NFL commissioner Roger Goodell expects to personally hear Chiefs’ tampering appeal

If the Chiefs hope to get back the two draft picks they surrendered for allegedly tampering with wide receiver Jeremy Maclin, it appears they will have to go through commissioner Roger Goodell first.

On Wednesday, Goodell said at the NFL’s annual meeting that he will likely personally hear the appeal that the Chiefs and chairman Clark Hunt filed last week, even though he has the option of appointing a designee.

“I do not know if it’s scheduled yet,” Goodell said. “I know they did appeal and will accommodate the date. I do expect I will hear it. I haven’t thought of any other alternatives at this point in time.”

A designee can be someone else in the league office, which handed down the punishment, or someone from outside, but it appears that option isn’t in play for the Chiefs, with Goodell citing the seriousness of its tampering policy.

“It’s an important policy to us,” Goodell said. “It’s important from a competitive standpoint, so I expect I will hear it, and if they would like to do it in advance of the draft, we’ll do it then.”

Hunt said Monday that he would like the appeal to be done before the NFL Draft, which begins on April 28.

The infraction, the league says, came during the pre-free-agency negotiating period last March, when the Chiefs were courting Maclin, then under contract with the Philadelphia Eagles.

The league says the Chiefs had direct contact with Maclin during that period, which is strictly prohibited. The Chiefs eventually signed Maclin to a five-year, $55 million deal.

The Chiefs lost their third-round pick this year and sixth-round pick next year. The club was also fined $250,000, while coach Andy Reid was fined $75,000 and general manager John Dorsey was fined $25,000.

In prior years, teams were allowed to talk with the agents for players during the legal tampering period and were not allowed to make an actual offer or reach a tentative agreement with the player before the actual start of free-agency.

The Chiefs, who the league said cooperated fully with the investigation, have not denied the charges.

However, Hunt made it clear in a statement that he disagrees with the severity of the penalties because they are inconsistent with discipline enforced in similar matters.

“Particularly given the league’s inconsistent communication of its policies on contact with potential free agents,” he wrote.

To Hunt’s point, the punishment is harsher than other tampering cases in recent history. The New York Jets, for example, were fined $100,000 when owner Woody Johnson spoke publicly about his desire to bring Darrelle Revis — who was a member of the New England Patriots at the time — back to the Jets. Three months later, Revis was a Jet again.

The Chiefs’ punishment is significantly more severe than the Jets’. However, contacting a player directly during the legal tampering period probably justifies a harsher punishment, and the league made it clear that it had full access to the Chiefs’ emails and text messages.

The league made changes to its legal tampering period this year, however, shortening the tampering window from three days to two and allowing teams to negotiate all aspects of a player’s contract, as opposed to past years, when agreeing to deals — in any form — prior to the start of free-agency was not allowed.

Goodell said Wednesday that those recent changes were brought about by an ongoing desire to refine and clarify the policy.

“I’ve been in the league 34 years now, and there are not many years where I don’t think we talk about changes to the tampering policy,” Goodell said. “It’s right up there with replay and player safety. These are important issues to the foundation of our league, so we regularly talk about it.”

Goodell added that the tampering policy will likely continue to evolve throughout the years, though he was pleased with the way the recent changes to the policy affected this year’s free-agency period. Other than players re-signing with their own teams, the first few days of the legal tampering period were largely quiet.

That was a departure from past years, when news of free-agent departures — like Maclin’s — often broke long before the start of the official free-agency period, with deals struck before the league technically allowed them.

“It’s been positive, and I think it’s something our clubs respect,” Goodell said of the policy. “We’re gonna enforce it when we see clear violations.”

Several NFL coaches noted this week that they received that message, given the severity of the Chiefs’ penalties, loud and clear.

“Oh yeah, it shocked me,” said Arizona coach Bruce Arians. “Because we all have relationships with guys, especially when you’ve been as many places as I’ve been. So if I’m talking to a guy and they want to call it tampering, I think it’s B.S.”

Arians, however, added that the league does a good job of explaining what is and isn’t allowed during the legal tampering period.

“You’ve got to be very, very careful, that everybody (on your staff) knows the rules,” said Arians, who added that he still talks to quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, whom he coached in Pittsburgh. “You have to be very aware of what time period you can talk to (players) and what you can talk about.”

Carolina coach Ron Rivera, who was Reid’s linebackers coach in Philadelphia from 1999 to 2003, said the severity of the penalties also grabbed his attention.

“It does, it really does,” Rivera said. “Anytime you see somebody get disciplined, especially another coach, your antennas do go up about what you’re doing, what your coaches are doing.”

Rivera added that he knows what the commissioner was trying to do, but he vouched for Reid’s character.

“As far as Andy’s concerned, I promise you there’s probably nothing malicious or anything like that,” Rivera said. “Coach Reid, to me, is a very high-character man, and he’s someone that I’ve learned and grown from.”

Even Eagles coach Doug Pederson, who spent the last three seasons as the Chiefs’ offensive coordinator, was surprised by the penalties.

“I was surprised, it kind of comes as a little bit of a shock,” Pederson said. “The severity was probably the most surprising of the whole thing.

“It’s a lesson for young coaches, obviously,” Pederson said, “and for everybody in the league.”

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 1:55 PM with the headline "NFL commissioner Roger Goodell expects to personally hear Chiefs’ tampering appeal."