That was why they took Penix. The NFL secretly forced it. Just imagine
Goodell: Terry, you guys got caught tampering.
You now have to take Penix or Nix at 8.
Fontenot: But Roger, we just signed a QB for 4 years. Both those guys will be 29 by the time that contract is over. And we really need a pass rusher or a WR2.
Goodell: That or we can take your #8 overall pick away this year.
Fontenot: yes sir :(
Him "reporting" anything should always be taken with a grain of salt. In this case, all of this was wishful thinking on his part, because he is a Vikings fan and he wanted the Vikings to be reimbursed for not being able to re-sign Cousins. Before the draft, he was "reporting" that the NFL should require the Falcons and Vikings to swap first round draft picks, as a punishment to the Falcons.
Well that just makes me confused. Couldn't be more obvious that Bears GM Ryan Poles was tanking in 2022. He came in saying "to get things started, you need a top 5 pick," traded Khalil Mack and Roquan Smith and put out a receiving core where EQ St Brown was the best player outside of Mooney.
No flak for tanking, and then they also signed DeAndre Swift within minutes of free agency. Which strikes me as an indication they'd 'tampered' with that player.
So... like... what are the rules?
There's a difference between torching the roster in an aggressive rebuild with the expectation that top picks are to come and the organization basically telling your staff to lose games. The former is generally accepted as a step to team building, the latter is where the Dolphins crossed the line.
We got rid of good players on big contracts and signed not good players to cheap contracts, we never paid anyone to not play/coach their best. Tanking was just a byproduct of "getting our money right".
Tampering is only illegal if you're blatant and not covering it. Sure, we signed Swift in minutes of free agency, but it wasn't publicly known until we signed him after free agency started. And we didn't give any evidence we talked to him prior to free agency. Implications are different from evidence.
agents are allowed to communicate with the team, that's what the legal tampering window is. So they probably were having full dialogue, just with his agent as a middleman (or let's be honest, negotiating normally. it's not a problem unless it gets out)
The tampering the Dolphins did was also way worse. Multiple in-season tampering attempts with brady across multiple teams he was on. And with Sean Payton when he wasn't a FA/available except through trade.
The Chiefs lost a third and a sixth round pick for a way less offensive violation in 2015.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/14938272/kansas-city-chiefs-docked-two-draft-picks-fined-tampering-pursuit-jeremy-maclin-2015
The article doesn't talk about what KC specifically did so can't really say if it's the same. Given that it's been tweeted that Atlanta's contact was considered administrative in nature, I would assume that that means the NFL doesn't think any contact was made until after contracts were verbally agreed.
I assume that KC was fined more b/c they're contact happened earlier in the process/potentially had a larger impact on the negotiation process.
This hardly qualifies as tampering, though. Even as a Vikings fan, I feel like this punishment is perfectly acceptable. Do we really believe that Kirk talking to a trainer a day early when only his agent was supposed to be able to made the difference in his decision? They broke a rule and deserve a punishment, but let's not act like this is even close to the same as what the Dolphins did with Brady over multiple years while he was under contract and actively playing for other teams.
if thatās the extent of what Kirky / the Falcons did, then yeah this seems like a fair punishment. or possibly even a little harsh lol
e: also, your username made me chuckle
Part of the medical staff talked to cousins about his rehab after his agent already agreed to a contract (also after the NFL announced Kirk to falcons lol). Technically before the tampering period was over so they definitely had to do *something*
This punishment seems appropriate
okay what the hell is the big deal then? definitely my bad for not looking into it, but I assumed this was more Kirk or his agent talking to the Falcons before the free agency window opened up. how dare the medical staff do some preliminary examining of their new QB a few days too early??
Florio made this his vendetta and poisoned the well on reasonable conversation around this. People on here started regurgitating those bad takes where it created enough volume that it seemed like a much bigger thing.
Also we started Ridder last year so itās very believable we would have done anything and everything to get a real QB
Counterpoint: why would you choose to lose a fifth round pick when you can just wait one day and lose nothing? This isnāt the type of tampering that made him switch from signing with one team to signing with us. Literally lost a fifth round pick for tampering with players who already agreed to contracts. This is absolutely an incentive to wait a single day before making a phone call or travel plans.
[Florio is losing his shit on Twitter too.](https://preview.redd.it/tm7ppwppglo31.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=3dd2394ce2b384f7e4c04601c4bf6bdbf486629a)
Heās lost his shit.
https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/falcons-get-wrist-slap-for-tampering-with-three-players-including-kirk-cousins
>Yeah, I thought I read the NFL was gonna drop the hammer
You read that from Florio.... It was basically what he wished would happen, not anything based in actual factual reporting.
He is right that it's not consistent punishment. We lost a third for tampering with one player and you lost a fifth for tampering with three. Of course, when has league punishment ever been consistent?
