Back in June, the Falcons were hit with a relatively light punishment for tampering with three players on the eve of free agency — including quarterback Kirk Cousins.
Atlanta had to forfeit its original fifth-round pick and pay a $250,000 fine. General Manager Terry Fontenot was also fined $50,000.
Speaking to the media for the first time since the NFL’s announcement, team owner Arthur Blank said the Falcons are working to make sure nothing like that happens again.
“So, the tampering situation, we were advised by the NFL that we didn’t dot every ‘I’ and cross every ‘T,’ despite our attempt to do that,” Blank said. “There were a couple of procedural mistakes, I think, that were made by the organization. We fully cooperated with the NFL, as we always do in any sort of investigation. They found there were certain things were deficient in the way we handled things with Kirk. We’ve addressed those things internally.
“Find something that’s a problem, you fix it and make sure it doesn’t happen again, and that’s our attitude about it. The NFL is certainly doing their job and doing it well.”
In addition to Cousins, Atlanta was also found to have had contact with Darnell Mooney and Charlie Werner during the two-day negotiation period just before the start of the new league year.