Did Cribbs Admit to Tampering?

March 4, 2013   ·   0 Comments

Something fishy is going on in Cleveland, and I don’t mean the Lenten fish special at your local restaurant.

Josh Cribbs while on ESPN Cleveland last week stated that his agent has been talking with a lot of teams that are interested in signing him. He even stated that “things are happening behind closed doors” regarding those talks with other teams.

Almost immediately after that interview, Cribbs’ agent J.R. Rickert took to Twitter to do damage control stating that Cribbs is still a Brown and no negotiations are under way.

Since the new “League Year” for the NFL does not start until March 12th, Josh Cribbs is still a member of the Cleveland Browns, which means Cribbs and his agent’s can not even talk to other teams until that date. If they do, that would be tampering under the NFL rules. If the Browns want, they can ask the league to investigate the possible tampering, and if they find there was tampering, any teams that were found to have been talking to Cribbs or his agent can be disciplined. That discipline can include loss of a draft pick if the NFL really wants to make an example out of this situation.

The question is who is telling the truth and who is lying. Was Cribbs lying to try to get signed by the Browns?  It is quite possible in my opinion, but it wouldn’t be the first time an athlete lied. Was the agent lying to try to get out of trouble? That is even more likely. Agents usually aren’t known to be upstanding guys. But the answer is it really doesn’t matter who is lying and who isn’t. Either way it looks amazingly horrible on Cribbs and can damage any future negotiations. To me, it already damaged his reputation. 

 

By Jerry Sharp