Tampering

If anything the league will dock ATL a pick or do nothing.

Just about a week away from the draft and still no resolution to this. Seeing many suggestions about a swap of Falcons pick #8 and Vikings pick #11. I would think that resolution would be done with plenty of time before the draft to prepare for the new draft position but it sounds like last year the resolution to the Cardinals-Eagles tampering was announced right before the draft not leaving a lot of time for digesting it. While I'm hopeful the resolution would benefit the Vikings in some way I'm certainly not holding my breath about it. Still, it would be nice to have resolved before this year's draft since its this year's team that was impacted the most.

The Falcons will most likely be fined and lose a pick.

eh, not really. There's quite a bit on this in the Kirk thread too. I'll sum this up.

There are two tampering cases out there that we can use as precedent. The NFL can either eliminate picks or transfer picks, though supposedly a team has to file a complaint in time for a pick to be transferred. Whether or not we did is in question. Though KAM did imply there were conversations being had at ownership levels about this at one point.

Case 1 involved the Dolphins with Brady AND Payton. They were tampering with Payton for years I would add. They lost a first round pick and a third the following draft. This was one of the worst examples of tampering Goodell had ever seen supposedly. Do keep in mind it involved a player and coach. The Dolphins got neither but a nasty penalty.

Case 2 involved an improper phone call from the Cardinals to an Eagles coach that they eventually hired. The Cardinals self reported and worked out the compensation with the Eagles involving the pick swap. The NFL did not have to act.

There is no precedence for something like this assuming Atlanta did in fact tamper with Kirk. They got the player, for one. They did not self report, but have instead denied allegations. Blank made it clear they were to do what it took to get Kirk, and if they did, well, his own words will be used against him. Kirk basically opened them up to charges by saying what he said in the opening presser, and of course Florio piled on and made this a very public thing forcing an investigation. There has been no indication if phones were destroyed or texts deleted like some of the New England scandals, so I assume Atlanta is cooperating, but if not, this could play into things too. The bottom line is that unless Atlanta is not cooperating, the NFL knows if tampering happened, and if ATL has not cooperated, there is a lot more risk in play for them.

As for penalty, Florio suggested 8 for 11, which is not much worse than what AZ paid for their tampering. That seems lite in my opinion. I'll be a bit disappointed personally unless all that happened was that simple phone call that Kirk mentioned in his presser (I'm not convinced). 8 for 23 is my dream scenario, but it's also a bit heavy handed. That would be the equivalent of fining ATL their 2025 first without actually taking the pick away. I think that's appropriate if they actually heavily tampered with Kirk given we were actively trying to sign him. I could see Roger doing that given that he's been clear that teams need to be better about this and he's been boxed in a bit by Florio. That's a way of making a statement. But... more realistically, it probably should be 8 for 11 plus another swap or award (say 108 for their 3rd or 2nd or just awarding one of those picks). That would probably be the fairest. That gives us some ammo to move up and get a QB as compensation for what was blatant tampering with the QB we had.