49ers tampering case hearing

[adam]

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/7916862

Despite the fact the Bears have re-signed Lance Briggs, a saga centered around the Pro Bowl linebacker is not yet over.

 

Several league sources have told FOXSports.com that there is a hearing scheduled in New York City for Monday to help determine if the 49ers tampered with Briggs and/or his agent Drew Rosenhaus during the 2007 NFL season.

 

The issue stems from a near-trade between the two teams for Briggs that abruptly collapsed right before the end of the midseason trade deadline in 2007. The Bears believe the 49ers had contacted Briggs' agent regarding a contract before being granted permission to do so.

 

If the 49ers are found guilty, the loss of draft picks and/or a fine would be likely.

 

The Bears have a large contingent flying to New York, including team president Ted Phillips, general manager Jerry Angelo, and perhaps head coach Lovie Smith among others, a sign that they are taking these charges quite seriously.

 

An NFL front-office source said commissioner Roger Goodell was hoping the two sides could work out a solution to their discrepancy prior to Monday's hearing. If not, Goodell would likely make a ruling on a penalty if he finds San Francisco guilty.

 

I wish the Bears would take this offseason as serious as these allegations.

[BearSox]

I don't get it. Would we get the draft pick and/or money from San Fran? Or would they just be penalized?

[Pixote]

I don't get it. Would we get the draft pick and/or money from San Fran? Or would they just be penalized?

 

My understanding is if the case goes to the NFL they may lose a draft pick &/or be fined but the Bears would get nothing.

 

However, I also understand that the 49ers could settle with the Bears before it is heard by the NFL.

 

Exactly what the 49ers would give us to avoid it going to the NFL? Guess it depends if they feel they would lose the case and what they feel the NFL would do if they found on the side of the Bears.

[kyyle23]

What exactly did the 49ers do? The way I understood it, over last years offseason Lance Briggs and his big mouth(otherwise known as Drew Rosenhaus) talked to anyone who would listen about engineering a trade somewhere far away from Chicago. Did the 49ers initiate talks with Rosenhaus? did they call Briggs exclusively? I guess I dont understand how the Redskins can have a deal on the table ready to trade for Briggs and that is fine, but the 49ers are getting laid out flat for tampering.

[xvflutop]

The way I see it, last year the bears were attempting to make a trade with Washington, but before a trade could be completed the Redskins would need to have a contract agreement with Briggs otherwise it would essentially be trading the tag or a player with no contract. But if the 9ers were in contact with Briggs or Rosenhaus then they could've been driving the price Briggs was willing to accept up for the skins. Because he could essentially say he knows he is worth more than the are offerring. Then if the skins couldn't get a deal worked out the trade couldn't go through and the 9ers either could make a trade offer or just hope to pick Briggs up after the season since he will already know what to expect from them in terms of contract.

[nfoligno]

I think it was actually before that. I am not sure, but I think the tampering charge comes into play before the start of FA. Prior to the start of FA, we were trying to workout a new deal w/ Briggs. Eventually, we slapped the tag on him, but even then, continued to talk new deal w/ him. I think it was in this period, prior to FA, that SF is alleged to have tampered. I think Chicago's allegation is that SF drove up the price, which prevented us from being able to re-sign him.

 

I am sorry, but I think this whole thing is stupid as hell. First, what team is Lance Briggs a part of? Oh yea, us. We won. Why the hell are we going back and making a big deal about this after winning. We are acting like the loser here, not the winner. Further, according to pretty much all reports, tampering is pretty much the norm. So do we never tamper? We never have an informal talk w/ an agent at the combine, or whatever. If continue w/ this, we better have the cleanest freaking record in this area. We are sticking out necks out IMHO making a big fuss about this.

 

Sorry, but (a) we won the Briggs war, and yet are acting like the losers and ( at a time when we should be focusing on FA/draft, both our GM and HC are involved in this BS, which does not even offer an chance to benefit us.

[DABEARSDABOMB]

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/7916862

 

 

I wish the Bears would take this offseason as serious as these allegations.

I see where it says that the Niners would be punished by losing draft picks if something happened, but would the Bears receive those draft picks since they were the team that was harmed through the process. They obviously were very close to making a deal and If that was the case I'm sure we are talking about players or pieces (ie draft picks) that the Bears were interested in.

 

Either way I'm happy as hell to have Briggs back and at a very fair price and I look forward to him playing at a pro bowl level and helping the Bears get back to the promised land for the next 6 seasons.

