Jim Irsay: Any communication between Washington and Andrew Luck violates the NFL’s tampering regulations.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Colts owner Jim Irsay responded to an ESPN story that the Washington Commanders visited former Indianapolis quarterback Andrew Luck during the 2022 offseason on Sunday night.
A player’s contract “tolls” when he retires under NFL regulations, which means that the team that held his contract at the time of his retirement retains the player’s rights.
Luck retired with three years remaining on the six-year, $140 million extension he signed with the Colts in the summer of 2016, and the team notably refused to pursue any of the signing bonus he was originally paid.
The Colts own Luck’s rights as a result, and the NFL’s anti-tampering policy states unequivocally that “no club, nor any person employed by or otherwise affiliated with a club, is permitted to tamper with a player who is under contract to or whose exclusive negotiating rights are held by another club.”
Irsay is well aware of the rules.
“If any NFL team attempted to contact Andrew Luck (or any associate of his)… to play for their Franchise — it would be a clear violation of the League’s Tampering Policy,” Irsay said late Saturday night on his Twitter account.
Luck is still retired, and the 33-year-old has stated that he has no plans to return to the game.
But according to the ESPN story, the Commanders were turning over every stone last offseason, cold-calling every NFL team that might be willing to part ways with its quarterback, and the story says another call went to Luck.
If the NFL found that Washington was tampering, the penalties could be severe.
The NFL stripped the Miami Dolphins of their first-round pick in 2023, their third-round pick in 2024, fined owner Stephen Ross $1.5 million and suspended him, along with a fine for vice chairman/limited partner Bruce Beal, for three violations of the anti-tampering policy from 2019 to 2022, violations that included contact with legendary quarterback Tom Brady and the agent for Broncos coach Sean Payton, then the coach of the Saints.
And this is just the latest in a year of back-and-forth between the Colts’ owner and the Commanders. Last October, Irsay was the first NFL owner to say there was validity in removing Daniel Snyder as Washington’s owner, and the team responded by hiring Jeff Saturday as interim coach less than a month later.
Snyder reportedly agreed to sell the Commanders this spring to a company led by Josh Harris.
