Goodell comes down hard on tampering; more mail

Bears linebacker Lance Briggs found himself in the middle of the NFL's first penalized tampering case in 13 years. Damian Strohmeyer/SI

MAILBAG Peter King will answer your questions each week in Monday Morning Quarterback: Tuesday Edition. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

Before I get to this week's email, here's my take on Roger Goodell stripping the 49ers of a fifth-round pick and making the Bears and 49ers swap third-round picks in Chicago's favor in the wake of the tampering case involving Lance Briggs.

This is the first time in 13 years that a commissioner has found an NFL team guilty of tampering with another team's employee. That is remarkable. Think about all the tampering that is alleged every year -- agents and teams speaking about prospective players prior to the free-agency period, most notably -- and for this to be the first tampering case to be adjudicated against a team in 13 years is amazing.

It speaks to the closed society the NFL is. Or, as one club official told me this morning, "It's because no one tells on anyone anymore.'' (The last tampering ruling came in 1995, when the Panthers had second- and sixth-round picks, plus $150,000, taken for contacting Dom Capers about their coaching job before his season ended in Pittsburgh. The Steelers got fined $50,000 for allowing Capers to talk to Carolina early.)

The latest case is a classic he-said, she-said one, according to sources. The league claims to have found evidence of contact between the 49ers and the agent for Briggs, Drew Rosenhaus, before the NFL trading deadline last year. The 49ers, a league source said, claim there was no contact, except for two phone calls to Rosenhaus of less than a minute in duration that were not picked up by the agent.

The Bears were adamant there was more contact than that, and Goodell agreed. I'm told the league has more evidence than the two short phone calls, and I'm also told by someone who spoke with a 49er official the team is mystified about it. I would not be surprised if 49er brass feels like the club is being used to send a message that the league is going to act aggressively and punitively on tampering allegations.

I'm not sure about that. The league will say this case was judged solely on its merits, and I believe it was. But it does not hurt Goodell at all that he has found a team guilty of tampering. In the past year the league has sent out two strongly worded memos reminding teams of the anti-tampering policy, yet stories of teams and agents talking about looming free agents at the Scouting Combine last month -- a week before free-agency began -- were everywhere in Indianapolis. And when several free agents signed in the opening hours of free-agency (one, guard Justin Smiley, had his deal with the Dolphins in the first half-hour of the signing period), it just reinforced that tampering before the market opens is the NFL's dirty little open secret. It makes sense that Goodell wants to stop it. He should.

Now onto your emails.

• VERY PERCEPTIVE, JIM. From Jim Linker, of Lewisville, Texas: "During this lull in the NFL calendar, do you enjoy writing about who you think is going to be drafted where, or are you writing more out of obligation to SI? Personally, I enjoy reading you each week, but the, 'who's going to do what' in the draft doesn't have the same pizzazz as your in-season greatness. When does training camp start?''

Thanks for the compliment, Jim. The problem I have with writing and talking about the draft is that, in my opinion, too often at this time of year many of us (and I'm guilty of it too) write and talk about prospective draft choices like we know how good they're going to be in the NFL. Web sites are created, experts are birthed, writers who've seen three highlights of a player on ESPN start to write like they convinced he's going to be the savior of some franchise. I mean, we watch guys work out at the Scouting Combine and make judgments about the kind of football players they are. It's silly season.

The worst thing of all, I've come to believe, is the draft report card. If a team has needs at corner, defensive end and wide receiver, and if that team has three picks in the first two rounds, and if that team chooses a corner, defensive end and wide receiver with those three picks, I can almost guarantee you in many report cards the comment will be something like this: "Team X did a superb job at filling the holes it had coming into draft day. Grade: A.'' Why?

We in the media -- and they in the front offices -- have no idea if those three players are going to be good. Now, I'm not saying in any way that the draft is unimportant. It's vital. Look at how much the Giants helped themselves in the draft last year, taking eight mostly unheralded players and having every single one make the team and play during the playoff run to the Super Bowl.

Yet, when I Googled "2007 NFL draft report card'' this morning, I found five highly respected scribes and/or sites grading the Giants at C-plus or below. I saw one site rave about Ted Ginn Jr. and John Beck and give the Dolphins an A-plus. Giants GM Jerry Reese had the best draft in the league, hands down. To me, we don't look very good in this business when we sit in instant judgment of players and teams.

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