Yes, the coverup is worse than the crime. And the coverup keeps getting worse.
To summarize, a video seemed to suggest that Buccaneers receiver Mike Evans provided an autograph to officials after Sunday’s game at Carolina. The video wasn’t conclusive that the officials requested, and that Evans provided, an autograph.
So the league investigated. And the league determined that the officials didn’t request an autograph. But the league refused to explain what Evans was doing.
Then, NFL Media — which is owned and operated by the NFL — reported that “Evans and side judge Jeff Lamberth both went to Texas A&M, and Lamberth was getting Evans’ phone number to pass it along to a golf pro to give Evans lessons, per sources,” and that “Lamberth didn’t have paper, so he borrowed it from another official.”
If that’s the truth, why doesn’t the NFL just say so? Why leak it to a reporter who is directly on the NFL payroll?
Whatever Evans writes in the video, he doesn’t write long enough for it to be a 10-digit phone number. He writes something very briefly, he stops, and he walks out of the view of the camera, still holding the pen and the card.
That’s where common sense has to take over. Is that what it would look like if someone is writing down their phone number? And if that’s all it was, why wouldn’t the league say so?
Again, I didn’t care much about this one initially. So what if an official asked for an autograph? Is that going to corrupt him if the players does or doesn’t grant the request? But the rules prohibit it, and that makes it a potential problem if/when it happens.
But then came the clunky, clumsy refusal to explain what was happening in the video, followed by the report from league-owned media with an explanation that doesn’t seem to mesh with the video.
So maybe it’s a bigger deal than I thought it was. Maybe it’s a big enough deal to activate the 2 + 2 = 5 strategy.
Again, it shouldn’t be for Evans to explain what happened. He did nothing wrong. This is about transparency by the league. If no rules were violated, why not just say what happened directly, clearly, and on the record? The failure to do so only makes it seem worse.