According to media outlets this morning, the NFL plans to penalize the Steelers further by taking a late round draft pick from the team. Originally it was believed by many that the league was leaving the case open, in case of playoff tie-breaking implications from Tomlin’s sideline step. However, Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports and Mike Florio of ProfootballTalk (via Peter King) report that tie-breakers are not a factor, and that the league plans to take a late round pick from the team regardless.
Personally, I have a problem with breaking NFL news that’s reported on Sunday morning. In my opinion, these types of reports are generally published in an effort to funnel web traffic to their website in hopes to keep the reader there for all the Sunday football festivities. These stories almost always have the phrase ‘according to a source’ in the first two sentences.
As much as this has made headlines, I would be surprised if the league does in fact take away a draft pick from the Steelers for this. We’ll most likely be at the mercy of rumors and speculation for the next few months unfortunately.