Will Briggs ruling set precedent against tampering?
Posted: March 24, 2008
Upon learning that
the NFL had slapped the knuckles of the San Francisco 49ers for tampering with Lance Briggs, one must ask whether an asterisk will be affixed to the Niners' stellar 5-win season.
Obviously, it won't. But what the 49ers did by contacting the agent of the
Chicago Bears linebacker is no different than what the New England Patriots did by videotaping the New York Jets' defensive coaching signals. Stealing signals makes it easier to figure out the formations that the offense will face on game day. Speaking with the agents for players under contract with other teams creates a potential benefit on game day by helping a team acquire better players.
Though the Niners didn't sign the player with whom they tampered, attempted cheating is still cheating. The league was right to punish the 49ers, assuming the evidence suggested that tampering indeed occurred. Moving forward, the big question is whether the league intended the Briggs decision to be a one-time thing, or whether commissioner Roger Goodell's ruling represents a sea change aimed at wiping out a tidal wave of tampering.
As a league source told SportingNews.com on Monday night in the wake of the tampering announcement, "The 49ers are not the first team to do it. They are not the first to get caught. They are the first to be punished."
Indeed, many teams routinely engage in unauthorized contact with the agents of players who are the property of other franchises. A high-level official with an NFL team once told me that his team decided to join the tampering parade only because failure to do so was creating a competitive disadvantage.
The victim in each case is the player's current team. Tampering undermines the team's ability to re-sign the player because the player and his agent know other teams are ready to pay more money.
Under Monday's ruling, no team should tamper. Under Monday's ruling, the 49ers should instantly file tampering charges against the Miami Dolphins for reaching an agreement with guard Justin Smiley moments after the free-agency period opened on February 29. Under Monday's ruling, every other team that finds itself on the wrong side of tampering should make a claim to that effect.
The penalty imposed on the 49ers creates an incentive to break from the Sgt. Schultz mentality that teams typically have employed in the past. As part of the sanction, the Bears and the Niners flip-flopped third-round picks, giving the Bears a five-spot upgrade.
Thus, teams who choose not to tamper could gain more in the long run if they are willing to cry foul when their players are tampered with. Therein lies the path to eradicating tampering from the game; by making it advantageous for teams to point fingers when their interests have been compromised by tampering, more franchises will be caught and, in time, fewer will risk it.
Still, whether tampering continued unabated or never happens again, it is cheating, it is wrong, and the teams that do it should endure the same kind of finger-wagging that the Patriots have experienced.
Mike Florio writes and edits ProFootballTalk.com and is a regular contributor to Sporting News.
