Earlier this week, we found out how determined Sean Payton can be when he wants a player he deems to be a weapon for his team. After trading up to take a tight end at the end of Round 3, the Saints were looking to call it a weekend as they had zero picks in Rounds 4-7.
The team then began making calls to prospects who were likely not going to get drafted and that brought them to quarterback Tommy Stevens out of Mississippi State. Only problem there is that Stevens had a verbal agreement with the Panthers already. The saints then tried to match the offer, but Stevens wouldn’t budge, so the Saints made a trade to select him in the final round of the draft.
Everything the Panthers and Saints did beforehand was not legal under the rules of the NFL.
Per PFT:
“The rules in this regard are clear, and they were reiterated in the April 21 memo from the league’s player personnel department. Once the draft begins, teams that aren’t on the clock can speak to representatives of players who were not yet drafted, but those conversations must focus only on non-financial matters.
The memo (a copy of which PFT has obtained) contains this message, which is the only passage in the three-page document that appears in bold print, with both underlining and yellow highlighting: “Although a club may inform a player or his agent that the club would be interested in the player’s services if the player is not drafted, no oral or written agreement can be made regarding a player’s future employment.”
Mike Florio noted that the Panthers committed the “more egregious violation” when they entered into an actual an agreement with Stevens while the draft was still happening.
“[The Panthers] felt like they had him signed, sealed and delivered,” Saints assistant G.M. Jeff Ireland said Monday, while appearing on the team’s official website’s podcast (via Duncan). “[The] agent wasn’t really talking to us, so we just decided we’d just go take him from them. . . . There’s a little bit of competitive juices flying between me and Sean about, ‘We want this player. We’re not going to let anybody take him from us.’”
Click on ‘Follow Us’ and get notified of the most viral NFL stories via Google! Follow Us
Florio added, “the league office declined comment on the matter, but one league source predicted that the Saints and Panthers will be sanctioned for this violation.”
