Kudos to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk — a notorious Vikings fan — for convincing a large part of the NFL world that the Falcons would be severely punished for their role in tampering with Kirk Cousins ahead of free agency. He was straight up peddling fan faction, talking about the Vikings potentially swapping first round picks with the Falcons ahead of the draft, or at the very least, receiving some sort of compensation.
Unfortunately, for Florio and Vikings fans, none of that came to fruition. The NFL’s punishment for the Falcons was released today, and it was nothing more than a slap on the wrist, docking Atlanta a 2025 fifth-round pick and handing out a couple of fines that amounted to $300,000 in total.
In summary:
— The #Eagles were not penalized for tampering.
— The #Falcons lost a 2025 5th-round pick for violating the anti-tampering policy with Kirk Cousins, Darnell Mooney and Charlie Woerner. ATL was fined $250K and GM Terry Fontenot was fined $50K. pic.twitter.com/LZIzWBbrkx
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) June 13, 2024
It’s nice to know there are people in the league office with some working brain cells. Tampering is an incredibly stupid and infuriating rule that shouldn’t even exist, but it does, and there’s no questioning the Falcons were in violation of the rules.
With that being said, the punishment must fit the crime. The Falcons didn’t land Kirk Cousins because they had conversations earlier than they were supposed to. He ended up in Atlanta because Arthur Blank whipped out his checkbook and offered more money, more years, and a higher average annual value than the Vikings.
It’s not rocket science to figure that out, and about the only people who had trouble coming to grips with the facts are Vikings fans, particularly Mike Florio, who isn’t very happy with the NFL’s decision.
This is NFL-propagated BS. Cousins admitted to speaking directly to the head athletic trainer and to director of player personnel Ryan Pace during the negotiating window. https://t.co/YObiZVSNWY
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) June 13, 2024
Credit to Mike Florio for being a fan first and a credible source of information second. And I really mean that. He runs the biggest NFL blog in the world, but deep down, he’s just like the rest of us delusional die hard fans.
It was always highly unlikely the Falcons were going to be severely punished for tampering with Kirk Cousins. It had no impact on him signing with Atlanta, and it’s good to see the league using logic and reasoning to resolve the issue.
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Photographer: Nick Wosika/Icon Sportswire
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