The Kirk Cousins Tampering Case Has Created the NFL's Version of "Fight Club" - Zone Coverage (2024)

Kirk Cousins signed with the Atlanta Falcons in March, but his path to taking his first snap in Mercedes-Benz Stadium has been one of the best storylines in the NFL. Cousins signed a four-year, $180 million contract with Atlanta in the opening hours of the NFL’s negotiation window (also known as the “legal tampering period”). During his introductory press conference, he beamed about the people on his new team.

“There’s great people here, and it’s not just the football team, ” Cousins said. “I mean, I’m looking at the support staff. Meeting — calling, yesterday, calling our head athletic trainer, talking to our head of PR. I’m thinking, we got good people here. And that’s exciting to be a part of.”

The comments prompted an investigation into whether the Falcons contacted Cousins early. Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio wondered if the Falcons and Minnesota Vikings could swap picks in the draft. ESPN’s Adam Schefter said Atlanta’s alleged transgressions “are considered more significant” than a similar investigation over Saquon Barkley’s signing with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Vikings fans got wide-eyed over the possibility of an SMU-like death penalty for the Falcons. Instead, the NFL docked Atlanta a 2025 fifth-round pick and $250,000. They also fined general manager Terry Fontenot $50,000 as a result of the investigation. That left many fans wondering if the NFL even cared about its tampering problem.

Two things can be true in this case. The NFL has a tampering problem, but there may not be one way to fix it. And in many ways, the league has created its own Fight Club.

In 2008, the San Francisco 49ers forfeited a fifth-round pick to the Chicago Bears for tampering with linebacker Lance Briggs, the first notable tampering case under Roger Goodell’s watch. Briggs didn’t sign with the Niners, but it seemed like a step in the right direction.

The trend continued when the Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs swapped fifth-round picks in the 2011 NFL Draft. The Lions lost their seventh-round pick when Gunther Cunningham tried to recruit some of his old players from Kansas City to join him in Detroit.

Kansas City was part of its own investigation in 2016 when the league docked the Chiefs a 2016 third-round pick and a 2017 fourth-round pick for tampering with former Eagles receiver Jeremy Maclin.

However, the issue reached a fever pitch over the last two seasons.

The league docked the Miami Dolphins a 2023 first-round pick and a 2024 third-round pick after owner Stephen Ross tampered with Tom Brady and Sean Payton. While the previous cases involved role players, this involved a superstar and one of the top head coaches in the league who was under contract with the New Orleans Saints.

Brian Flores also launched a discrimination lawsuit against the league. The NFL came down strong, adding a one-year suspension for Ross. That seemed to set a precedent for teams looking to gain an extra advantage before free agency officially begins. Still, Atlanta’s case brought it to a different level.

Talk of the Falcons contacting Cousins first entered the discourse at the NFL’s scouting combine. While the NFL’s negotiation window doesn’t open for a few weeks, St. Elmo’s Steakhouse serves as an underground “Fight Club.”

If you’ve seen the movie, you know the first rule of Fight Club. But the Vikings, looking to keep Cousins in the fold, made the NFL’s fight club public when Kevin O’Connell hinted at tampering during an interview during NFL Network’s coverage of the combine.

“I know Kirk is going to go through a full process,” O’Connell said. “He’s a process guy. And hopefully, we continue to be a strong part in that process and we figure out a way to keep him a Minnesota Viking. …The combine gave everybody else an opportunity, whether they’re supposed to be or not, to maybe have some of those conversations.”

Cousins agreed to his massive contract with the Falcons just hours into the negotiation window on March 11, amplifying O’Connell’s remarks. During his introductory press conference, Cousins unintentionally poured gas on the fire when he mentioned talking with Atlanta’s medical and public relations staff.

It turns out that this was just a small part of the investigation. Cousins reportedly recruited fellow free agents Darnell Mooney and Charlie Woerner to Atlanta, and it was characterized as one of the great IDGAF moments in the history of free agency. Many speculated what kind of punishment the Falcons could receive, but the small nature made many wonder if the NFL even cared about its growing tampering problem.

If the NFL had come down hard on the Falcons, it would have highlighted tampering issues across the league. While Cousins agreed to a deal with the Falcons, other deals were agreed to in the opening hours of the tampering window, including a four-year, $76 million contract with Jonathan Greenard.

You could believe that Greenard wanted to be in Minnesota so badly that the contract – which included $42 million guaranteed with a $16.5 million signing bonus and an additional $2.5 million salary – came together in a half hour. However, some underground work likely made it a matter of crossing the Ts and dotting the Is once the window opened.

The Chicago Bears agreed to a contract with D’Andre Swift shortly after the window opened, and the Eagles agreed with Barkley shortly after the window opened. Barkley’s case drew a second tampering investigation, but the NFL found nothing wrong mainly because of the main rule of this Fight Club.

So, what can the NFL do about this problem? One solution is to move up the start of free agency. The NFL loves to dominate the news cycle around the calendar. However, it holds the start of free agency one month after the season ends. Other leagues, like as the NBA and NHL, conduct their drafts and free agency shortly after the conclusion of their seasons. A similar move for the NFL could be to condense the free-agent process and have all decisions made before agents and executives show up to the combine.

The NFL could still have its draft month, with the combine later in March and the draft being held in April. Then, it could have the schedule release and the OTAs that dominate the month of June. However, this would also pressure general managers and players to make decisions quickly, which may cause some of them to object to the change.

There’s also the option of holding the draft ahead of free agency. However, that would handcuff prospects looking to boost their stock through the combine and their pro days.

It makes tampering a problem the NFL has to acknowledge but can’t do much about. Until then, the tampering issue is the NFL’s own Fight Club and will continue to become a nasty underground battle until it finds a solution.