Before becoming the NFL’s Commissioner, Roger Goodell served as the league’s Chief Operating Officer. For most of the first decade of Goodell’s tenure as Commissioner, the COO job remained vacant.
It’s now vacant again. At least temporarily.
Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal reports that Tod Leiweke is out as the NFL’s COO. Leiweke will be replaced by Mary Ann Turcke of NFL Media, per Kaplan. Turcke joined the league in 2017.
Leiweke drew positive reviews for his early work with the league. It’s unclear where or how things went sideways, or whether Leiweke simply decided to move on.
Some think that more changes are coming to 345 Park Avenue in the aftermath of Goodell securing a long-term extension, which may have come with a mandate to address some of the issues that have created problems for Big Shield in recent years.
If more changes are coming, it will be interesting to see if the news breaks while most of the reporters covering the league are otherwise tracking free agency, which essentially gives the league an extended Friday afternoon bad-news dump.