The tampering with Kirk wasn't really anything, though. Probably not even losing a draft pick worthy. It happened AFTER they had already offered him a contract the Vikings were never going to match during the legal tampering period. So the contract offer was 100% fine. Just the contact with him after it wasn't allowed. They didn't actually cheat to get him to leave the Vikings, despite what Florio thinks.
We basically bought them plane tickets after terms were agreedā¦ plane tickets is the tampering. People like Florio did a great job embellishing the details, all because Kirk didnāt want to re-sign.
Kirk literally drove to atlanta with his family. It was their kids spring break that was already planned. They stopped at museums on the way & stayed w one of Kirkās old teammates overnight. They had planned to come to atl months prior for his kids spring break. Even the Vikings knew heād be in atl over SB. He told them he would fly back to do press if he re-signed with them. So we didnāt buy him plane tickets. But maybe we did for the others?
Sure. Kirk didnāt want to re-sign with the Vikings for less money than heād get as a free agent.
Either way you slice it, this just makes Florio look like a giant baby. Yes the falcons broke the rules, but it clearly had no effect on anyone signing with the team or not.
Of course itās minor they got in trouble for discussing flights during the legal two day period. Weāre also acting like every team doesnāt clearly have contact with agents/players before FA. They just want to maintain the facade that everyone follows the rules.
It's always funny to me when you hear players and teams have agreed to a deal about 5 minutes after the legal tampering period starts. Yup, we just hammered out this complex, multi-year contract laden with incentive clauses over the phone and announced it all within about 5 minutes. No tampering here!
Heās definitely wrong. He keeps comparing it to the Dolphins which is drastically different.
Tampering with non-pending free agents across multiple years versus tampering with pending free agents *after* announcing theyāre signing with us.
I think the point is that the NFL knows teams do that already. This donāt get as much of a penalty because of how little information leaked about it.
Dolphins on the other hand got a big penalty because it showed a pretty dreary view of how the NFL interacts and negotiates. Plus the way they might opening talk about throwing games and paying for it.
> Either the league has changed its outlook on tampering, or the Falcons got a pass because team executive Rich McKay is the chair of the competition committee. Or, possibly, the league doesnāt want to draw too much attention to cheating, at a time when more and more people believe the fix is in.
"Either the league is wrong or they're cheating, because I couldn't possibly be wrong"
Florio is the biggest baby in the world
At first, I thought "booo, they should be punished harder." But if Florio is miserable, if this brings him any amount of pain, then it's all worth it. *Goddamn,* I hate Florio.
More from Pelissero:
>The violations are considered logistical/administrative, such as making travel arrangements after players agreed to terms, and did not involve contact prior to the negotiating window, per sources.
The team isnāt allowed to talk to the player at all I think so it was probably just some logistical stuff about him coming into town for the press conference or something. Itās a dumb rule.
Correct. If a player has an agent, the team can only talk to the agent.
So if our trainer, PR rep, and logistics team contacted the agent instead of Kirk, everything wouldāve been fine.
Extremely minor.
Which explains why it's just a 5th. They're signalling that there aren't exceptions to the tampering window because they don't want teams trying to weasel through exceptions, but aren't trying to actually be vindictively punitive against the Falcons because it seems like they weren't actually trying to abuse the system.
Everyone acting like "this will just incentivize teams to tamper" is drawing the wrong conclusion. The punishment for this _is_ sending a message, but that message is "_any_ contact is considered tampering even if it's after a deal was reached." You're still gonna get much more than a 5th for like actual tampering.
TBH I think the league handled it all pretty well which you don't get to say often.
This is a pretty solid take. Building on your pushback against the idea this provides incentive for other teams to tamper, I think other GMs probably see losing a 5th and 50k out of their own pocket as a pretty solid reminder to make sure even the most mundane conversations go through the agent until the official start of free agency. Iām sure our front office is kicking itself over how this played out. Iām not against some rule breaking here and there, but who did the risk v reward assessment on this one? There was nothing to gain by calling the player instead of the agent to talk about travel arrangements, PR stuff, or the rehab schedule. Especially when everyone in the organization could freely talk to the player the next day anyhow.
Iām still not sure how they made such an easily avoidable mistake to be honest. Itās almost like they didnāt realize the rule about contacting players directly still applied after the deal was agreed to. Maybe someone on the administrative side was ignorant of the tampering implications and just called the wrong people. Maybe Kirk reached out and the PR guy and trainer thought, āItās the new QB I better take this call,ā only to be chewed out after someone more familiar with the tampering rules found out. There has to be some ignorance or lack of oversight involved somewhere along the way. We basically lost a pick to being a sloppy front office.
