By PFW staff
March 25, 2008

It appears NFL commissioner Roger Goodell really is serious about implementing anti-tampering measures. Three weeks after suggesting in a memo to the competition committee that he wanted to clamp down on tampering, the league announced yesterday that the Niners would forfeit their fifth-round pick in next month’s draft after illegally tampering with Bears LB Lance Briggs. In addition, the Niners and Bears were ordered to switch picks in third round of the draft, with the Bears now getting the seventh pick in Round Three (70th overall), and the Niners getting the 75th overall pick. Goodell said the Niners violated the NFL’s anti-tampering policy by contacting Briggs’ agent, Drew Rosenhaus, about his client during the 2007 season — a claim the Niners vehemently deny.

“The 49ers organization respects Commissioner Goodell’s ruling today, however we do disagree with it,” Niners GM Scot McCloughan said in a statement. “This was not a malicious act; we believe that our intent was within the NFL guidelines. Going forward, we will take the necessary steps to ensure we are in compliance with the NFL’s interpretation.” 

The PFW Spin

There are a lot of spins you can put on this eyebrow-raising development. The first thing that comes to mind is the very real possibility that Goodell has opened a king-sized Pandora’s box. Truth be told, tampering involving agents is one of the league’s worst-kept secrets.

It took Chiefs head coach Herm Edwards no time at all after yesterday’s tampering announcement to publicly suggest his team’s inability to make certain free-agent deals was hindered by the fact those deals were, in essence, pretty much signed, sealed and delivered by teams and agents playing fast and loose with so-called league rules.

Put simply, the Niners and McCloughan were unlucky enough to get caught. And whether they were unjustly penalized or not, this is a big blow for McCloughan, who is still relatively new at the job and is best served acting like he knows what he’s doing. In a draft that is deep at a number of positions, picking five spots later in the third round could be costly.

As for losing a fifth-round pick, there’s no denying the negative impact for the Niners, considering that they have selected some pretty serviceable players in that round (Parys Haralson, Ronald Fields) during the Mike Nolan-McCloughan era.

As for the Bears, moving up five spots could really help them, with the likelihood strong that quality players at quarterback, running back and receiver, in particular, could still be available that early in the round.

Finally, if there wasn’t bad blood between the Bears and Niners before this happened, one has to think there certainly is now. And it could be a very long time before it goes away, if at all.