti-tampering window leading up to free agency there were deals getting reported and apparently done like we haven t seen, maybe ever. Where does the league stand as far as looking into those teams? How many teams of instances are you looking into and what are some of the potential penalties that you re discussing? Again, it s a very similar thing in a sense that we want to protect the integrity of the rules. All teams have to play by the same rules. We want to make sure that no teams are given an advantage as it relates to free agency or the opportunity to get free agents. There are several teams and several issues that we re looking at. They re all being taken seriously. As soon as we have enough information we will make a judgment on whether it s a violation or not and once that happens we ll certainly let everyone know publicly. Why the change in the blackout policy? What we said is it s important to balance the interests of having your stadiums full and our broadcast policies. The reality is, by changing our broadcast policies over the last six or ten years, we ve given our clubs more flexibility to sell their stadiums out, more flexibility in their manifest, and more flexibility in the way they can sell their tickets. This has not really become an issue. We had zero blackouts in 2014, we had two in 13. What we ve seen is a significant change and the membership felt at this point in time with the work that s been done and with the policy changes, that it was appropriate to suspend it for a year. Let s see what the impact is long-term. That s the analysis that s going on but I think what we ve done is our clubs have done a great job aggressively marketing themselves in their market. There s a positive, obviously, to having your games on television. When Terrelle Pryor came into the league, he was subject to discipline from the league for his actions in college. Under the personal conduct policy, is someone potentially subject to

3 discipline to something that happened when they were in college? It s been a few years since I reflected back on the Terrelle Pryor case, but I believe the discipline on the Terrelle Pryor case was more as a result of how he may have manipulated his status for the draft versus the supplemental draft. It wasn t for actions that he took as far as the personal conduct policy, the personal conduct policy for the NFL doesn t apply for someone who s in college. We don t have that right. We don t have that ability. We do have the ability, however, if a player has an issue in the NFL when the personal conduct policy applies to them to consider that as an aggravating factor, something that could be considered in the context of the overall discipline. Roger, regarding the Los Angeles process assuming that you re going to continually work with the home markets and monitor those, have you identified steps in the process that you expect to see or is there a plan as far as that s considered Just in Los Angeles? Right. And anything we might expect by the May meetings in terms of presentations to you or the Los Angeles Working Group or anything like that by May? Yes, I do expect that we ll be hearing from all three teams, not only to the league staff but also to the committee sometime in late April. We will likely report back to the membership again in May when we meet. There will be a lot of dialogue. There s a tremendous amount of focus on the stadium alternatives, looking at those stadium alternatives and marketing studies in all of the markets, including current markets. There s a great deal of work being done and I would expect that that would continue at a very disciplined pace. There s been a recent upheaval in the Titans ownership situation, could you update us on that? Also, you re losing Joel Bussert after 40 years. Can you say something about Joel? Yeah, I did yesterday, I ll start with your second question, but Joel Bussert has served the league now for 40 years. I ve been fortunate to work along with him for a large majority of that and he represents the best of the NFL in my opinion. He s someone that always puts the league first. I think he s a tremendous guardian of the game. He has been w wise counsel for three commissioners and I can speak for myself, a very important counsel. He s made a difference in the NFL and we re going to miss him. We re thankful that he s going to continue to play a role for us, but he s an extraordinary man but also made incredible contributions to the league. He s also very bashful so I don t think you re going to get a lot out of him. On Titans ownership. Yes, this is something that we ve been working on since Mr. Adams passed away. We want to ensure that the team is obviously under the proper management structure, ownership structure, as well as making sure that it s being represented properly not only in Nashville and the Tennessee market, but also at the league level. We take, and we take it very seriously, the votes of every club. Each club is certainly dependent on the others to make informed decisions and one with the long-term view towards what s best for the league and what s best for the franchises. There is a commitment. I met with the ownership, with owner Bob McNair on Sunday and they understand our priorities and what needs to get done and we ll continue to work with them with our finance committee. What s your timeline for Greg Hardy? I know you re trying to gain more information from his initial bench trial, will there be a suspension coming soon and what are your thoughts on the Cowboys signing him before you ruled on his situation? Any club was free to sign Greg Hardy. They understood that we were reviewing his case for potential discipline. That continues. We are trying to get as many facts as we possibly can to make the most informed decision as we possibly can so that we can uphold the standards that we put forth in our