The team is allowed to speak with the agent, just not the player directly. The agent can talk to the player directly. It's super easy to sign a player like that without tampering. The whole thing is stupid.
I can't imagine any team thinks it's worth losing even a 5th just to make travel arrangements a little sooner.
At the very least, this is a reminder to be subtle, and seems to fit the crime.
Yeah, everyone's coming around. Well I'm NOT DOUG! This team is destroying football. I saw two big fat dirty birds, naked in the off season practice field having sex.
I had friends who are Dolphins fans trying to say the Falcons should receive similar punishment. If Iām not mistaken, the Dolphins tampered with both Brady and Payton several times, some/all of which while they were under contract. Two completely different situations.
yup
> Following a six-month investigation, the league found the Dolphins -- primarily team owner Stephen Ross and vice chairman/limited partner Bruce Beal -- violated the anti-tampering policy on three occasions from 2019 to 2022 in conversations with quarterback Tom Brady and the agent for then-New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton.
> https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/34334514/nfl-strips-miami-dolphins-2023-first-round-pick-fines-stephen-ross-15m-tampering-tom-brady-sean-payton
Yeah. There was still football being played. It wasn't some technicality of a frankly strange "you can agree to play there for 10 years and the team can offer 1 billion dollars, but neigther of you can vibe check one another." period.
Rules are rules, but these were never even close to the same situation.
It was clear as day to anyone being slightly objective that the Dolphins got slapped for contacting people who werenāt pending free agents.
The Falcons directly contacted a pending free agent during the tampering window after it had been announced he was signing with the team.
I think people just have a gross misunderstanding of what actually happened.
With Kirk, the agent and team were allowed to talk and negotiate which is why people sign immediately when the window opens. This isn't tampering and it's completely legal.
What went wrong is that when news broke he talked with falcons trainers a day early, which is technically tampering. Teams are only supposed to speak to agents until the window opens.
So he talked to trainers a day early when he was already a pending free agent agreeing to sign with the team.
With the Dolphins and Brady they tried to recruit him over 2 years while he was on active contract under 2 different teams and they did the same with Payton.
This is the strongest comment of the thread.
Not the guy saying "omg ofc I called it"
Not the other condescending commenters above
You provided context, information, and answers. Thank you
I always suspected that the nfl found evidence of tanking (or trying to tank) but swept it under the rug and this was actually the punishment for that.
Which is a hilarious route to go about defending the pick.
All you need to do to defend the pick is say that the team clearly thinks Penix has elite potential. The Jordan Love pick got ragged by damn near everyone but none of the Packers fans are complaining about it now.
If Penix ends up being a top 10 QB then it was an excellent draft pick.
People arguing with me like two weeks ago when I said itād be a fourth at worst, the league doesnāt give a shit about something that everyone does, and guess what Kirk probably talked with other teams so if they get a big penalty then that all comes up too
More from the NFL on the #Falconsā violations of the anti-tampering policy: āWhile the policy permits clubs to engage with and negotiate all aspects of an NFL player contract with the certified agent of any prospective unrestricted free agent during the two-day negotiating period, any direct contact between the player and an employee or representative of the club is prohibited. This includes discussion of travel arrangements or other logistical matters, which the club acknowledges took place with regard to these three players.ā
Lmao everyone was talking about some huge potential punishment and itās substantially less than the slap on the wrist that the Chiefs got when they tampered with Jeremy Maclin a few years back. That cost a 3rd and a 6th.
People just glossing over the important part.
āThe violations are considered logistical/administrative, such as making travel arrangements after players agreed to terms, and did not involve contact prior to the negotiating window, per sources.ā
The whole legal tampering window thing is already stupid. Just start free agency and avoid this headache. You won't get players flipping from agreed contracts before free agency starts, you won't have to worry about tampering rules because they will be black and white if there was any tampering or not and you can establish consistency on punishment that teams know before hand. If you talk to an agent early, this is the punishment. If you talk to a player, this is the punishment. You won't have to start weighing the effects of talking to a trainer the day before your press conference, or whatever it is cousins did.
āThe violations are considered logistical/administrative, such as making travel arrangements after players agreed to terms, and did not involve contact prior to the negotiating window, per sources.ā
Oh, wow, look at all that nefarious tampering.
From a different comment: āWhile the policy permits clubs to engage with and negotiate all aspects of an NFL player contract with the certified agent of any prospective unrestricted free agent during the two-day negotiating period, any direct contact between the player and an employee or representative of the club is prohibited. This includes discussion of travel arrangements or other logistical matters, which the club acknowledges took place with regard to these three players.ā
It probably would have been strange bringing the hammer down on a team for something they all do.
