Was just checking out the 49ers boards to see their reaction about the Bears ruling, and these threads are starting to pop up all over. They want to go after us for signing Smiley only 30 minutes into the start of free agency. Should the 49ers Point the Finger? Lets go after the Dolphins First off, do you think the 49ers would even go ahead with this? Also, if they did, what kind of punishment(if any) would we be looking at? We are not the only team that did this.
PFT has an interesting article on this today: http://www.profootballtalk.com/category/rumor-mill/ If SF decided to complain, I can see the floodgates opening. And as Florio said so tongue in cheek, after this, "there may not even be a fifth round". It would be in the best interests of the league for Goodell to have a chat with all team reps to tell them to cease and desist. This has been going on for so long now to try to punish everyone would be ugly. Best to have them stop and move on.
I don't think they'd push because it appears obvious that he (Smiley) wanted out of there and they were resigned to letting him walk. But I think Florio's right. Everybody does it. Just to what degree.
Let the NFL send a letter to all the teams like they did about the video taping rules and then notch up enforcement. I'll bet the teams pay attention to his memos now.
That would be childish......but it seems the majority on that board just want to get over it, move on and worry about other things...
I can see this issue getting corralled pretty quickly by the NFL. The NFL is all too aware of the hit their image has taken after the spygate thing. The last thing they need is another media feeding frenzy over more cheating allegations. Watch...within the next couple of days the NFL will issue some sort of statement to the effect that the tampering issue has been resolved, and that'll be the last we hear about it.
Over-reactionary whiners. They got Briggs cause there was open admissions. There are no open admissions with Smiley.
Just like arrogant people to take their punishment poorly....Try and divert blame into another direction to make your mistake look "common" Admidt you were wrong and move on.
If I'm not mistaken, didn't they get caught for tampering with him last year? I haven't seen the proof yet that states that we were in with Smiley in the same way they were in with Briggs. Then again, they got caught, and are just complaining about it now. Why couldn't they have taken the first rounder that went to the Pats?
Is there the burden of proof? There should have to be clear evidence of tampering before anything should be done...at least I would hope so.
Exactly, why worry over speculation on a fansite & a rumoursite...............unless something official from the NFL comes our way.
I think Lance Briggs had a lot to do with this. The Bears saw a chance to get compensation and they jumped at it. Lance gave them the proof they needed to go ahead with it. What Proof would the 49ers have, Smiley isn't going to give the 49ers anything...if in fact anything was out of line.
Man what a douche bag. You know this is the same kind of guy who rats out everyone when he gets in trouble just to try to save his own butt. what a little girl. Lets rat out another team so we can get something out of it like a pic back. Yeah bro that'll happen.
well you can't blame the fans for trying to find a way to get their pick back. we'd be doing the same. on another note: go ahead and cancel the 5th round for all i care.. our 6th round pick would be oh so much better! we don't even HAVE a 5th to give! weeee
looks like KC is looking at tampering Kansas City coach Herm Edwards implied that the Buccaneers and Rams may have tampered with C Jeff Faine and K Josh Brown respectively. Both were desired targets of Kansas City, and Edwards could be placating an angry fan base. "We didn’t cheat. We abided by the rules. That’s how you’re supposed to do it, and that’s what we did," Edwards said. The 49ers had to give up a fifth-round pick and swap third round picks with the Bears after being found guilty of tampering on Monday. Source: The Kansas City Star http://www.rotoworld.com/content/home_NFL.aspx
Yeah but I believe you can be slapped for tampering if you contact a player before the normal start time of FA which I believe is midnight.
Pretty much - you start talking to guys before the free agency period officially begins, and you can be punished for it. The problem is normally with proving it - there have been cases where folks have been caught due to phone records and the like, but most of the time it's good old fashioned snitching.
I think what the league did to the niners was complete BS.. Especially the part of swapping 3rds with the Bears.. Why the hell should the Bears benefit from this? They KEPT Briggs! And from what I read on PFT, apparently the only evidence they had was a phone record of a phonecall to Rosenhaus? They could have been talking about any one of SEVERAL players other than Briggs that Rosenhaus represents.. I really hope we dont end up losing a pick over the Smiley thing.
Lmao I feel like an idiot. I was talking about how he brought it up the other day and how he is here but HE POSTED this thread lol.
There wasn't any real proof of tampering w/ Briggs. PFT mentioned that the teams had talked about a trade and that SF had at the same time been talking to Rosenhaus, Briggs' agent. However, Rosenhaus was never questioned about the nature of those phone conversations and none of them were recorded. I think this may just be a case of Goodell trying to buy some breathing room from Sen. Specter by showing that the league can police it's own 'cheaters'. Which means that this issue won't go any farther, no matter how much SF cries about it.
Reads like whiney B-S to me... The 9ers got caught so lets see if we can screw someone else. All to do with nothing imo! Marino1983
Now it looks like there's more evidence than was previously thought http://www.mercextra.com/blogs/kawakami/2008/03/25/49ers-tampering-story-theres-definitely-more-damning-evidence-than-just-2-phone-calls/#more-938(explicit e-mails). However, as pertaining to Smiley, BP and Ireland aren't dumb enough to get caught in this kind of situation in this kind of way. I mean, c'mon, were talking about the guy who probably taught Belicheat how to cheat. They're just grabbin' at smoke now...
I agree that this is really much ado about nothing ... I don't think that there's much the NFL can really do to stop this kind of thing from happening.
This will be quelled fast by Goodell IMO, last thing he needs is another controversy. Anyway it didn't hurt his girlfriend Robert Kraft & his Pats, so Roger can come down hard on SF.
Well, it's pretty curious that we were able to agree with Smiley about 10 mins after FA started. That said, what exactly is the rule...if his agent went to the Fins and said here are the parameters of what he'll be looking for, and we put a deal together based on those parameters and he agreed with it...what is that problem...is that tampering or not ?? Based on the way the reports are coming in about the Niners is that they contacted Punk Drew, not the other way around..I don't know what constitutes tampering according to the NFL, but it's pretty obvious this sort of thing has been going on forever...Obviously the Niners went a little too far...