NFL News

[froot loops]

Florio brought up a great point in regards to this, the NFL has went full bore into gambling. They have to be above reproach in regards to this as do the other leagues. If Stephen Ross was doing trying to incemtivize losses and Flores took the bait who is to say that Ross isn't relaying that info to some of his rich friends down at the country club for possible bets.

If you listen to Ross give his reasons why he fired Flores the main thing he said was that Flores didn't collaborate with others, you can now read that as he wasn't on board with tanking.

[edindetroit]

Of course they paid him to lose because he sure couldn’t win

[Nick Pappageorgio]

While I agree with the NFL now needs to be above reproach…

When you say “the NFL went full bore into gambling”…..by that you mean the NFL spent years in court and millions of dollars fighting legalized gambling with every resource they had. And once federal gov’t legalized gambling…they shifted some business policies to take advantage of new laws and accepted sponsorships.

Failure to engage in these gambling related sponsors could have (would have) been a failure to fully maximize revenue. Not maximizing revenue is not only irresponsible to shareholders….but in this case (since player salaries are directly tied to a % of total gross revenue) would have been in violation of the CBA (because that document places the burden of maximization of revenue/salary on the NFL). And when the players rightly sued for this violation….the anti-corporate crowd would have blamed the NFL.

That’s what you meant by “full bore”….right?

The broad law might have changed….but the game has not. Tanking is a legitimate (yet bush league) long term strategy.

This isn’t point shaving….it’s a bad look…but it’s not illegal. If Ross/Flores bet money or shared inside info with others who made bets…this would be a conspiracy to defraud gambling institutions (I.e. point shaving).

The only people who could reasonably accuse Ross of being defrauded are ‘fins fans (who have been already robbed of their dignity because they live in Florida)….and again Ross could argue long-term strategy, that he was looking out for fans in the long-game. 100k per loss or not….this was a management level strategic decision and was not part of a conspiracy to defraud anyone (financially anyway). NFL teams are not under a directive to share inside strategic info with Vegas….they do the injury report, that’s it.

It looks bad….but it’s not illegal.

[froot loops]

The fact that you think paying a coach to lose is legitimate doesn't surprise me.

[LightninBoy]

It's point shaving. If you are incemtivizing the coach to lose the game, it is point shaving.

Illegal Point shaving involves colluding with gamblers. If *all* activities that reduce points were deemed "point shaving" and illegal, then Caldwell would be on death row.

[froot loops]

Ok, it violates the Sports Bribery act.

[froot loops]

[Nick Pappageorgio]

The sports bribery act…is a relic introduced during a time when organized crime was a big deal and fixing boxing matches was all the rage…..I’m not sure it was meant to apply to an owner who wanted to do this to get high draft picks in an attempt to get better.

I’m sure some smart writer dug deep to find that legal nugget…but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for prosecution.

[Nick Pappageorgio]

The fact that you think paying a coach to lose is legitimate doesn't surprise me.

The Lions have been doing it for years

[froot loops]

No they haven't

[Nick Pappageorgio]

Paying coaches to lose….Marinelli begs to differ, he may have been trying to win….but they paid him to lose games (a lot of them).

and where was the outrage a couple of years ago when the browns were doing everything possible to lose? They were literally taking draft picks for players they knew were bad (and would’t help the team) they didn’t even try to hide it.

Tanking happens in every sport and has been going on for ages. It’s part of the entertainment….and please keep in mind the NFL is more of an entertainment business than it is a sport, otherwise there would have been an investigation into officiating a long time ago.

While we’re talking about it….considering that the NFL doesn’t even have a full time officials and the officials they have aren’t governed or overseen by any sort of official board…it really could be more WWE than official contest (and I still don’t think laws are being broken).

[froot loops]

There was outrage in Cleveland being that tanking season. Maybe you should do some investigation.

[froot loops]

This must be mistaken, our man Nick Pappageorgio says paying a coach to purposely lose games is legitimate.

[froot loops]

Most of those men probably didn't know what they were doing was wrong.

[Nick Pappageorgio]

This must be mistaken, our man Nick Pappageorgio says paying a coach to purposely lose games is legitimate.

Holy shit! The NFL is going to investigate. The result of that investigation will be whatever is best for the NFL (corporation).

Also when using the word “legitimate”….I wouldn’t use an NFL investigation as an example of that concept. It makes me think you don’t know what it means.