The Atlanta Falcons made the biggest splash of the offseason, signing Kirk Cousins to a four-year, $180 million contract. Replacing Desmond Ridder with the four-time Pro Bowl quarterback was one of the biggest roster upgrades in the NFL. Yet, many would argue the way the Falcons went about their process wasn’t exactly ethical.
The Falcons did what the NFL doesn’t want teams to do — contact free agents before they were supposed to. After a long investigation into their free agency pursuit of Cousins, the NFL determined that the Falcons were guilty of tampering with three of their signings, including the former Vikings QB. However, the Falcons were hit with a small slap on the wrist by being docked a fifth-round pick while being fined a total of $300,000.
Now, Falcons owner Arthur Blank is coming forward, admitting his team made several procedural mistakes during their free agency pursuits.
Related: See where Kirk Cousins lands in Sportsnaut’s NFL QB Rankings
Arthur Blank: Atlanta Falcons made several mistakes while tampering
On Tuesday, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank addressed the media for the first time since the NFL disciplined his team for their free agency tampering. While doing so, he admitted there were a few areas the front office could have done differently while acknowledging they’ve made changes to their process.
“So, the tampering situation, we were advised by the NFL that we didn’t dot every ‘I’ and cross every ‘T,’ despite our attempt to do that. There were a couple of procedural mistakes, I think, that were made by the organization. We fully cooperated with the NFL, as we always do in any sort of investigation. They found there were certain things were deficient in the way we handled things with Kirk. We’ve addressed those things internally. Find something that’s a problem, you fix it and make sure it doesn’t happen again, and that’s our attitude about it. The NFL is certainly doing their job and doing it well.”
Arthur Blank
The Falcons were lucky they weren’t penalized more. They essentially cheated while signing the biggest free agency contract of the offseason. Every single NFL team would do that every offseason if they knew it would only cost them a fifth-round pick.
Atlanta may have provided the blueprint for other teams that strongly desire to address their key needs in free agency. Then again, now that it’s been done once, the NFL could come down much harder on another organization if it follows in the Falcons’ footsteps.
Related: Kirk Cousins Says Vikings Wouldn’t Have Done Him Dirty Like Falcons Did
