The NFL's allegation that the Kansas City Chiefs tampered with Jeremy Maclin and subsequent punishment of draft picks and fines came out of nowhere on Wednesday evening.
The Chiefs statement in response suggested an appeal due to the random severity of the punishment compared to others but the Chiefs did not deny what they've been accused of. A reasonable person comes to ghe conclusion after reading that, indeed, the Chiefs are guilty. (For the record, guilt isn't the issue here. The issue is the punishment is out of whack with other tampering violations)
I've been thinking since this started, who ratted the Chiefs out? How did the NFL nab them?
Presumably there was something or someone that set the league off and had their investigative team, who never screws anything up and always gets it right, start an investigation into the Chiefs.
The Chiefs didn't turn themselves in so you can rule them out. The Eagles are the logical guess but the KC Star's Sam Mellinger makes a good point -- the Eagles aren't getting any compensation from the Chiefs for tampering. In previous cases the team who filed the charges with the league received draft picks. The 2008 Lance Briggs tampering case, for example, had the Bears and 49ers swap draft positions. So there's a theory then that the Eagles weren't the ones who filed charges.
There's also the idea that the Chiefs were simply an example for everyone else. Goodell hit a respected pro-NFL owner in Clark Hunt and a respected coach in Andy Reid and sent a message to everyone else that their annual memos couldn't get through: stop tampering.
Even if the Chiefs were just an example, which it sure looks like they were, there has to be something that set the league off. Surely the league wasn't sifting through the Chiefs phone records based on a hunch. Andy Reid and Jeremy Maclin have a history so if you were looking for a potential tampering situation, that would've been it. Wasn't there something though that started this whole thing? What was it?