Atlanta Falcons and Cleveland Browns Accept Punishment
Mar 23, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Atlanta Falcons president & ceo Rich McKay speaks during NFL meetings at the Arizona Biltmore. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
Who doesn’t cheat these days?
We’ve had Spygate, Deflategate and now it’s Textgate and Noisegate?
Cleveland Browns general manager Ray Farmer was suspended without pay for the first four regular-season games of the 2015 season for his violation of the NFL’s electronic device policy. The Browns have also been fined $250,000 but they will not lose a draft pick.
During the suspension, Farmer cannot be involved in anything and is prohibited from being at the team’s offices, practice facility or at games. The suspension will begin when the the Browns are down to their 53-man roster for the 2015 season. So Farmer will have done his job already before he begins his suspension.
The no-text rule is silly because you can call down to the red phone from the sky-box anyway. And the punishment is even worse because from now until the 53-man roster is set is when a general manager does his job. So it’s do your job and go home for a month with a $250,000 fine for an offense of a rule that shouldn’t be in place.
In more serious punishment, the Atlanta Falcons were fined $350,000 and lost a 2016 5th-round pick for piping crowd-noise. President of the Falcons and chairman of the competition committee Rich McKay will also be suspended for at least three months from the competition committee.
And the person directly responsible, director of event marketing Roddy White, no longer has a job with the Falcons. If he ends up with a job on another team, he will have to serve an eight-game suspension.