Captain Fear
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- Mar 20, 2019
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Officially, the NFL isn’t saying whether it will be investigating whether the Buccaneers violated the tampering rules in connection with tight end Rob Gronkowski’s claim that he had the team’s playbook weeks before being traded to Tampa Bay by New England. Unofficially, the league reportedly won’t be doing anything about it.
Rob Maaddi of the Associated Press reports that the league is not investigating the situation.
Earlier this week, the league exonerated the Buccaneers for what some within the league regard as a bright-line violation of the offseason workout rules, finding that quarterback Tom Brady‘s meeting with offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich simply entailed Brady picking up a playbook. (Technically, even that is a violation.) Some suspect that Brady and Leftwich did more than meet, especially since Brady reportedly dropped duffel bags (possibly containing footballs) on the floor of the house he accidentally entered, thinking it was Leftwich’s residence.
The league also did and said nothing about coach Bruce Arians’ remarks to reporters at the Scouting Combine regarding interest in Brady and Philip Rivers, even though both were under contract with other teams at the time.
Although certain rules, such as the tampering prohibition, rampantly are violated by NFL teams, the league rarely if ever enforces them. As explained during Friday’s PFT Live, the league on one hand needs to have rules on the books that promote fair play and proper conduct. On the other hand, the league can’t afford to aggressively apply those rules in a way that results in the perception/reality that the NFL is rife with corruption — which is what would happen if every tampering violation were dealt with.
Or maybe, just maybe, teams eventually would knock it off.
In this case, Gronk later tried to clean up the mess by claiming that he was joking. It would make no sense for the league to simply accept that position without verification, confirmation, or examination, given the chance that Gronkowski said what he had to say to keep the Buccaneers out of hot water. Regardless, there’s a chance that the 2020 Buccaneers have fully adopted Bruce Arians’ no-risk-it-no-biscuit mantra, with plenty of risk-it, plenty of biscuit, and to date no consequences.