[adam]

I don't recall a team being compensated for being tampered with, just the team doing the tampering gets punished.

[kyyle23]

Who was assigned the draft picks that NE lost because of the Spygate scandal? The Bears werent really "harmed" because of the tampering, it just pissed them off. They still retained the player who was tampered with, so i dont see how they could end up with additional picks

[AZ54]

According to the article it was a midseason trade? When is the midseason trade deadline, I believe it's in Oct. That means we thought we had a deal with the 49ers to ship them Briggs in October. The Bears are contending that prior to closing the deal the 49ers engaged in contract discussions with Rosenhaus. What we'd have gotten from them I have no idea but the fact JA is pursuing this with the league is good IMO and not just sour grapes. He's paid to do everything he can to make the Bears as competitive as possible.

 

First he could be engaged in future trade talks and I agree with him that the agents shouldn't be involved unless appropriately authorized by a team. Secondly, we might get something out of this from San Fran, if not, they will likely at least lose something. IF it's just a small cash fine no big deal but it might be enough to stop a future transgression.

[BigDaddy]

I think it was actually before that. I am not sure, but I think the tampering charge comes into play before the start of FA. Prior to the start of FA, we were trying to workout a new deal w/ Briggs. Eventually, we slapped the tag on him, but even then, continued to talk new deal w/ him. I think it was in this period, prior to FA, that SF is alleged to have tampered. I think Chicago's allegation is that SF drove up the price, which prevented us from being able to re-sign him.

 

I am sorry, but I think this whole thing is stupid as hell. First, what team is Lance Briggs a part of? Oh yea, us. We won. Why the hell are we going back and making a big deal about this after winning. We are acting like the loser here, not the winner. Further, according to pretty much all reports, tampering is pretty much the norm. So do we never tamper? We never have an informal talk w/ an agent at the combine, or whatever. If continue w/ this, we better have the cleanest freaking record in this area. We are sticking out necks out IMHO making a big fuss about this.

 

Sorry, but (a) we won the Briggs war, and yet are acting like the losers and ( at a time when we should be focusing on FA/draft, both our GM and HC are involved in this BS, which does not even offer an chance to benefit us.

 

I posted on another board that I thought this was more about putting Rosenhaus in his place. To me, it's odd that NOBODY bit on Briggs, who was suposedly the TOP FA available yet after that Bears sign him for 36M with 13M guaranteed, a guy like Pace comes along and gets 42M with 22M guaranteed? Now, call me a conspiracist if you want but I believe alot of people from the NFL were pissed at Rosenhaus for parading Briggs around at the Owners meetings last year and maybe, just maybe they decided to teach Rosenhaus a lesson. What better way to do that than give a guy like Briggs much less than he expected.

 

As far as SF goes, maybe they also got wind that Rosenhaus was doing things in his dealings with SF that he shouldn't. Hey, I don't care what happens, but even if this is more about SF trying to work something out behind our backs or not being forthright in their dealings with us, if we get some kinda compensation pick, Im good. I do like the conspiracy theories though. They're alot more fun.

[nfoligno]

Several points.

 

First and foremost. We do not get compensation. At best/worst, SF could lost a pick or picks, but we do not get their forfeited picks. We get nothing but, maybe, satisfaction.

 

Second, I do not buy that we are doing this to basically attack Rosenarce. We are in negotiations at this very moment w/ him for Harris. If Rosenarce is our target in this, I can only see it hurting our chances to re-sign Harris.

 

Third, I do not see conspiracy w/ Briggs/Pace. I love a good conspiracy as much as the next guy (actually, more) but I think it is FAR more an issue of sacks, or playmaking stats in general. Whether some Briggs fans like it or not, and whether or not it is true doesn't matter. The reality is Briggs has become a tackle machine in a system that sets up for him to do just that very well. There are questions how "great" he would be outside such a system, and w/o Urlacher and Co. I think the biggest issue though is playmaking stats. If an average corner notches 8 or 10 picks in a year, he is going to hit paydirt, and may easily get more money than a far better cover corner, simply because he has the picks. If you have a LB that racks up the sacks, forced fumbles, sacks, and to a lesser extent, fumble recoveries, he may well get paid considerably more than a superior LB that didn't put up the stats. Pace had 6.5 sacks this past year, which is 1 more than Briggs has collectively had in his career. Really, w/ the exception of his very high tackle numbers, he simply has not stood out in the stat sheet, and whether a good test or not, it is often what translates in FA.

