With the Broncos seemingly concerned that their contact with Drew Brees prior to the AFC Championship could put them in a tampering jackpot, we decided to ask the league whether the specific situation runs afoul of the rules.
The NFL declined comment.
It’s not clear what that means. If it’s a nothing burger, the league easily could have said so.
The problem for the Broncos is that the NFL enforces the tampering rules unpredictably and sporadically. More often than not, the league looks the other way. During the days of rampant tampering in and around the Scouting Combine, the NFL rarely does anything about it.
Sometimes, however, the NFL decides to make an example out of someone. In this case, the effort to feed ESPN an interesting story for the first Monday night pregame show of the season has also handed the league enough evidence to take action, if it chooses to do so.
The only question remaining is whether the NFL will choose to do so.
Again, it doesn’t take a complaint from the team that holds a player’s rights. The Dolphins were hammered for tampering with Sean Payton and Tom Brady, based on evidence the NFL tripped over during an unrelated investigation.
Here, the evidence fell into the NFL’s laps. Thanks to a report that pushed the idea that the Broncos contacted Brees at a time when he remained on the Saints’ reserve-retired list.