For those Jets fans claiming the comments from Joe Douglas at a New York event promising that the arrival of Aaron Rodgers was going to happen meant the deal was done, you may want to take a seat for this one.
Rich Cimini of ESPN New York claims that while Douglas was having a good time playing to a New York crowd, there has been no movement on the deal between the Jets and Packers since the owners meetings in Phoenix. It was at those meetings that Douglas said he was “very optimistic” that a deal would get done, but the teams clearly hadn’t gotten to the finish line just yet.
While it would appear that by rule, the comments from Douglas would meet the league’s threshold for tampering, it would take a complaint being filed by the Packers which is extremely unlikely at this point.
How could it be tampering if the teams have permission to work out a trade, you ask? Well, a quick look at the NFL bylaws show that tampering can happen in more ways than one when teams are talking trade. The first would be attempting to work out a trade without permission from the club with which the player being discussed is under contract.
The other states that those executives involved in ongoing trade discussions may not publicly divulge contents of the conversations going on between the clubs, which one could argue Douglas did by claiming Rodgers would be coming to the Jets, suggesting the deal is done. This despite the fact that the deal is clearly not yet wrapped up.
So still….we wait.