Will Eagles, Falcons be punished for tampering? | Inside Coverage
Yahoo Sports' Jason Fitz, Charles Robinson and Jori Epstein explore the potential tampering violations surrounding the signings of quarterback Kirk Cousins in Atlanta and Saquon Barkley in Philadelphia. Hear the full conversation on “Inside Coverage” - part of the “Zero Blitz” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
JASON FITZ: There is some pretty significant news right now with a couple of major signings. You have Kirk Cousins at his introductory press conference making a statement that makes it sound like there was some tampering, possibly. You have Saquon. And you have James Franklin coming out, saying Howie Roseman talked directly to Saquon.
So let's start with the Kirk element of this, Jori. How big of a deal is it that we're parsing out statements in a press conference to figure out if he talked to somebody he wasn't supposed to?
JORI EPSTEIN: The only reason this even comes out is because he was trying to thank all the little people, so to say, who aren't in front of the scenes of like-- our trainer's great. Our PR is great. Not only do I love the owner, the head coach, and the general manager, but everyone around here, I think, is really good. And then he accidentally let slip that maybe he met with or talked to the head athletic trainer.
So what's hard is that with the Kirk Cousins situation, this is an actual Falcons employee. So it would be easier in some ways to be like, this is someone who works for your team who violated the rules. You violated the rules [INAUDIBLE] versus James Franklin, who I know we'll get to him. But if he's saying, well, Saquon told me that he talked to Howie, James Franklin doesn't have evidence necessarily. It's not like Howie--
CHARLES ROBINSON: Right.
JASON FITZ: It's not like he's like, hey--
CHARLES ROBINSON: It's secondhand.
JORI EPSTEIN: Right. He doesn't-- James Franklin does not work for an NFL team. Howie can deny it. And it's not like Saquon sent him a recording that he's now going to turn over. And so I think the Eagles are actually probably a little safer here than the Falcons, which is a shame because Kirk was just trying to be nice.
CHARLES ROBINSON: If you get caught, you're just stupid. You just-- you don't know what you're doing. Because everybody's doing it. And I'm not even going to say the years because I know people will try to pick this apart. But during the course of my career here, I had a prominent agent who had a prominent quarterback who told me that X coach has been talking to my quarterback throughout this season.
I was like, how does he know what he's doing? He was like, well, his wife would call the wife of my quarterback, and then they would just talk on their wives' phones. And this happened over the extent of an entire season. Never got caught because it was simply two people using the phones of their wives. And to me, at the time, that was shocking.
But he's like, this happens all the time. He's like, everybody in the league knows how to tamper. You don't use your own phone. There's a limited scope in terms of what the league could even chase down.
JORI EPSTEIN: Do you guys think that the Eagles, Falcons, both, or neither will be penalized within the next year?
JASON FITZ: I think there'll be a small punishment of some sort to the Falcons, some sort of slap on the wrist that nobody really considers. And they'll use--
JORI EPSTEIN: Just, what, like a seventh-round pick type thing? Or what do you--
JASON FITZ: Yeah, I would say like a sixth, seventh-round pick, somewhere in there. And they take that from them for a trainer conversation that shouldn't have happened. But everybody feels like Kirk is just such a great guy that it gets pushed under a little bit.
CHARLES ROBINSON: I don't think the Eagles will. I just can't see it being provable. It just-- it's as simple as a phone call taking place and everybody getting their story straight, unless, again, it was something that was done stupidly. The money is what closed these situations. It wasn't--
JORI EPSTEIN: Right.
CHARLES ROBINSON: --the stupid rule of who are you talking to or are you not talking to somebody directly.