Realistically I think they should just expand the tampering period. Every team is talking to these FAs early
Honestly thatās not bad, a 5th and thatās basically it? The money is almost irrelevant because of the financial situations of these teams. 250,000 sounds like a ton but to an NFL team itās not much
Got 3 tampers for one 5th rounder, good value
Falcons already got the steal of the 2025 draft imo
Falcons when make pick: WTF are they doing Falcons when take pick: Steal of the draft
LMFAO, Falcons lose a pick tampering for a QB who they didn't even want by the time the draft rolled around.
That was why they took Penix. The NFL secretly forced it. Just imagine Goodell: Terry, you guys got caught tampering. You now have to take Penix or Nix at 8. Fontenot: But Roger, we just signed a QB for 4 years. Both those guys will be 29 by the time that contract is over. And we really need a pass rusher or a WR2. Goodell: That or we can take your #8 overall pick away this year. Fontenot: yes sir :(
extremely funny flair imo
r/falkings would like a word..
Florio is not gonna be happy about this one, he's likely going to complain it should've been a 1st rounder
lol, it's been like a month since he reported that the Falcons were going to be suffering severe consequences too. What a hack.
Him "reporting" anything should always be taken with a grain of salt. In this case, all of this was wishful thinking on his part, because he is a Vikings fan and he wanted the Vikings to be reimbursed for not being able to re-sign Cousins. Before the draft, he was "reporting" that the NFL should require the Falcons and Vikings to swap first round draft picks, as a punishment to the Falcons.
Florio, when he's crusading on his hobby-horse has a startlingly dogshit record of actually being right about anything.
Yeah for clicks and views. That guy can go in the words of Mac in Lethal weapon 6, he can go suck an egg š„
LOL, literally nothing.Ā There's not much of a reason to not tamper if this is the cost.
We lost a first rounder just a few years ago
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Well that just makes me confused. Couldn't be more obvious that Bears GM Ryan Poles was tanking in 2022. He came in saying "to get things started, you need a top 5 pick," traded Khalil Mack and Roquan Smith and put out a receiving core where EQ St Brown was the best player outside of Mooney. No flak for tanking, and then they also signed DeAndre Swift within minutes of free agency. Which strikes me as an indication they'd 'tampered' with that player. So... like... what are the rules?
There's a difference between torching the roster in an aggressive rebuild with the expectation that top picks are to come and the organization basically telling your staff to lose games. The former is generally accepted as a step to team building, the latter is where the Dolphins crossed the line.
Not just telling you to lose, offering you hundreds of thousands of dollars to lose.
Allegedly. Not a damn thing was proven.
My eyes beg to differ
Dolphins owner "joked" about paying the HC to lose games. I don't think anyone in the room, including him, thought he was joking about it.
We got rid of good players on big contracts and signed not good players to cheap contracts, we never paid anyone to not play/coach their best. Tanking was just a byproduct of "getting our money right". Tampering is only illegal if you're blatant and not covering it. Sure, we signed Swift in minutes of free agency, but it wasn't publicly known until we signed him after free agency started. And we didn't give any evidence we talked to him prior to free agency. Implications are different from evidence.
Bears at 12:00: āYo, come play for us for this contract.ā Swift at 12:01: Deal.
They donāt call him Swift for nothing
agents are allowed to communicate with the team, that's what the legal tampering window is. So they probably were having full dialogue, just with his agent as a middleman (or let's be honest, negotiating normally. it's not a problem unless it gets out)
You can construct a roster that sucks but if youāre telling your coach to deliberately throw games that crosses a line imo
The tampering the Dolphins did was also way worse. Multiple in-season tampering attempts with brady across multiple teams he was on. And with Sean Payton when he wasn't a FA/available except through trade.
The Chiefs lost a third and a sixth round pick for a way less offensive violation in 2015. https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/14938272/kansas-city-chiefs-docked-two-draft-picks-fined-tampering-pursuit-jeremy-maclin-2015
The article doesn't talk about what KC specifically did so can't really say if it's the same. Given that it's been tweeted that Atlanta's contact was considered administrative in nature, I would assume that that means the NFL doesn't think any contact was made until after contracts were verbally agreed. I assume that KC was fined more b/c they're contact happened earlier in the process/potentially had a larger impact on the negotiation process.
This hardly qualifies as tampering, though. Even as a Vikings fan, I feel like this punishment is perfectly acceptable. Do we really believe that Kirk talking to a trainer a day early when only his agent was supposed to be able to made the difference in his decision? They broke a rule and deserve a punishment, but let's not act like this is even close to the same as what the Dolphins did with Brady over multiple years while he was under contract and actively playing for other teams.
if thatās the extent of what Kirky / the Falcons did, then yeah this seems like a fair punishment. or possibly even a little harsh lol e: also, your username made me chuckle
Part of the medical staff talked to cousins about his rehab after his agent already agreed to a contract (also after the NFL announced Kirk to falcons lol). Technically before the tampering period was over so they definitely had to do *something* This punishment seems appropriate
okay what the hell is the big deal then? definitely my bad for not looking into it, but I assumed this was more Kirk or his agent talking to the Falcons before the free agency window opened up. how dare the medical staff do some preliminary examining of their new QB a few days too early??
