The National Football League has laid the hammer down on the Miami Dolphins and its team owner, Stephen Ross.
On Tuesday, the league announced that it was suspending Stephen Ross indefinitely, fining him $1.5 million dollars and stripping the Dolphins of their 2023 first-round and 2024 third-round picks for violating the league’s ‘integrity of the game’ rules.
According to the document released by the NFL, the Dolphins had “impermissible communications with both Tom Brady and his agent during and after the 2021 season, while he was under contract to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. … Those discussions focused on Mr. Brady becoming a limited partner in the Dolphins.”
The NFL also says NFL that in January of 2022, the Dolphins had “impermissible communications” with Don Yee, the agent for Saints head coach Sean Payton, about “having Mr. Payton serve as Miami’s head coach.” Miami did not seek consent from New Orleans to have these discussions.
The NFL said discussions with Sean Payton “occurred before Coach Payton announced his decision to retire as head coach of the Saints. Following that announcement, Miami requested permission to speak with Coach Payton for the first time, which New Orleans declined to grant.”
In addition to the $1.5 million fine handed down to Stephen Ross, the league has also fined Dolphins’ Vice Chairman/Limited Partner Bruce Beal $500,000 and has been ordered to not attend any league meetings for the remainder of the 2022 season.
The NFL’s investigation also concluded that the Dolphins did not pay ex-coach Brian Flores money to tank games for a better draft pick.
The NFL laid the hammer down.
