Rice Not Interested In NFL – For Now

(AP)  Condoleezza Rice, a bona fide football fan, is not applying for the newly opened post of NFL commissioner — not now, anyhow, her spokesman said carefully on Monday.

"She thinks football is the greatest sport on earth, but even if she were approached for the job — which she has not been — she would have to decline," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

"She still has many things she wants to accomplish as secretary of state," McCormack said.

Rice, a particularly avid follower of the Cleveland Browns, is enjoying being secretary of state "at the moment," McCormack said.

The wiggle-room in his response after NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue announced he would retire resonated off frequent but only half-joking statements by Rice that, as a lifelong football fan, she aspires to run the league one day.

She may also aspire to be president or vice president — at least there has been speculation that she might wind up on the Republican ticket in 2008.

The owner of the New England Patriots, Bob Kraft, seems to be in Rice's corner for the football post.

"I think Condoleezza Rice would be great. I'd invest in any company she'd be running," Kraft told reporters while attending a Boston Celtics game Monday night. "But there's a lot of great names that have come out. This is a very difficult job and we have a very complicated task ahead of us."

Rice, meanwhile, said through her spokesman that she thought Tagliabue has been a "terrific commissioner" for the National Football League. At the commissioner's invitation, Rice sat in his box Feb. 5 at the Super Bowl game in Detroit's Ford Field.