Florio: 'NFL has inside information scandal'
Mike Florio discusses the latest surrounding inside information in the NFL after Cardinals director of college scouting Ryan Gould was indefinitely suspended, noting how this may be a message to the rest of the league.
Video Transcript
It was just on Friday that I was talking about the issue of inside information, and the springboard was the White House teleprompter operator making wagers on Calci regarding the things the president would say in his speeches based upon that inside information.
And my point is, in sports, inside information is everywhere.
And lo and behold, a perfectly timed Friday afternoon news dump, the NFL announces that Ryan Gold, the director of college scouting with the Arizona Cardinals indefinitely suspended for multiple violations of the gambling policy, playing parlays and distributing inside information as it relates to the team's draft picks.
Now, there's reporting that Gold himself made a twenty-five dollar parlay before the draft with predictions of the team's first five picks in the draft.
And hey, you gotta get lucky because the draft can go haywire very quickly.
To go five deep on a mock draft and get all five picks right for your team, now it helps that the Cardinals were higher, not lower, but there is some luck that goes into it.
But there's also inside information, because the director of college scouting is gonna know the board.
Unless Monti Ossenfort, the GM of the Cardinals, was full-blown Bill Belichick paranoia, I'm not telling anybody, how would your director of college scouting not be part of the circle of trust when it comes to putting your board together?
The director of college scouting is the primary scout for scouting college players.
The primary vehicle for adding college players to the roster is the draft.
Now, maybe the Cardinals are sufficiently dysfunctional to freeze out the director of college scouting when it comes time to put together the board based upon his efforts.
He's still in a position to have a pretty damn good idea of what's gonna happen.
His lawyer, Mike Cascino, issued a statement yesterday saying the allegations are blatantly false.
Cascino spoke to Shefte about some of the specific planks of the defense.
The parlays were done by his wife with a group of friends, and Ryan Gold didn't know the picks.
Only Monti Ossenfort and owner Michael Bidwill did.
But someone reached out to me and said, "Look, look, look, look, look, whether it's big picture and you know the board or specific to the actual selections, you're in a position to have an idea which way the wind's blowing.
As the pick creeps closer, you know what your board says.
You know which way it's gonna go."
As it relates to Jeremiah Love, they're in great position.
Anyone who's remotely in the know in that organization knew that Jeremiah Love was the pick because we all knew Fernando Mendoza was going number one overall, and then it came down to David Bailey or Arvelle Reese at number two to the Jets.
They weren't gonna take Jeremiah Love.
The only risk was the Jets trading out of that spot to someone who would jump the Cardinals at number three to get Jeremiah Love.
That was the only risk.
So inside information is rampant, and I look at it this way, and this was something else that was pointed out to me.
There's no way the NFL is gonna publicize this if the NFL isn't 100% sure it happened.
You're not gonna swing and miss on something that embarrasses you unless, here's the only exception, unless the NFL knows it's a rampant problem and they needed a sacrificial lamb.
They needed a scapegoat.
They needed to make an example out of somebody.
Let's find an obscure team that doesn't have a big national following.
We drop this news on a Friday afternoon.
It doesn't make a big ripple effect.
We know this shit's going on throughout the league.
We're gonna make an example out of one of the more obscure teams on an obscure day in July.
I don't want to be that cynical, but come on.
There's a PR component to everything the NFL does, and the NFL had avoided the kinds of inside information scandals we've seen plague basketball and baseball.
Well, now the NFL's there, and it's not nearly as big of a deal as it should be nationally.
It got lost in the shuffle.
It's the Cardinals.
It was Friday, July 17, right before the World Cup final.
Perfect time for nothing to see here.
Now, Gold is also going to appeal, but we- we've seen this movie before.
There's no way it's gonna be an independent neutral party hearing the appeal.
Maybe the commissioner will designate someone, but if it's one of the people he routinely designates, that person likes to keep getting designated, that means that person has a history of reaching the decisions that the league wants.
This is the secret rigged kangaroo court.
We've seen it diminished, if not destroyed, by Jon Gruden and Brian Flores.
There's no way the NFL has given up any control over its internal decision on what it's gonna do about Ryan Gold.
Now, there could be some litigation after the fact that Gold may be able, using the Gruden and Flores precedent, to keep out of arbitration and take to open court.
That's a different issue.
But it would be a Fargo plot line.
It would be Keystone Cops on steroids if the NFL said, "We're gonna tell the world we've got a high-level executive with a team that was not only gambling on games, but sharing inside information, making bets on parlays as to the top five picks his team was gonna make.
We're gonna tell the world that happened, and we're gonna get it wrong."
That would be Well, nothing surprises me anymore, but that would be beyond ridiculous if it did indeed happen.
