The first PFT Season Preview magazine is on news stands now. The 128-page issue features original content to preview the season, contributions from NFL beat writers, the prospects for every team and an exclusive interview with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, NFL owners needed a businessman to guide the sport through the emergence of television as the primary vehicle for fueling its growth. They had the right man in Pete Rozelle.

In the ‘90s, NFL owners needed a seasoned lawyer to help negotiate a revolutionary Collective Bargaining Agreement, which unlocked unprecedented popularity for pro football. They had the right man in Paul Tagliabue.

Today, NFL owners need a leader who understands the various challenges facing the league and who can navigate those hurdles while constantly looking for ways to push the product to new heights. They have the right man in Roger Goodell.

Goodell, put simply, gets it. First and foremost, he’s a fan of the game. Having spent years working his way up through the ranks within the NFL office, Goodell knows how the league operates, and he’s as comfortable hobnobbing with Jerry Jones as he is hanging out with tailgaters.

In the middle of May, I met with Goodell for roughly 30 minutes in his sweeping office on the 17th floor of 280 Park Avenue, at a conference table situated on the side of the room opposite his desk. And, yes, I was tempted to ask whether I was sitting in the same chair where men like Ben Roethlisberger, Mike Vick, and Pacman Jones had been perched as a precursor to their punishments. Showing the kind of impulse control that could have kept those three men out of Goodell’s office entirely, I opted to keep that question to myself.

But I asked a lot of other questions. The topics and his responses are organized below into the various categories that were addressed.

1. The CBA
The biggest challenge facing the league comes from the men who play the game. Four years after the NFL agreed to give the players 59.6 cents of every dollar generated via the sport (with about $1 billion off the top for expenses), the league believes it was a bad deal. The players want the league to back up their concerns with financial information.

With the agreement not expiring until March 2011, not much is happening.

“There have been discussions,” Goodell said generally about a process that has languished since the uncapped year began in early March. Even before that, neither side showed much urgency to work out an extension.

So is there a sense of urgency now?

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“Well, I guess I’d answer that saying, ‘Not enough,’” Goodell said. “The reality is that we’re getting close to the point in time when it affects things going forward and can make it more complicated the longer we go.”

Goodell didn’t elaborate on the “things going forward” that would be affected, but the reality is that once the 2010 season ends and planning begins for 2011, lingering uncertainty regarding a possible work stoppage could have financial consequences. Really, why would anyone pay in advance for season tickets if there may not be a season?

The problem is that it appears unlikely that a sense of urgency can be manufactured before the eve of the expiration of the current contract. “I don’t think you can create an artificial moment,” Goodell said. “I think there’s a desire to get something done on both sides, but it’s going to take an intensive period of time to really get that done.”

The intensive period undoubtedly will precede the point at which both sides believe that the failure to get a deal done would or could lead to a work stoppage. “Some people say the real moment is not until there’s no football,” Goodell said. “And they don’t get a paycheck, and we don’t get the revenue. Some say it’s the expiration of the deal. We will start having some revenue at jeopardy at some point.”

Even without real progress, Goodell thinks that both sides hope to make something happen. “There’s no question that there’s a desire and a need to get it done sooner rather than later,” Goodell said. “We haven’t got to the point where we have something.”

So why not create an “intensive period” sooner rather than later, in the hopes of negotiating an agreement? “I could wall off June 12 through June 26, and unless you’re at a point in the negotiations where there’s the focus on the right issues, it’s not going make any difference,” Goodell said. “This is a question of a sincere, determined, focused effort on addressing the issues that are problematic and coming up with solutions.”

One major impediment remains the piece of the pie that the players will receive.

“That’s one of several issues,” Goodell said. “But I hope the owners have made it clear, and I hope that we, in the way we’ve managed the business, have demonstrated that we know how to grow the pie. We do know how to grow the pie. And we do know how to build this business. And the players are the biggest beneficiaries of that. I hope that we can continue to convince them that we know how to do that and that they will benefit.”

For now, the league hasn’t been able to convince the players to take a smaller cut. The situation prompted NFL outside counsel Bob Batterman to observe several weeks before my meeting with Goodell that the two sides “are as far apart as I could imagine.”

Goodell has opted to take a different approach. Asked if he agrees with Batterman’s characterization, Goodell said, “I don’t characterize it, because there’s no reason to characterize it. We have differences that need to get resolved.”

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Asked whether that means he agrees or disagrees with Batterman, Goodell said, “I said I don’t characterize the discussions. I don’t see the purpose of doing so. We have differences.”

Moving forward, we all will be watching to see if those differences can be resolved.

2. The rookie wage scale
Another important issue on which the two sides disagree relates to the manner in which incoming rookies are paid.

“I think the rookie pool continues to be a big focus because I think we’re seeing it now,” Goodell said. “Money is going out of the system, and that’s not good for the players, that’s not good for the owners, that’s not good for the game. So it’s not good for our fans. I don’t want to use names, but you know some of the names. They don’t make it, and they take tens of millions of dollars out of the system. That’s money that’s not going to a veteran that’s proven himself.”

Though the NFL and the union have discussed the possibility of changing the rules regarding rookie pay for 2010, the NFLPA wanted the adjustment to come with an extension of the current labor deal, which would have kept the salary cap (and salary floor) in place. As a result, it’s unlikely that the union will agree to any changes to the rookie wage scale absent a broader agreement on a new labor deal.

“Right now I believe it’s going to be in the context of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement,” Goodell said, “so if that happens in time to be implemented for next season, that would be our hope.”

Barring serious -- and unexpected -- progress on a labor deal, "next year" will literally be next year, as in 2011.

3. The other side of the rookie wage scale problem
For every player who never earns a big-money contract at the top of the draft, there’s a player taken later who grossly overperforms his slot and, thus, his contract. Goodell doesn’t agree that the system specifically needs to take care of these players any more than it already does.

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“I think it’s doing that.” Goodell said. “My argument to that is one of the things that clubs are doing over the past several years is when they see someone perform at a level higher than they may have anticipated, they adjust and they try to avoid them becoming free agents by signing them to long-term deals.”

Goodell also pointed out that the disappearance of the salary cap has changed the circumstances. “You’re in a different system now,” Goodell said. “We’re adjusting from a capped system to an uncapped system, so you have to take that into account. People are looking at that differently. It’s six years to free agency now. That’s different from the system that we just came out of. So teams are adjusting to a new system.”

I pointed out Titans running back Chris Johnson and Eagles receiver DeSean Jackson, two third-year players who have arguably done much more than their rookie contracts contemplated. “They come in, they adjust, and when they perform, they get paid,” Goodell said. “And I think the teams have demonstrated that when somebody performs at a higher level, they do get paid. You can pick out one or two, but I would argue to you, you’re shifting from one system to another, too.”

Regardless of whether the money goes to rookies who overachieve or to anyone else, the point is that Goodell wants to take some of the windfall that goes to unproven players and shuffle it around. “The owners look at this as they can take that money, and they can put it to veteran players, they can put it to retired players, and they can also take it to allow further investments in the game that are going to create new revenue streams,” Goodell said. “But it’s all a negotiation. It’s one element of a broader negotiation, so you can’t say, ‘OK, we’re going to shift it over here. Well, it depends on the broader economics. That’s why I’m reluctant to talk about a negotiation in isolation on one issue.”