Falcons, Eagles will be investigated for potential tampering in Kirk Cousins, Saquon Barkley deals

This is standard, a source confirmed to Yahoo! Sports.

It’s been a very exciting free agency period for the Falcons, but some news broke on Thursday that may take the wind out of their sails a bit.

According to ESPN’s Dan Graziano, the NFL is looking into allegations that the Falcons and Eagles both engaged in tampering to secure deals with free agents Kirk Cousins and Saquon Barkley.

A league source confirmed to Yahoo! Sports that it is “standard to look into these matters.”

Teams are not allowed to have direct contact with players during the “legal tampering” period that kicked off on Monday, March 11. But in Cousins’ introductory press conference on Wednesday evening, he suggested he’d already met some folks in the building before free agency officially opened up at 4 p.m. ET on Wednesay, March 13.

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

Another factor could be Cousins’ connection with Falcons tight end Kyle Pitts, who apparently had done his best to recruit Cousins to Atlanta.

The league’s tampering policy reads as follows:

The player cannot visit any team facilities other than the one he’s currently signed to and “no direct contact is permitted between the player and any employee or representative of a club (other than his current club).

Even though the days leading up to free agency are colloquially known as the “legal tampering” period, teams are really just allowed to negotiate with the players’ representatives. They’re not allowed to have any direct contact whatsoever with the player. Teams can get away with blowing this off, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be hell to pay when someone gets caught doing it.

The most recent example of punishment for tampering in the NFL that I can think of is the Miami Dolphins, who were determined to have tampered when they did their level best to recruit Tom Brady a couple of years ago. The league docked Miami their 2023 first-round pick and their 2024 fourth-round pick.

Maybe this will turn out to be a nothingburger, but it’s probably wise to prepare for the worst-case scenario.