The Falcons engaged in the most blatant case of tampering we’ve seen, via reckless and indiscreet communications with former Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins. Falcons owner Arthur Blank isn’t inclined to admit it, naturally.
“The tampering deal, we obviously don’t believe we tampered, and we shared all the information with the league,” Blank said Monday, via ESPN.com. “And they’ll review the process and the facts and they are in the middle of doing that, and whatever the result is, we’ll deal with it.”
The problem for the Falcons is that Cousins himself admitted to the tampering during his introductory press conference. He said he called Atlanta’s head athletic trainer the day before the official start of free agency, a clear violation of the 52-hour negotiating window. (He initially said they met, before correcting himself.) Cousins also suggested that he spoke with director of player personnel Ryan Pace during the negotiating window.
Cousins also admitted that he personally recruited former Bears receiver Darnell Mooney during the negotiating window, taking the tampering two levels deep; the Falcons so thoroughly tampered with Cousins that he was basically a member of the team, recruiting Mooney with the apparent knowledge of the Falcons.
It all comes down to how aggressive the league office will be. The fact that Cousins wasn’t told to zip it suggests that there will be plenty of digital footprints to incriminate the Falcons.
Some franchises already would have been hammered by 345 Park Avenue. Will the presence of Competition Committee chairman Rick McKay in Atlanta save the birds from a finding that they did the Vikings dirty? We’ll see.
Regardless, they clearly tampered. Anyone with any amount of common sense knows it. And no one should expect Blank to admit it.