The Dolphins Do Some Tampering
I actually don’t know how much I have to say about this one, it caught me completely off guard when it dropped and generally felt like the NFL deliberately giving us big news because after the Watson ruling they needed a PR win. Stomping down on Stephen Ross and the Dolphins I guess served well enough.
That felt like a surprisingly steep punishment for the Ross/Brady tampering thing that came to light during the Flores debacle. I also find it very interesting that nothing has come of the Flores racism accusations, but the part of that story that exposed the tampering Ross attempted with Brady was apparently a big enough deal to warrant this massive foot coming down. I also find it very interesting that only the Dolphins were punished. Tom Brady was not. Maybe because the NFL already tried going after Brady for deflate-gate, ultimately came out looking like morons when the dust settled, and that was 3 rings ago. Brady has even more clout now. He’s royalty. Makes it really disappointing that Brady is such a good little boy who won’t rock the boat because he’s probably the one player the league has who could genuinely go after the NFL and win if he wanted to.
It is also interesting, well, depressing, that the NFL is gung-ho eager to punish and clamp down on things that HURT THE INTEGRITY OF THE GAME but will happily cover for Dan Snyder sex trafficking his employees.
Stephen Ross is an absolute dipshit and if you want to go back to my older post ranking the owners, move him deeper into the Dumb/Evil quadrant.
lol dolphins
beat me to it
Tom Brady wasn’t punished because no player in the history of sports has ever been punished for a tampering violation involving themself. It only applies to execs/owners.
The only way Brady would have gotten any sort of punishment is if he had been helping Miami get into contact with Sean Payton while he was still with the Saints. Tom Brady can’t tamper with himself but he can tamper with other coaches/players. Evidently, they couldn’t find enough on him to prove that much, or maybe they didn’t want to bother with him again, but either way that’s the only way Brady would have gotten hit with anything.
I can’t speak for the letter of the law on this, only my own moral indignation, which I acknowledge has no actionable impact on things, just how heartily I shake my fist at Shady. For me, it’s as simple as whether or not he hung up on them when they approached him, or did he actively engage? Brady’s whole clearly-faked retire/unretire scenario ****could**** be an indication he wasn’t just being tampa’d with, but was in fact tampa’ing back himself and trying to finagle himself into a situation where illegal dreams become reality. Sean Payton’s timely retirement is also questionable.
For me, it’s like illegal prostitution. If some dude or dudette comes up to you on the street and says, “Hey, $10!” and you say “What?” and walk away, you’re fine. They approached you, you left. But if they offer you $10 and you take it, and then a cop shows up while you’re sealing the deal? You are no longer innocent of the crime. That’s how I view tampa-ing. I don’t care if he’s not an executive and whether he was full-on tampa-ing with somebody else. Is there evidence of him positively reciprocating to being tampa’d with? Given that Tom Shady is a compulsively obsessed competitive a-hole, lolol, I can’t imagine a world where the answer is “no.” Ergo, I’ve added another bullet point to the 48″x96″ gilded goldfoil poster on my wall, titled, “Why Tom Brady is a Gaping A-Hole Who Deserves Nothing but Scorn.” There are currently 38 bullets, and I’ve already moved on to the back.
It’s one of those situations where Brady could very well have been deeply involved, but based on the letter of the law, he quite literally cannot be punished for tampering. CBS wrote a pretty good article explaining why Brady and Payton got off, but to paraphrase; the onus is on the teams/ownership to report any tampering. So even if Brady initiated the discussion, the only way anyone would be punished is if the Dolphins didn’t report it to the NFL.
I’m not all that interested in debating Tom Brady the person here since it’s not really relevant. I just wanted to clear up why Brady wasn’t punished since a lot of people seem to be confused as to why. Tampering has always been a weird violation since, yeah, it is a two-way street, and in my opinion it probably should be changed in some way, but if the NFL tried to change that now when it involves the face of their league, it’d probably go even worse than Deflategate did for them. Better to let Brady have his swan song and ride off into retirement than motivate him to win 4 more Super Bowls and take a dump on the shield again.