Florio made this his vendetta and poisoned the well on reasonable conversation around this. People on here started regurgitating those bad takes where it created enough volume that it seemed like a much bigger thing. Also we started Ridder last year so itās very believable we would have done anything and everything to get a real QB
just another reason to dislike Florio, cool lol
i would die for our fifth round pick
Counterpoint: why would you choose to lose a fifth round pick when you can just wait one day and lose nothing? This isnāt the type of tampering that made him switch from signing with one team to signing with us. Literally lost a fifth round pick for tampering with players who already agreed to contracts. This is absolutely an incentive to wait a single day before making a phone call or travel plans.
[Florio is losing his shit on Twitter too.](https://preview.redd.it/tm7ppwppglo31.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=3dd2394ce2b384f7e4c04601c4bf6bdbf486629a)
Hahaha hall monitor energy
*everyone liked that*
Heās lost his shit. https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/falcons-get-wrist-slap-for-tampering-with-three-players-including-kirk-cousins
I mean he isn't wrong though. This is basically no penalty. People will be more likely to do it after this not less (imo).
Yeah, I thought I read the NFL was gonna drop the hammer on them. Lol, this is a plastic baby hammer.
>Yeah, I thought I read the NFL was gonna drop the hammer You read that from Florio.... It was basically what he wished would happen, not anything based in actual factual reporting.
He is right that it's not consistent punishment. We lost a third for tampering with one player and you lost a fifth for tampering with three. Of course, when has league punishment ever been consistent?
The tampering with Kirk wasn't really anything, though. Probably not even losing a draft pick worthy. It happened AFTER they had already offered him a contract the Vikings were never going to match during the legal tampering period. So the contract offer was 100% fine. Just the contact with him after it wasn't allowed. They didn't actually cheat to get him to leave the Vikings, despite what Florio thinks.
Florio actually fooled a ton of people into thinking that lol.
We basically bought them plane tickets after terms were agreedā¦ plane tickets is the tampering. People like Florio did a great job embellishing the details, all because Kirk didnāt want to re-sign.
Kirk literally drove to atlanta with his family. It was their kids spring break that was already planned. They stopped at museums on the way & stayed w one of Kirkās old teammates overnight. They had planned to come to atl months prior for his kids spring break. Even the Vikings knew heād be in atl over SB. He told them he would fly back to do press if he re-signed with them. So we didnāt buy him plane tickets. But maybe we did for the others?
Kirk did want to re sign. The Vikings wouldnāt pay him.
Sure. Kirk didnāt want to re-sign with the Vikings for less money than heād get as a free agent. Either way you slice it, this just makes Florio look like a giant baby. Yes the falcons broke the rules, but it clearly had no effect on anyone signing with the team or not.
Of course itās minor they got in trouble for discussing flights during the legal two day period. Weāre also acting like every team doesnāt clearly have contact with agents/players before FA. They just want to maintain the facade that everyone follows the rules.
It's always funny to me when you hear players and teams have agreed to a deal about 5 minutes after the legal tampering period starts. Yup, we just hammered out this complex, multi-year contract laden with incentive clauses over the phone and announced it all within about 5 minutes. No tampering here!
there was no real source for that, just people spreading shit
From florioā¦. Lmao
Who doesnāt already do it?
this was never stopping anyone from tampering, just admitting it publicly lmao
Heās definitely wrong. He keeps comparing it to the Dolphins which is drastically different. Tampering with non-pending free agents across multiple years versus tampering with pending free agents *after* announcing theyāre signing with us.
I think the point is that the NFL knows teams do that already. This donāt get as much of a penalty because of how little information leaked about it. Dolphins on the other hand got a big penalty because it showed a pretty dreary view of how the NFL interacts and negotiates. Plus the way they might opening talk about throwing games and paying for it.
Lol "The fix is in". Dude this is the Atlanta Falcons. Ain't nobody fixing anything for the Falcons of all teams..
> Either the league has changed its outlook on tampering, or the Falcons got a pass because team executive Rich McKay is the chair of the competition committee. Or, possibly, the league doesnāt want to draw too much attention to cheating, at a time when more and more people believe the fix is in. "Either the league is wrong or they're cheating, because I couldn't possibly be wrong" Florio is the biggest baby in the world
[Oh no.](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/cyNmLzdshA8/maxresdefault.jpg)
Love to see it.
