So if you hadn't heard, the San Francisco 49ers are under investigation by the NFL for possibly tampering with skilled Lamborghini driver LB Lance Briggs of the Chicago Bears. The hearing for the charges was held today at the NFL's main office in New York.
To sum up this nonsense, the 49ers tried to grab Briggs last fall before the October 16 trade deadline. The only problem was that Briggs had been designated a franchise player by Chicago before the 2007 NFL season, and franchise players cannot sign long-term deals until the new league year. This was also accompanied by this nonsense from Briggs during the summer prior to the 2007 season. Now the whole thing looks very stinky for the Niners, as it kind of looks like they were trying to lure a disgruntled Briggs to the Bay Area. The Bears filed the charges about four and half months ago. San Francisco now could be fined for the action, as well as lose a draft pick or two if Roger Goodell decides to lay down the law.
My take on this? I don't think I'll ever have have an "official" stance with the situation, because we'll never really know what exactly took place in terms of phone calls to Briggs' agent Drew Rosenhaus and/or to Briggs himself. It's a touchy situation, but I will say that it's not far fetched to think that almost every team tampers in some way with some player once the free agency period gets closer and closer on the calendar in February.
If we hear any inside info on this, we'll be sure to let you guys know. The Observer does actually have some inside contacts that from time to time drop us some exclusive info. I can't tell you how we have access to this info, but I promise I'm not BS'ing you either.
Jesse's Take
I personally paid witness to the debacle that is professional sports in Chicago for quite a few years while I lived in the Midwest. Out of all the crappy management each franchise had experienced over the years, the general consensus was that the McCaskey's, the owning family of the Bears and direct decendants of "Papa Bear" George Halas, were the ones that truly didn't know what the hell they were doing. They're not terribly smart, not terribly moral, and not anywhere near sportsmanlike. One thing they did know was that win, lose, or draw, Bears fans would still come and buy tickets every season.
The point I'm trying to make here is that we are now seeing why there are few trades in the NFL that ever get made with the Chicago Bears. I don't doubt that the Niners took some kind of liberty that went against the strict guidelines of NFL regulations regarding tampering, but I doubt that it was without the McCaskey's knowledge or even their consent. Once they realized that rules had been infracted upon, they seized the opportunity to stick it to another franchise even though the situation was already long over.
From the beginning of this bizarre situation, I had been hearing that this was purely being driven by the Bears ownership and management. Considering the trade never happened or came even close to being legitimized, why would they push so hard? Must still be sore over the 80's I guess.
1 comments:
This stinks. First Maiocco says the Bears are behind it all, then Barrows says Goodell is behind it...Plus we didn't even end up signing him. It would be SO bad if we just ended up being made an example of when, unlike the Patriots, it's something every team blatantly does.
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