You’re not wrong to do so. My first reaction to hearing the news was, “Nothing for Shady?! He is who we thought he was! And you let ‘im off the hook!” Knowing it wasn’t even an option, while baffling, is a fairly astute thing to point out. You saved me from going on an epic 8 paragraph hate rant and making a fool of myself in the process! XD
All good lol. I get why people are confused because like you said, tampering goes both ways. It’s a weird rule but hey, maybe this will inspire some change since it seems like something players can abuse.
As a Patriots fan, hearing this did give me some pause. I’ll still support Brady, but now the speculation that Tom was playing with one foot out the door in his final season in New England is outright confirmed. It’s not even just that he was talking with the Dolphins either. The fact that he was at least entertaining offers from a division rival likely means that he was in contact with other teams for most, if not all of that season. I’m not gonna go full schizo and insinuate that he was throwing games, but it’s probably fair to say that he wasn’t playing with same Tom Brady “I must win at all costs” mentality that we were used to seeing from him by the end of 2019, and knowing that does put a damper on his exit and my general image of him. Still appreciate what he did but damn dude, you could have just not suited up at that point. I get the frustration given what he dealt with that season but still, he’s dealt with similarly terrible offenses and still given it his all.
The difference between your prostitution example and the NFL’s tampering rules is that solicitation laws cut both ways – both the prostitute and the John are culpable for the transaction. The NFL rules specifically exclude players from being punished for tampering with their own contracts.
It’s a weird twist of the rules, but the reason Brady wasn’t punished is because he’s technically the victim in this scenario. You can’t tamper with yourself. You can only be tampered with, even if you’re an active participant in the illegal activity. That rule is in place for a reason, so even though it’s very easy for a player to abuse it, like Brady apparently did, it’s also easy for a team to just ignore the player and not fall into a honey trap like the Dolphins did, and it’s important enough to protect the innocent players that they’re willing to accept some bad faith behavior by the players themselves.
“You can’t tamper with yourself”
Kellen Winslow would beg to differ
I think they just cant punish a player legaly even if hes the instigator and set the whole tampering thing up. The US might be a 2nd world country when it comes to workers rights but its not so backwards that it prevents employees from shoping their skills around for a better employment contract (yet) And thats effectively what Brady was doing.
I agree tho that any rule is wide open to tampering, if players could be punished the owners would probably set up hitsquads to get their division rivals best players entangled in some tampering scheme to get them off the field. If only owners can be punished the players can abuse the shit out of this (and probably regularly do) even if they are covered by the constitution.
I can’t believe you missed the whole “Oh btw the 100k per loss thing was just a joke” footnote, which means their distraction tactic worked
Following up on Wednedays comic, as expected, the NFL appealed the ruling so we’ll most likely see Watsons punishment increase.
unless they castrate him (chemically would be fine, I GUESS) and kick him out of the league, it won’t be enough. the texans should get their fuckin’ heads handed to them as well for facilitating him.
dave, don’t think we don’t notice all the work you’ve been putting into subtle facial expressions!
There was only ever going to be one end to Piece of Shit Week, wasn’t there.
The NFL should have kicked Ross put for his bullshit
Yep. He should’ve been forced to sell and not to his preferred buyer. It’s pretty clear though all these billionaire sociopaths have some dirt on them that they’re refusing to give any precedent of forcing a sale in case it reverts back to them
Totally agree. Miami has been an absolute dumpster fire since Ross bought them, and the second they get to enjoy some measure of success with their first consecutive winning seasons since Dave Wannstedt, they fire potentially the best coach they’ve had since Shula.
Ross might not be Snyder or Sterling-level on the POS scale, but a moron can be just as toxic as a sociopath to the team he owns. Goodellzebub should have either forced him to sell up or stripped the franchise from him.
I heard Jim Carrey will be on the case.
The only way this could be funnier is if the Browns end up getting hauled up on tampering for DeShaun Cosby
The Bears offered this bullshit contract offer to RoQuan Smith, an MLB who wears the pants of the Bears. We already have no other stars as it is…there are some guys that are good players, but not stars. He requested a trade, I mean his contract would be the only max deal with de-escalators like “if you don’t do x, we dock your pay.”
This is ridiculous.