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In what is believed (by us) to be the first finding of tampering against an NFL franchise since the Miami Dolphins lost a first-round pick in connection with its hiring of coach Don Shula, the league office has announced a finding that the San Francisco 49ers tampered with Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs during the 2007 regular season.
Specifically, the NFL found that the 49ers contacted Briggs’ agent, Drew Rosenhaus, without permission from the Bears.
As a penalty for its conduct, the Niners have been stripped of a fifth-round pick, and the Niners and the Bears will flip-flop third-round selections, upgrading the Bears from No. 12 overall in round three to No. 7, and dropping the 49ers to No. 12 from No. 7.
We’ll comment later as to what this all means, but it’s dinnertime in the Florio household. Check back later for more.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
And for videotaping other teams’ games and cheating for god knows how long, the Pats lose the 31st pick but get to keep the 7th pick overall…
The Bears should get the fifth round one too instead of a just a Niner forfeit.
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March 24th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Didn’t the Jets lose a 1st + more when they got Parcells? They hired him as a consultant, and the commissioner didn’t like that..
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March 24th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Woohoo. Maybe moving up in that third round draft will be the key to our (The Bears) 2008 Super Bowl run …
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March 24th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Not sure about this result. The Bears were not directly harmed by the tampering and by flipping selections they gain an undeserved advantage over division and conference rivals.
An adverse ruling on a team should be confined to their ability to field a better team not provide a windfall to the targeted team unless perhaps there was an actual injury.
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March 24th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
This seems like a very odd penalty. This is far more than one team getting hurt due to their action. The Bears are actually getting a competitive advantage for reporting the incident. What about all the teams between pick 7 and pick 12. Now they could be hurt because the player they were targeting, assuming the 49ers were not targeting that player, may be picked up by the bears whereas they would have fallen in the other circumstance.
This seems to create a situation where it encourages teams to cry foul against other teams. Not only will they get punished, you will get rewarded for tattling. I think this is a terrible punishment by the comish. If he really wants to reduce tampering, make a three day grace period between the start of free agency and when players are allowed to sign contracts. That gives three days of frenzy where players can visit multiple teams, and work the market….. On the Market.
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March 24th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Why do the Bears get a flip for the 3rd round? They got Briggs for only $12 guaranteed!!! Couldn’t just give that 5 the Niners lost instead?
This is horse manure.
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March 24th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
I agree with cjdevlin. Those teams in the middle are potentially getting penalized for the actions of a competitor. I wanted to add that this seems like a fairly random penalty. There should be a rule for this so we can measure the infraction against a yardstick. I’ll bet if this occured witha lower profile player the penalty would be less severe.
Most importantly, Florio doesn’t tote the laptop around to the dinner table?!?! Very disappointing Mike lol.
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March 24th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Once again this commissioner has gotten it all wrong. It is easy to predict that the more politically powerful club would win this absurb charge. The league is all felons, cheats, etc. Its appeal is disappearing quickly. Not like the NFL even a decade ago.
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March 24th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
They should have taken away the Niners pick that was traded away to the Patriots…
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March 24th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
A team doesn’t get hurt by tampering? Briggs holding out all off-season because he knows there’s a better contract out there waiting for him if he can get away from the Bears? The Bears unable to negotiate a long-term extension with one of their Pro Bowl-caliber players because of illegal tampering on outside?
Tampering is illegal and it hurts the team it’s done against. Then again, I’m a Bears fan, it’s easy for me to think that way.
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March 24th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
One the one hand it’s good the commissioner came down on the 49ers for tampering. Bad part is it should have been a penalty to the 49ers only! The Bears moving up by switching spots with the Niners is retarded.
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March 24th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
For those of you arguing that this hurts the teams in the middle. Well that is just poorly thought out because by your logic there should be no trades allowed in the draft. By your logic a trade disadvantages every team inbetween. So moving up a spot by offering a few draft picks would influence a great many teams. So this line of reasoning is just completely illogical.
It is hard to say how fair the swap is to the bears/9′ers without having all of the facts. I assume the Bears are arguing that because of contact with the 9′ers, the deal the Bears were supposedly working out last year to trade briggs (one team being mentioned-Redskins) may have fallen through as Briggs would have been playing hardball with the Redskins on contract numbers knowing that the 9′ers might be willing to offer more money this season. So I think it is entirely “possible” that the Bears were hurt in terms of dollars at the minimum and a draft pick from a trade at the best. However, I suspect we’ll never know, but I have to assume if the league did the flip there was some evidence that the Bears were harmed in some way.
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March 25th, 2008 at 3:23 am
Ironic seeing that the most blatant case of tampering this off-season (Justin Smiley) was AGAINST the Niners. They seem to be getting badly shafted here.
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March 25th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Actually nobody got more screwed in the whole tampering flap than Briggs himself. The 49ers were apparently ready to offer Briggs a monster contract at the beginning of the free-agent signing period, but due to the increasing scrutiny regarding the team and Briggs in regards to potential tampering, the 49ers backed off quickly trying to avoid the wrath of Goodell. This left Briggs with little leverage, as other suitors were not waiting in the wings, hence Briggs returning to Chicago (tail tucked between legs) for far less guaranteed money than he had anticipated upon entering free agency.
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