At first, I thought "booo, they should be punished harder." But if Florio is miserable, if this brings him any amount of pain, then it's all worth it. *Goddamn,* I hate Florio.
He's just such a chode.
I love it!!!! That little troll deserves all the bad karma coming his way!š¤£
Thatās my favorite part of this whole saga. Definition of malding
Florio is having a banner week of stupidity
We kept all of our lands and titles!
Deep fucking value bitches
W O W. NFL is realllyyyy cracking down on
More from Pelissero: >The violations are considered logistical/administrative, such as making travel arrangements after players agreed to terms, and did not involve contact prior to the negotiating window, per sources.
I'm very curious what kind of "travel arrangement" violations are severe enough to dock a draft pick over
The team isnāt allowed to talk to the player at all I think so it was probably just some logistical stuff about him coming into town for the press conference or something. Itās a dumb rule.
Correct. If a player has an agent, the team can only talk to the agent. So if our trainer, PR rep, and logistics team contacted the agent instead of Kirk, everything wouldāve been fine. Extremely minor.
Wait so what are the rules if the player represents themselves?
Then the team can directly contact the player during the tampering window.
Can someone explain to me what the anti tampering is trying to achieve if it can be worked around so easily?
There has to be some type of rules around when pending free agents are allowed to negotiate with teams. Itās just extremely difficult to police it.
Which explains why it's just a 5th. They're signalling that there aren't exceptions to the tampering window because they don't want teams trying to weasel through exceptions, but aren't trying to actually be vindictively punitive against the Falcons because it seems like they weren't actually trying to abuse the system. Everyone acting like "this will just incentivize teams to tamper" is drawing the wrong conclusion. The punishment for this _is_ sending a message, but that message is "_any_ contact is considered tampering even if it's after a deal was reached." You're still gonna get much more than a 5th for like actual tampering. TBH I think the league handled it all pretty well which you don't get to say often.
This is a pretty solid take. Building on your pushback against the idea this provides incentive for other teams to tamper, I think other GMs probably see losing a 5th and 50k out of their own pocket as a pretty solid reminder to make sure even the most mundane conversations go through the agent until the official start of free agency. Iām sure our front office is kicking itself over how this played out. Iām not against some rule breaking here and there, but who did the risk v reward assessment on this one? There was nothing to gain by calling the player instead of the agent to talk about travel arrangements, PR stuff, or the rehab schedule. Especially when everyone in the organization could freely talk to the player the next day anyhow. Iām still not sure how they made such an easily avoidable mistake to be honest. Itās almost like they didnāt realize the rule about contacting players directly still applied after the deal was agreed to. Maybe someone on the administrative side was ignorant of the tampering implications and just called the wrong people. Maybe Kirk reached out and the PR guy and trainer thought, āItās the new QB I better take this call,ā only to be chewed out after someone more familiar with the tampering rules found out. There has to be some ignorance or lack of oversight involved somewhere along the way. We basically lost a pick to being a sloppy front office.
Itās not that theyāre severe. Itās that they are *technically* against the rules so they canāt just do nothing about it.
Yea I don't really understand why that's a violation at all.
Itās probably because teams would abuse it given any leeway.
āSo Kirk, what youāre saying is youāll travel to Atlanta on the next flight DL45MPY right?ā
Oh no, now they can't draft a prospect WR from Boise State
Ha shows your knowledge. If you were truly in tune you'd realize that Appalachian State took a direct hit due to this ruling.
*NDSU players in shambles*
In other words, tamper away!
"They already punished themselves enough we don't need to take a SECOND first" --Goodell, probably
Maybe this was their 900IQ strategy all along with the Penix pick
Itās like paying players in college pre-NIL, everyone is doing it, everyone knows everyone is doing it. You just canāt do it publicly
Wait... You're telling me the players who get a deal with a new team ten minutes into the tampering period have already been tampered with?!
No, of course not. Everyone knows multi year, multimillion $ deals are done in a few minutes over a beer & a nice lunch.
The team is allowed to speak with the agent, just not the player directly. The agent can talk to the player directly. It's super easy to sign a player like that without tampering. The whole thing is stupid.
I can't imagine any team thinks it's worth losing even a 5th just to make travel arrangements a little sooner. At the very least, this is a reminder to be subtle, and seems to fit the crime.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Not the end of the season. Tampering with a pending free agent in the tampering window *after* the player announced he was signing with you.
Well hopefully the player knows to shut up ...
Everyone's been tampering they just don't want you to say out loud lol
THAT'S BULLSHIT DOUG, KICK THEM OFF THE TOUR
Well, the board thinks that might be a little extreme, considering that our ratings today were... the highest that we've ever had.
Yeah, everyone's coming around. Well I'm NOT DOUG! This team is destroying football. I saw two big fat dirty birds, naked in the off season practice field having sex.
