Now that the Vikings have been slapped with a tampering charge, there are a lot of questions floating out there. The big one is did offensive coordinator Darren Bevell and the Vikings have any kind of inappropriate conduct with Brett Favre. And if they did, can the Packers prove it, which is much tougher. But even if the Packers can, there's a pretty good chance that the Vikings will get away with a slap on the wrist.

When the 49ers were found guilty of tampering last year, it was the first time in 13 years that a team had been found guilty of tampering. Short of the team being dumb enough to email about the contacts (like in the 49ers' case) or someone involved who is willing confess (which seems unlikely in this case), it's nearly impossible to prove tampering.

Heck, it's even hard to figure out where the line is drawn between tampering and a friendly conversation. It's already been established that Bevell and Favre talk on a frequent basis. In a regular conversation, if Favre mentioned to Bevell that he was thinking of coming back, would Bevell have to tell him to stay retired? Or what if Bevell told Favre that the Vikings were just a quarterback away from a Super Bowl run? Would that be tampering if Favre responded that he'd like to come back to play for Bevell?

So the Packers don't have an easy road ahead to prove it. But say that they do. In the 49ers' case, San Francisco was penalized a fifth-round pick. That's a definite price to pay, but wouldn't that be worth it to ruin the Packers' season? At this point, Green Bay is heading into training camp in complete disarray, and if a couple of suggestions from the Vikings helped get that started that's not a bad idea. And of course, that's not even counting the chance of Favre ending up in Minnesota, which would have been worth a lot of risks.

So even if Bevell let it slip that the Vikings would be happy to have an ex-NFL MVP as their quarterback, it might have been worth the risk, even if there's an outside chance the Vikings will lose a late-round pick.