Detroit Lions Chief Operating Officer Mike Disner has been accused of involvement in the Cardinals’ alleged burner phone scheme in 2018, according to an arbitration claim filed by former Arizona executive Terry McDonough last month.
The arbitration filing, which was obtained by Compare.bet, alleges that Disner — who was then the Cardinals’ VP of Football Administration — distributed five burner phones at the direction of owner Michael Bidwill and General Manager Steve Keim at the start of Keim’s team-imposed five-week suspension for DUI, in which Keim was supposed to be prohibited from contact with the team.
“Between July 18 and July 20, 2018, the Cardinals’ Vice President of Football Administration, Mike Disner, distributed burner phones at the direction of Bidwill and Steve Keim to Cardinals head coach Steve Wilks, McDonough, Keim, and Cardinals Vice President of Football Operations and Facilities Matt Caracciolo,” the claim read.
The filing offered photos of McDonough’s alleged burner phone as evidence. In one of the photos, there are contacts with the letters ‘K’, ‘D’, ‘W’, and ‘C’ on them, which align with the last names of Keim, Disner, Wilks and Caracciolo.
In another photo of McDonough’s alleged burner phone, there is a text message from the ‘K’ contact which reads: “Any word on Nkemdiche,” referring to Arizona’s 2016 first-round pick, Robert Nkemdiche.
The timestamp on the alleged text message is August 17, 2018, which would have been within the parameters of the no-contact edict.
In the response to McDonough’s original allegations, Cardinals external public relations adviser Jim McCarthy claimed that Bidwill was not aware of the initial scheme, saying he “learned that another executive had interfered with the protocol of that suspension” and that “Mr. Bidwill took swift action when he learned of that situation and directed the phones be retrieved and communications stopped.”
Mark Dalton, the Cardinals’ Senior Vice President of Media Relations, did not specify when asked which executive was responsible for interfering with the protocol of the suspension.
“I don’t have any information to share on that topic, unfortunately,” Dalton said in an email.
In a response to McDonough’s claim, Cardinals attorneys said the “burner phones” were distributed shortly after Keim’s suspension by a senior football executive who is no longer with the team, according to the Associated Press.
Disner, a native of West Bloomfield, Michigan, joined the Lions on January 8, 2019 and has since worked his way up to COO. Caracciolo remains with the Cardinals.
Disner declined comment through a Lions spokesman.
