The NFL investigation continues.

As the clock winds down until the upcoming NFL Draft, which is slated to take place on Thursday evening, the league is currently looking into a few instances of alleged tampering around the league revolving around this past free agency period, including two having to do with both the Atlanta Falcons and the Philadelphia Eagles. The free agency signings in question are, for the Falcons, their acquisition of Kirk Cousins from the Minnesota Vikings, and for the Eagles, their signing of former New York Giants running back and NFC East rival Saquon Barkley.

Over the last few weeks, there have been reports and speculation that the two teams may have jumped the gun in pursuit of their new offensive weapons, which is a big no no in Roger Goodell’s NFL, but it remains to be seen if the NFL will step in to inflict punishment (usually in the form of draft picks in these situations), and if so, how severe it will be.

Recently, NFL insider Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network took to his account on X, the social media platform, to drop an important update on the status of those investigations.

“From the NFL: The league’s review into the #Falcons and #Eagles potential tampering is ongoing and will not conclude this week. If there are draft picks involved, sounds like it’ll be next year’s,” reported Rapoport.

Of course, with the 2024 NFL Draft looming so close, it makes sense that the league would want to wait a year in order to inflict any potential punishment.

Two important signings

The Falcons and the Eagles profiled as two of the most disappointing teams in the NFC–and the NFL as a whole, for that matter–during the 2023 season. The Eagles started off strong once again, coming off of their trip to the Super Bowl in 2022-23 and remaining the last undefeated team standing at one point during the 2023 slate.

However, both the offense and defense fell off of their respective cliffs down the stretch of the campaign, and the Eagles were ultimately matched up with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first round of the playoffs, losing that game in blowout fashion and opening the door for the team to make a big splash in free agency, which manifested itself in the form of Barkley.

The Eagles were matched up with the Buccaneers in that playoff game and not the Falcons due largely in part to Atlanta’s gaping hole at the quarterback position, as Desmond Ridder confirmed what most fans had already suspected based on his performance at the end of the prior year: that he was not “the guy” for the franchise moving forward.

Without a whole lot of great options available, the Falcons pushed all their chips in this offseason in the form of signing Cousins, an Atlanta native, but it remains to be seen whether or not they may have pushed those chips in a bit too early.