The NFL just told the Giants, “Yippie-ki-yay, something something.”
The NFL has informed the Giants of the discipline imposed for the use of a walkie-talkie by coach Ben McAdoo during the Week 14 game against the Cowboys. The team will pay a $150,000 fine, McAdoo will pay a $50,000 fine, and the team’s fourth-round pick will move to the bottom of the round, after all compensatory picks have been made.
There’s one caveat: The selection will drop by no more than 12 picks.
McAdoo used the walkie-talkie after the team’s coach-to-quarterback communication system stopped working. NFL rules clearly prohibit the coach from using the walkie-talkie, which is present for the purposes of monitoring the coach-to-quarterback communication system.
The backup quarterback, for example, is allowed to listen to the communications but not speak into the walkie-talkie. (One easy solution to the problem would be to disable the “talkie” aspect of the walkie-talkie.)
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the penalties were light in comparison to other violations (e.g., the Browns for texting the sidelines and the Falcons for using fake crowd noise) because the Giants used the walkie-talkie for only five plays in one game, the Giants had no prior violations of the policy, and the Giants fully cooperated with the investigation.
Of course, the Giants had no choice but to cooperate. Televised images of McAdoo plainly showed him holding the walkie-talkie and speaking into it. The blatant nature of the violation made it necessarily easier to spot, and in turn easier to quickly stop.
Previous indications were that only fines would be imposed. Complaints about the perceived wrist slap resulted in the somewhat harder wrist slap arising from the degradation of a fourth-round draft pick.