4 personal conduct policy. So I expect that that will conclude sometime in the near future and we will make a decision shortly after. Your level of concern in St. Louis that there has been virtually no communication between the owner Stan Kroenke and the city and the fans and you have a fan base that could lose their team and there really just hasn t been any communication with the owner? Well, we certainly have had that conversation with the governor on several occasions. Our staff has been there on a regular basis, as you know, making sure that we re doing whatever we can do as a league and I think it s a great deal, by the way. We ve had a lot of experience in this and putting together a stadium plan that could be responsive not only for St. Louis but also could work for a franchise long-term. We re trying to do our part as a league. Every management structure is going to deal with those issues differently. He has contact with his season ticket base, maybe not through him directly, but through the team and that s something that he s going to have to decide how he s going to proceed on that basis. Did you spend more time talking or listening to Jameis Winston when he was in New York: I don t know whether I did more or less. We were incredibly clear about our expectations about anybody who is with the NFL or enters the NFL and what we expect of them as men and how they represent, not only their franchise but also the NFL. We gave him a full insight into our personal conduct and the reasons for it as well as our resources. He met with several people. The conversation was very candid. It was extremely candid. I think this is a young man who understands this responsibility and now it s up to him to live to that. On Jameis Winston not attending the Draft: We spent time with him. We understand that from time-to-time players want to spend time with their families. As I understand it, he told somebody on our staff that that was the case. I don t focus on the invitations. That s not my direct responsibility. We want the players to be there, but we respect when they want to be with their families. Is it a mitigating factor that the Browns text messages were opinions and not designed to give the Browns any sort of a competitive advantage: I want to be careful about making any comments until I ve gotten all the facts and I ve had the chance to review them. Troy Vincent has been focused on this with our staff. There are of course mitigating factors that you have to consider, but the violation of that rule and the integrity of that rule is not necessarily whether you got an advantage or not. It s that you broke the rule. That is a more general comment. We don t want people breaking the rules. The 32 clubs want to be operating under the same rules. Has there been discussion on moving up the timeframe for the discussion about applying in the 2015 year for teams who wish to relocate: We ve had some discussions within our committee whether that time frame, if there was a relocation, whether that s the appropriate timeframe to do so. There is a lot to do when you relocate a franchise. If a decision was made earlier, would that give the teams a better opportunity to properly transition to a new market place, which is the goal if there is a relocation. So that has been discussed. I know we certainly have not come to a conclusion on that. But we haven t ruled it out either. Did you speak to San Diego Mayor Faulconer and what do they need to do to keep the team in San Diego in terms of their process for the stadium I did speak to the mayor. I want to say it was the week before last. It was a very good conversation. He has a task force. We agreed to work with this task force to provide whatever resources we can from the league to help them address this issue in a responsible way. He s put a very aggressive timeframe

5 forward to get a solution. I urged him to continue down that path and if we can help to please let us know. I believe our staff is going out to meet with the taskforce in the next week or two. When Terry and Kim Pegula bought the Bills, most people thought there was no chance of getting an NFL franchise in Toronto. But Terry told me he would not stand in the way of an NFL franchise in the city. Obviously with L.A. on the front burner, where does the league stand on Toronto long term: We haven t had much focus on it. Terry is exactly right. It was asked during the process when he met with the finance committee and he gave the exact answer he told you. He doesn t see that as an issue for him. His focus is on Buffalo. Creating a solution and a franchise there long term that represents that region. He is incredibly focused on that and not concerned about Toronto. We continue our international developments. We spent a lot of time in the meeting talking about our global opportunities here. Toronto is an important market. But all of Canada is, as well as Mexico and the globe. We are aggressively marketing ourselves on a global basis. What particular detail excites you about having the draft in Chicago and what do you hope the league can accomplish there: What appeals to me most is that returning the Draft to the great Midwest is a great opportunity for us. The response we are seeing from everyone in Chicago gives us a great deal of excitement over this event. It continues to get bigger. The excitement is building a month away from the event. It s getting bigger physically also. There is more demand so we are trying to make sure we can meet that demand. It s going to be a great experience. Fans will be coming from a broader region. Obviously, some people attend the Draft every year. We are making it a priority for them, making sure that they are still accommodated. But we have a new opportunity this year, with an outdoor opportunity. More fans will be able to engage with the draft process. It s exciting for the fans. It s great for us. It s great for our partners. So, we are excited about what s going to happen there. The numbers keep changing about what the expectations are for how many people are going to be there. But I think the people of Chicago are going to over deliver and we are excited. ###