Lions' Tampering May Extend Beyond Chiefs

Last year the Kansas City Chiefs filed tampering charges against the Detroit Lions for reasons that were never officially made public by either team but were believed to involve Lions defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham and S Jarrad Page, when Page was a member of the Chiefs (and possibly other Chiefs players).

Say what you want about the Lions, but tampering happens frequently and this must have been a particularly egregious case for the Chiefs to file charges with the league.

Apparently, the Lions coordinators need a lesson on the rules. Defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham was allegedly involved in the tampering against the Chiefs and now offensive coordinator Scott Linehan may have stepped in something wet as well.

This is Ricky Williams talking about his free agency decision coming down to the Miami Dolphins or Detroit Lions (via PFT):

"For me, last year when we played the Lions, Scott Linehan, who was the offensive coordinator here with coach [Nick] Saban, he came up to me after the game, and he said that if you need a home, we'd love to have you on our team," Williams said.

Ricky was under contract with the Dolphins at the time so this sort of stuff isn't allowed. We'll see if anything happens because this is more of a clear violation of the rules than Cunningham's public comments directed generally toward the Chiefs about wanting to scoop up some of his old guys.

So if you ever see Todd Haley or Scott Pioli refusing to comment on a player from another team, it may not be a secrecy thing. It's a tampering thing.