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NFL to penalize Falcons, Browns for 2014 violations

By Cameron La Fontaine

Jul 26, 2014; Atlanta, GA, USA; An Atlanta Falcons helmet on the field during training camp at Falcons Training Complex. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
Jul 26, 2014; Atlanta, GA, USA; An Atlanta Falcons helmet on the field during training camp at Falcons Training Complex. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Atlanta Falcons and Cleveland Browns will be penalized by the NFL for fake crowd noise and for text messages to coaches during games. 

The Cleveland Browns and Atlanta Falcons are both about to be penalized by the NFL after investigations found that the Falcons were putting fake crowd noise into the Georgia Dome and Browns GM Ray Farmer had been texting coaches during games.

The report came from Adam Schefter:

"Browns and Falcons officials were informed at this week’s owners meetings of the discipline that is expected to be…Posted by Adam Schefter on Wednesday, March 25, 2015"

The Atlanta Falcons are definitely about to get hit with huge penalties for what they did mostly because they were inserting artificial crowd noise into an indoor stadium. Big no-no.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Falcons owner Arthur Blank was caught off guard when the NFL said at the owners meeting that it would be a large penalty for their fake noise because the Falcons didn’t expect to hear anything about it at the meeting. The NFL does a regular auditing of sound levels, which is where the NFL found that the Falcons have been using fake crowd noise the past two seasons. The Falcons could be fined and possibly lose a draft choice among other options.

It’s not like the noise has helped Atlanta at all in the past two seasons. They finished below .500 in both years and miss the playoffs.

The Browns on the other hand will likely get a less severe penalty for their actions. The details aren’t all there but apparently GM Ray Farmer was sending text messages to assistant coaches talking about how bad the Cleveland offense is. Not actually trying to gain competitive advantage, considering most texts were reportedly gossip for the most part, but it’s still a violation of NFL rules.

According to Cleveland.com, NEOMG reported that Farmer is facing a possible suspension and the Browns are facing a fine and loss of a draft pick for impermissible texts sent by Farmer during games. Ouch. If the Browns lose a draft pick over something like this that would be quite shocking.

The assistant coaches that received the messages include offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, who quit after the season walking away from the last two years of his contract. And the other recipient was Dowell Loggains, Cleveland’s quarterback coach who was fired on Jan. 8.

[H/T: Deadspin]

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