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Jonathan Gannon just won’t go away despite physically leaving the building and accepting a job elsewhere. The controversial coach remains embattled in a conspiracy theory due to the tampering case involving the Arizona Cardinals and Philadelphia Eagles.
The NFL worked out a settlement after a whistle-blower cried foul for a violation known as “impermissible contact.” The two franchises swapped picks minutes prior to the start of the 2023 draft. Everything had been smoothed over and everyone was moving on.
Well, everyone except Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio who keeps bringing it up. He believes there is a real conspiracy raging under the surface, including the potential for a possible legal case if a lawyer wants to push the issue.
Florio outlined a path to a lawsuit for people who placed Super Bowl bets on the Eagles. In it, the gossip writer says Gannon was “distracted” from his duties as defensive coordinator since he had a head-coaching interview scheduled one day after the game. Gannon didn’t get his guys ready to play because he was preparing for the interview, “which could have undermined the integrity of the Super Bowl.”
Florio floated out an interesting theory: “So what does that mean for bettors who wagered on the Eagles to win or to cover? The Eagles were on track after 30 minutes to do both. The legal argument would spring from the basic reality that Arizona blatantly violated league rules by planting the seed that created the distraction for Gannon — the distraction that kept him from properly preparing the Eagles defense.”
Slippery Field Conditions More to Blame
It’s hard to imagine how a lawyer could prove in court that a coach was “distracted” from doing his job. It’s not something tangible. It’s a gut feeling. It would be better to focus on, for argument’s sake, the slippery field conditions at State Farm Stadium in Arizona which unequivocally impacted the game.
Eagles players and Chiefs players alike crowed about how bad the Tahoma 31 turf was at Super Bowl LVII. No one used it as an excuse, but it clearly was a limiting factor for an Eagles defense that sacked the quarterback 70 times during the regular season. That seems to be the better legal case.
“I’m not going to lie it was the worst field that I’ve ever played on,” Haason Reddick told reporters, via CBS Sports. “It was very disappointing, it’s the NFL. You would think it would be better so we could get some better play, but it is what it is. I don’t know maybe the league will look at it and tell Arizona they got to step their stuff up. I don’t know, it’s not my decision to make, it’s not my call to make whatever it is and what it is.”
Eagles Own Best Super Bowl Odds
The Eagles are getting a lot of love this offseason to return to the Super Bowl. Better yet, they are slowly gaining ground as the favorites to win it. ESPN’s Football Power Index put them at 13% odds to raise the Lombardi Trophy in 2023, which is a full percentage point higher than the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs (12%).
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