[selection7]

Second, I do not buy that we are doing this to basically attack Rosenarce. We are in negotiations at this very moment w/ him for Harris. If Rosenarce is our target in this, I can only see it hurting our chances to re-sign Harris.

I fail to see how sticking to our guns and landing Briggs on the cheap, having the leagues owners band around us, sticking it to Roshenhause and then tagging his co-conspirators with sanctions in the "court system" of the NFL is going to hurt us. Drew is an arrogant shark of a man who will not respond to anything but consequences. ...unless you think he won't even respond to consequences...only bravado. But I doubt he could've gotten where he is without more self-restraint than that.

[shadevtx]

I would like to say 2 things:

 

(1) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE somebody do something about the ENTIRE previous posts being quoted in replies. Obviously too many people on this site are too lazy to CLICK-DRAG-DELETE, and it keeps me from reading an entire thread. I don't know about others, but I'm this close to moving to another site because of this...

 

(2) JA needs to get off his GD pedestal and fix this team. If he thinks that taking the "moral high road" is going to put him in the good graces, he may be right about the afterlife, but not while he's in our town. I'll eat crow if there's a master plan in the works that comes to fruition, but for now all I see is an old man shaking his cane at the youngsters blowing by him...

 

cheers!

[madlithuanian]

Please expound on item 1. I admit, I'm an internet/message board moron. I have no idea what you're talking about... I'm happy to oblige, if I knew what you were talking about.

 

I normally just click on reply (only when I truly want to reply to specifics in a post...) and then type in front of the reply. I do so on this site, because when you do that, your first sentence comes out as the only things that resembles a subject line. Otherwise, I'd be relpying below.

 

I would like to say 2 things:

 

(1) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE somebody do something about the ENTIRE previous posts being quoted in replies. Obviously too many people on this site are too lazy to CLICK-DRAG-DELETE, and it keeps me from reading an entire thread. I don't know about others, but I'm this close to moving to another site because of this...

 

(2) JA needs to get off his GD pedestal and fix this team. If he thinks that taking the "moral high road" is going to put him in the good graces, he may be right about the afterlife, but not while he's in our town. I'll eat crow if there's a master plan in the works that comes to fruition, but for now all I see is an old man shaking his cane at the youngsters blowing by him...

 

cheers!

[BigDaddy]

I would like to say 2 things:

 

(1) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE somebody do something about the ENTIRE previous posts being quoted in replies. Obviously too many people on this site are too lazy to CLICK-DRAG-DELETE, and it keeps me from reading an entire thread. I don't know about others, but I'm this close to moving to another site because of this...

 

(2) JA needs to get off his GD pedestal and fix this team. If he thinks that taking the "moral high road" is going to put him in the good graces, he may be right about the afterlife, but not while he's in our town. I'll eat crow if there's a master plan in the works that comes to fruition, but for now all I see is an old man shaking his cane at the youngsters blowing by him...

 

cheers!

 

3. Hey, I have no freakin idea what you're talking about either. The reason we use the quotes from previous posts is to reply to them and the author knows we are acknowledging their post. If there's a different way to do it, let me know.

[nfoligno]

One. never said sticking to our guns on Briggs was a bad thing. In fact, I was among those who always said we should hold off on re-signing him for big bucks, only only sign him if he dropped to our price.

 

Two. "having the league owners band around us?" Why do you think this is going to happen. Nice thought, but I think we are going to be more alone than not. Rules or not, the reality is most every team talks to players and agents when they should not and about things they shouldn't. Tampering is closer than not to a way of life in the NFL.

 

And while I hate Rosenarce too, at the same time, acting like we have a personnel vendetta against him makes no sense. One, it is far more an issue w/ the team than w/ the agent when you have tampering. Two, no matter how much we hate him, if we hope to sign other players of ours that have him as an agent, starting a war like this w/ him really doesn't make much sense.

[selection7]

Two. "having the league owners band around us?" Why do you think this is going to happen. Nice thought, but I think we are going to be more alone than not. Rules or not, the reality is most every team talks to players and agents when they should not and about things they shouldn't. Tampering is closer than not to a way of life in the NFL.

 

This was already done according to some...on this very thread! I'm not talking about the future. Also, business is business. You can supply consequences without personal vendettas. I'd say we pretty much did that. Drew now knows we'll play hardball right back, won't flinch, and will win, so he'll hopefully think twice about taking us for a ride and settle with only jerking us around instead.

