Tod Leiweke has worn a few hats since leaving his job as Seahawks president back in 2010, but his current role as the NFL’s No. 2 guy presents some immense challenges.
One of the biggest, as the NFL’s chief operating officer and next guy down from commissioner Roger Goodell, is figuring out what to do about the league’s declining television ratings. As was chronicled often last season, the NFL saw an 8 percent ratings decline over the previous campaign, with blame cast on everything from the quality of play, to the U.S. presidential election, to millennials, to pirated online streaming, to Colin Kaepernick’s national-anthem protest.