UPDATE (1 p.m. ET): The NFL has fired back against Ezekiel Elliott’s supporters.
The league released a harsh statement Wednesday afternoon rebuking the NFL Players’ Association for “spreading derogatory information to the media” in the wake of reports that the woman who accused Elliott of domestic violence discussed blackmailing the Dallas Cowboys running back by leaking sex tapes.
UPDATE (2:30 p.m.): The NFLPA since has responded with its own biting statement.
ORIGINAL STORY: Ezekiel Elliott’s father recently said the Dallas Cowboys running back and his legal team are “ready to fight” the NFL over his six-game suspension. We now have a clearer picture of what that fight might look like.
Tiffany Thompson, the woman who accused Elliott of domestic violence in 2016, admitted to NFL investigators she considered leveraging sex videos featuring her and Elliott for money, according to documents obtained by Yahoo! Sports’ Charles Robinson.
Those documents included a September 2016 text exchange between Thompson and a friend in which the two discussed selling the videos as well as blackmailing Elliott. Here’s part of the exchange, via Yahoo! Sports:
(Thompson): What if I sold mine and Ezekiel’s sex videos
(Friend): We’d all be millionaires
(Friend): We could black mail him w that
(Thompson): I want to bro
Per the documents, which included a 160-page document prepared by NFL investigators looking into allegations against Elliott, Thompson admitted to having sex tapes of her and Elliott on her phone and even opening an email address titled “ezekielelliott sex vids” during August 2016. She denied doing so to blackmail Elliott, however.
As Robinson notes, the exchange doesn’t disprove any allegations of domestic violence against Elliott; the running back is accused of abusing Thompson five times over a six-day period in July 2016. But Elliott’s legal team and the NFL Players’ Association plan to focus on this and other documents while appealing his suspension in an attempt to raise questions about Thompson’s credibility, a source familiar with the appeal told Yahoo! Sports.
The NFLPA officially filed an appeal on Elliott’s behalf Tuesday after the league suspended him Friday.
Thumbnail photo via Jayne Kamin-Oncea/USA TODAY Sports Images