 

Also, that other poster is talking about how you hit reply but it automatically inserts a quote anyway. Ever since I've been on this board up until now I've had to Ctrl-A, then Del to get rid of the stupid auto-quote. I have been very careful to keep the "Quote" button de-selected (i.e. not highlighted). In fact, by default, it's not highlighted, but then you hit only "Reply" and it automatically sticks in the quote anyway. So I guess the mods haven't been having this problem?

[NeoBear]

If you look down below the last post there is a button that says ADD REPLY.

This button wont quote anything.

[butkusrules]

Here's the thing, we don't know what the story is with the SF tampering. But Angelo has not been the type to bitch a lot about anything so whatever SF did it must have been serious. Even if we don't get money or picks, the best reason to complain about something like this is to scare other teams from pulling the same crap on us later down the line.

[nfoligno]

Here's the thing, we don't know what the story is with the SF tampering. But Angelo has not been the type to bitch a lot about anything so whatever SF did it must have been serious. Even if we don't get money or picks, the best reason to complain about something like this is to scare other teams from pulling the same crap on us later down the line.

 

At the same time, we also sort of stick our necks out. If tampering is something done as rampant as most reports indicate, I simply have to wonder if we are so clean that we can afford to really complain. If we ever tamper, how does it look when we are the team that went after another for the same.

[shadevtx]

Well, Mad Lithuanian, the first step to recovery is admitting there's a problem

 

What I'm talking about is the entire previous post appearing in your reply. You can erase it before you type your post. I'm guessing its a default feature the administrator added so we can tell which post you're replying to, but it gets cumbersome for an impatient prick like myself who likes to scroll through posts quickly when everyone's posts are twice as long now b/c they're quoting the entire post before them...

 

Maybe I just need to crack a cold one...

[madlithuanian]

Cracking a cold one is always good therapy!

 

I follow... I just hit reply on purpose wanting to show what it is I'm responding to. I do respond on top of the quote, which I htink makes it somewhat easier to read.

 

I hope I don't drive you to drink! But, then again, is that so bad?

 

Well, Mad Lithuanian, the first step to recovery is admitting there's a problem

 

What I'm talking about is the entire previous post appearing in your reply. You can erase it before you type your post. I'm guessing its a default feature the administrator added so we can tell which post you're replying to, but it gets cumbersome for an impatient prick like myself who likes to scroll through posts quickly when everyone's posts are twice as long now b/c they're quoting the entire post before them...

 

Maybe I just need to crack a cold one...

[bradjock]

One. never said sticking to our guns on Briggs was a bad thing. In fact, I was among those who always said we should hold off on re-signing him for big bucks, only only sign him if he dropped to our price.

 

Two. "having the league owners band around us?" Why do you think this is going to happen. Nice thought, but I think we are going to be more alone than not. Rules or not, the reality is most every team talks to players and agents when they should not and about things they shouldn't. Tampering is closer than not to a way of life in the NFL.

 

And while I hate Rosenarce too, at the same time, acting like we have a personnel vendetta against him makes no sense. One, it is far more an issue w/ the team than w/ the agent when you have tampering. Two, no matter how much we hate him, if we hope to sign other players of ours that have him as an agent, starting a war like this w/ him really doesn't make much sense.

 

Agreed about Rosenass. When we drafted Olsen there was talk we should pass because he's a client. Of course the beauty was that our starting TE was also a client. He's now resigned.

 

Angelo is smart in realizing that the person who holds the checkbook holds the power. Reguardless of what the media says or does in favor of a player, it all comes down to the money.

 

I'd have loved to have seen how far Briggs would have dropped in $$$ if it hadn't been for the Bears. Supposedly Washington was interested, but they sure as hell didn't pay to sign Bryan Johnson. I wonder if that was a ploy. JA has positioned the Bears in such a way that Rosenass needs us, more then vice-versa.

 

Getting back to your original point, it's stupid to think that there won't be tampering, when there's a 3 to 4 week period before free agency begins. After the Super Bowl, who really gives a damn? Maybe San Fran were talking to Briggs during the season. That's way wrong.

[selection7]

If you look down below the last post there is a button that says ADD REPLY.

This button wont quote anything.

Yes, perfect! Haha. So I don't win any awards for being observant...what else is new. Actually the truth was that the "auto-reply" thing seemed somewhat random to me but I didn't think that was important to state. Now I realize that some of the time I've been hitting the "reply" button, and the rest of the time I've been hitting the bigger "add reply" button without realizing it, which explains the so-called randomness of the problem I was experiencing.