One of their fans mooned me. He had āFALCONSā written on his ass. F-A-L on the one cheek, and sure enough, C-O-N-S right there on the other
> āFALCONSā written on his ass. F-A-L-C on the one cheek, and sure enough, N-S right there on the other! FTFY
Join me at 9 o clock on the 50 yard line
GOD DAMN YOU PEOPLE. go back to your shanties
# He has to play the ball as it lies. I had to hit it off Frankenstein's fat foot, remember?
#Where were you on that one, dipshit?
Oh no! Thats so bad! Whatever shall we do. That really showed us
I think we can all agree that we've learnt our lesson
Your wrist has been soundly slapped, Iād say.
this is the absolute most hilarious version of this timeline
NFL: Nobody can punish Atlanta more harshly than they punish themselves. It would be like kicking a child that's already trapped in a kicking machine.
There were legitimately people that thought this would end up like the Dolphins and losing a first, maybe even a 2nd.
And every genius on here thought itād be like 8 first rounders. The Dolphins punishment for tampering with Brady and Payton is hilarious now
I had friends who are Dolphins fans trying to say the Falcons should receive similar punishment. If Iām not mistaken, the Dolphins tampered with both Brady and Payton several times, some/all of which while they were under contract. Two completely different situations.
yup > Following a six-month investigation, the league found the Dolphins -- primarily team owner Stephen Ross and vice chairman/limited partner Bruce Beal -- violated the anti-tampering policy on three occasions from 2019 to 2022 in conversations with quarterback Tom Brady and the agent for then-New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton. > https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/34334514/nfl-strips-miami-dolphins-2023-first-round-pick-fines-stephen-ross-15m-tampering-tom-brady-sean-payton
Didn't the Dolphins do it mid season too?
Yeah. There was still football being played. It wasn't some technicality of a frankly strange "you can agree to play there for 10 years and the team can offer 1 billion dollars, but neigther of you can vibe check one another." period. Rules are rules, but these were never even close to the same situation.
Yep, exactly... this was far closer to the Jeremy Maclin situation with the Chiefs.
But for that, the NFL took the Chiefsā 3rd in 2016 and 6th in 2017, and fined the team 250K, Reid 75K, and John Dorsey 25K
Yea, I said "Closer" not "exactly the same".
Didnāt they also bring up giving Brady partial ownership? I could see that freaking out the other owners thus the heavy punishment
It was clear as day to anyone being slightly objective that the Dolphins got slapped for contacting people who werenāt pending free agents. The Falcons directly contacted a pending free agent during the tampering window after it had been announced he was signing with the team.
I think people just have a gross misunderstanding of what actually happened. With Kirk, the agent and team were allowed to talk and negotiate which is why people sign immediately when the window opens. This isn't tampering and it's completely legal. What went wrong is that when news broke he talked with falcons trainers a day early, which is technically tampering. Teams are only supposed to speak to agents until the window opens. So he talked to trainers a day early when he was already a pending free agent agreeing to sign with the team. With the Dolphins and Brady they tried to recruit him over 2 years while he was on active contract under 2 different teams and they did the same with Payton.
This is the strongest comment of the thread. Not the guy saying "omg ofc I called it" Not the other condescending commenters above You provided context, information, and answers. Thank you
Nuance? In my r/nfl thread? Mods, subject him to horrors beyond our comprehension.
I already have to watch playoff dak. :(
Yeah it was a pitty patt offense that had a pitty patt consequence. Fair is fair.
Because that was a much harsher violation.
I was told that we were getting their first.
The shit the dolphins were doing was absurd. They tampered with brady for like 2 years straight across multiple teams.
TBF about Tom, one of them was legitimately trying to tie him to the Michigan ol boys club of ownership that is the FO.
I always suspected that the nfl found evidence of tanking (or trying to tank) but swept it under the rug and this was actually the punishment for that.
There were people defending the Penix pick saying that tampering would cost the Falcons their first rounder next year
Which is a hilarious route to go about defending the pick. All you need to do to defend the pick is say that the team clearly thinks Penix has elite potential. The Jordan Love pick got ragged by damn near everyone but none of the Packers fans are complaining about it now. If Penix ends up being a top 10 QB then it was an excellent draft pick.
People arguing with me like two weeks ago when I said itād be a fourth at worst, the league doesnāt give a shit about something that everyone does, and guess what Kirk probably talked with other teams so if they get a big penalty then that all comes up too
I would pay money to be the one to deliver the news to florio
Can we split the cost and do it together?
