Mike Evans

The NFL's investigation into Mike Evans' autograph imbroglio came to a screeching halt with a press release that said "Forget it, it's Chinatown" It was buried quickly, one day into the league's inquiry, into Evans' scrawl for game officials. There was no wrongdoing in the release, but the league wouldn't say what happened. The league initially decided to allow the story to linger out there while they obfuscated. The general public learned of the official story after Tom Pelissaro filled in the missing information.

Evans gave his number to a fellow Texas A&M graduate in the form of a golf pro who would teach the wide receiver how to play the game. He borrowed a sheet of paper from another person. That ends it. There's nothing to see here.

Players, coaches or any other team personnel are not allowed to be asked for autographs by the officials of the National Football League. It doesn't seem to have a problem with the exchange of digits between an athlete and a ref The league office has a problem with this.

In less than 48 hours, the allegations were thrown out by the league. Taking the National Football League by its word is dangerous. Even my wave caps are covered in tin foil, but if the NFL's PR team cobbled together a response that was worse than the original accusations, they're even bigger stars than we ever knew.

Evans would get a golf pro to teach him within 60 seconds. Without the help of officials, he can handle that on his own. What are you going to do next? If you want to find a good accountant, call the head of officiating. Is it possible to share thoughts about the new season of Ted Lasso via text message? There will be bigger scandals if the officials of the National Football League are allowed to operate as messenger pigeons between football players and golf pros.

There are strict tampering rules in place that regulate communication between players and personnel from other teams. Stephen Ross, the owner of the Dolphins, was fined more than one million dollars for tampering with other people. The vice chairman of the Miami organization was said to have contacted Brady about joining the organization while the quarterback was under contract with the team. It would be difficult to extend that to officials.

This chill _()_/ attitude has rarely been the NFL's stance on these types of interactions and it's odd that they're brushing this to the side. Rules dictate almost every motion players make on a game day. The appearance of improprieties being on video is more important to the league than the actual wrongdoing. Since the Spygate tapes were destroyed, their stance has been on domestic violence. Unless there are pictures or videos of the transgressions, the player will be reprimanded.

If players and officials fraternizing in this way don't get slapped down, it will become more commonplace and create conditions for abuse.