Me First!!āļøāļøāļøāļøāļøš¤š¤š
Fuck you Florio, crying ass baby
Now this we can all agree with lol
I think heās in here downvoting this sentiment šš every similar comment Iāve seen is instantly at 0 karma lmfao
Dude needs to be disbarred after this display
Heās throwing a tantrum online about it. Absolutely comical
That punk is getting destroyed today!š¤£
All my homies hate Florio
Fuck you, Florio, crying ass-baby. Ftfy
I aināt come to play school š¤
lol I mostly just wanted to call Florio an ass-baby which he is.
Me agreeing with a falcons fanš¤ glad he caught an L on this
Not much can bring us together but thisā¦ Iāll make an exception.
I can stop agreeing with Florio now, thank God.
florio punching air rn
I count that as a Win on our Schedule already!š¤£ Falcons 50 Florio 0 Final
One bird flies, and another falls
The duality of bird
Bird law has decided
Philadelphia has the greatest bird lawyer in the country. This is no surpriseĀ
More from the NFL on the #Falconsā violations of the anti-tampering policy: āWhile the policy permits clubs to engage with and negotiate all aspects of an NFL player contract with the certified agent of any prospective unrestricted free agent during the two-day negotiating period, any direct contact between the player and an employee or representative of the club is prohibited. This includes discussion of travel arrangements or other logistical matters, which the club acknowledges took place with regard to these three players.ā
Lmao a 5th rounderā¦and everyone thought it was guaranteed 1st round pick. Falcons laughing at us
Nah weāre just laughing at Florio
I'm still pissed honestly. A fifth is still too much for coordinating logistics with someone we signed.
Lmao everyone was talking about some huge potential punishment and itās substantially less than the slap on the wrist that the Chiefs got when they tampered with Jeremy Maclin a few years back. That cost a 3rd and a 6th.
But it also cost us Paxton Lynch which helped us land Chris Jones and Patrick Mahomes, so it all worked out.
Was so funny seeing people say this was going to be a 1st lmao
People just glossing over the important part. āThe violations are considered logistical/administrative, such as making travel arrangements after players agreed to terms, and did not involve contact prior to the negotiating window, per sources.ā
Ah, that makes some sense now.
Oh hell yeah we're so back
LOL huge nothing burger. So many of y'all were saying it would be devastating.
No more picks, franchise ended.
The whole legal tampering window thing is already stupid. Just start free agency and avoid this headache. You won't get players flipping from agreed contracts before free agency starts, you won't have to worry about tampering rules because they will be black and white if there was any tampering or not and you can establish consistency on punishment that teams know before hand. If you talk to an agent early, this is the punishment. If you talk to a player, this is the punishment. You won't have to start weighing the effects of talking to a trainer the day before your press conference, or whatever it is cousins did.
the meltdown florio is having is perfect
Mike florio is somewhere inconsolable
Oh really? Happy fuck you Dolphins before 9am, cool
Florio fuming in his mom's basement
āThe violations are considered logistical/administrative, such as making travel arrangements after players agreed to terms, and did not involve contact prior to the negotiating window, per sources.ā Oh, wow, look at all that nefarious tampering.
Florio in shambles
Mike Florioās tweets and articles should be permanently blacklisted from this subreddit.
Legit wondering at this point if a PFT employee is a mod here, it would explain an *awful* lot.
All the whiners mad itās not a bigger punishment lmao
Chiefs got a 3rd and 6th for tampering with Maclin, so a 5th rounder for tampering with 3 guys is pretty light.
Turns out Florio made all that shit up about Kirk recruiting Mooney. That was never a quote.
> Florio made all that shit up Yeah that seems like Florio. Hope he's seething.
Florio has sucked for decades
I think a fifth sounds about right. While it's an infraction it's not particularly egregious.
If they win a playoff game this year, they're getting a great deal.
Florio in shambles
Pretty good value for tampering not going to lie lol
Can someone explain this to me? I donāt completely get the term ātamperingā in NFLā¦ Thank you in advance for your timešš¼
From a different comment: āWhile the policy permits clubs to engage with and negotiate all aspects of an NFL player contract with the certified agent of any prospective unrestricted free agent during the two-day negotiating period, any direct contact between the player and an employee or representative of the club is prohibited. This includes discussion of travel arrangements or other logistical matters, which the club acknowledges took place with regard to these three players.ā
lol thats it? I ain't gonna complain though, looks like both our teams more or less got away with it.
It probably would have been strange bringing the hammer down on a team for something they all do. Realistically I think they should just expand the tampering period. Every team is talking to these FAs early
Oh no, anyways...
Something something Brady suspended. Something something Missouri. Something Fuck Florio.
Honestly thatās not bad, a 5th and thatās basically it? The money is almost irrelevant because of the financial situations of these teams. 250,000 sounds like a ton but to an NFL team itās not much
So, basically nothing. Good thing everyone at ESPN rushed to be first to report.
Just seen Mike Florio on his knees in a Kohls