View Full Version : New Orleans Saints "bounty" scandal
What do others think about the Saints "bounty" scandal and the looming punishments for the coaches, players, and other team personnel that were involved (or kept silent about it)? In my opinion, Gregg Williams should be banned for life because his conduct in engineering these bounty rackets has spanned over a decade. He has obviously shown a complete unwillingness to follow NFL rules and concern for player safety. Sean Payton, despite not being a direct participant, should probably be fired because his knowledge of and refusal to report it makes him just as culpable as Williams. The 22-27 players involved (according to reports) should probably receive hefty fines and possible suspensions.
Granted, New Orleans is certainly not the first team to institute something like this, but Roger Goodell should nonetheless go down on them hard so as to deter any future misconduct of this nature.
My$.02 the Saints need the head coach and assistant fined and suspended for 2-6 games, and most importantly take away the Saints first round draft pick.
If Bill Belichik is fined six figures and the Pats lost a first round draft pick for spygate, and the NFL is fining defensive players 50-60K for helmet hits, what is a proportional penalty for an NFL coach putting bounties on opposing players? This isn't filming opposing practice this is paying people to hurt people beyond the normal physical nature of the sport.
The cynic in me believes the NFL crackdown on concussions is less about player safety than CYA from potential future litigation, I think an NFL coach ordering thuggery is high profile liability for the league and will be severely dealt with. In an already litigious society, what is to stop any player injured against the Saints the past season to sue the league for civil damages given this development?
Yet another reason professional sports holds less appeal too me.
My$.02 the Saints need the head coach and assistant fined and suspended for 2-6 games, and most importantly take away the Saints first round draft pick.
If Bill Belichik is fined six figures and the Pats lost a first round draft pick for spygate, and the NFL is fining defensive players 50-60K for helmet hits, what is a proportional penalty for an NFL coach putting bounties on opposing players? This isn't filming opposing practice this is paying people to hurt people beyond the normal physical nature of the sport.
The cynic in me believes the NFL crackdown on concussions is less about player safety than CYA from potential future litigation, I think an NFL coach ordering thuggery is high profile liability for the league and will be severely dealt with. In an already litigious society, what is to stop any player injured against the Saints the past season to sue the league for civil damages given this development?
Yet another reason professional sports holds less appeal too me.
I'm not sure I believe the media reports at this time. I think it was probably a "big play" type pool. You know, for doing the stuff that would get you helmet stickers in high school.
Also you seem to advocate punishing the Saints hard while not even mentioning the ring leader who has been doing this at multiple organizations.
Maybe your right and it was a bounty program...then I agree
JoelBlack
03-06-2012, 16:44
team has bounties. Though it may not be to hurt someone, but rather pick-6, punt return, etc. Is that wrong? By the way , the NFL will bring the hammer on this:munchin.
MOO, if the facts as reported are accurate,
Williams should be banned from coaching American football anywhere for life.
Coach Payton should be fined--if not suspended--for each and every player/game lost due to injuries inflicted by the bounty. If the league really wants to make a point, the suspension could be enforced during consecutive off seasons rather than during league play. (To me, the last season demonstrated the importance of off season OTAs.)
Players who participated in the bounty system should be fined/suspended IF it can be established that their conduct violated their contractual and professional obligations as members of the NFL. The punishments could be mitigated by acts of community service that re-enforce the values of sporting conduct in American civilization.
The Saints should lose draft picks.
The Saints should lose appearances in nationally televised games.
The Saints should not be forced to vacate victories.
The league should push back against public and political pressure for LEOs to press charges.
The league should institute a top to bottom program that emphasizes the importance of sportsmanship to the game and to American civilization in general.
This program should augment ongoing efforts to reduce taunting at all levels of competition.
This program should include a stricter enforcement of all rules centering around sporting conduct.
For example, excessive bitching after a call or a non call should be a fifteen yard penalty;
Intentional contact with a referee should be an automatic ejection.
This program should also include measures that set a standard for the conduct of fans attending games. Just because you purchase a ticket doesn't give you the right to act like a flaming asshat.
Drew Brees should be sent to the Dallas Cowboys.:)
@akv IMO, the NFL's growing focus on player safety reflects an overdue but good faith effort to protect the athletes who make the league money. That is, the league understands the toll the sport takes on players' lives and wants to mitigate those impacts. While risk management probably does come into play, I would like to think it is also an example of good corporate governance.
ECUPirate09
03-06-2012, 18:24
I'm not sure I believe the media reports at this time. I think it was probably a "big play" type pool. You know, for doing the stuff that would get you helmet stickers in high school.
Jonathan Vilma offered 10K to knock Brett Favre out of the NFC Championship game. Also, microphones picked up a Saint player saying "pay me the money" after Favre got hurt.
The cynic in me believes the NFL crackdown on concussions is less about player safety than CYA from potential future litigation, I think an NFL coach ordering thuggery is high profile liability for the league and will be severely dealt with. In an already litigious society, what is to stop any player injured against the Saints the past season to sue the league for civil damages given this development?
It is much more about litigation, than any real concern of player safety. I would guess that many athletes, both current and former, if told the potential repercussions of their employment, would have still signed on to being an NFL player.
The NFL is moving towards an 18-game schedule. With all the recent studies of concussions, the league cannot move towards this schedule without taking a strong, public stance on player safety. The players would never survive that type of punishment for an added 2 weeks.
This shift could also be a reason for the new rules and punishments for "illegal" hits. Back a few years ago, they used to sell videos of the biggest hits; now, you can't find them on NFL.com or any official site, only youtube.
By the way , the NFL will bring the hammer on this
I agree.
greenberetTFS
03-06-2012, 18:38
I'm ready for all the sh*t there going to be dumping on my Saints........ But,right or wrong they are still my SAINTS.........We went thru Katrina with them and by God we will go thru this with them....... :o :o :o
Big Teddy :munchin
Roguish Lawyer
03-06-2012, 19:05
I am opposed to the ongoing pussification of America, including any and all whining about this stuff. It's freaking football! :rolleyes:
Sacamuelas
03-06-2012, 19:15
LOL
I'm with RL. This is making a mountain out of a mole hill. In reality.... EVERY player on every NFL defense is trying their best to destroy the opposing player. Injury or affected play from fear from a legal hit is a bonus for the defensive player's team. It was juvenile to have a bonus system, but does anyone really believe that the bonus system is what caused an injury to an opposing player? :rolleyes:
Get real. Sanction them in some sort of fashion to help the "look" and "perception" of the game... fine.
In the end... I still say WHO DAT! :lifter
BTW- I support the steelers linebacker and every other hard hitter in the NFL. As long as the play was legal.... let the chips fall.
Peregrino
03-06-2012, 19:20
Bread and Circus. So the gladiators are playing rough. What did you really expect. Anybody who can convincingly feign shock and outrage should probably seek employment in Hollywood or politics. (I'm sorry, that was needlessly redundant.)
greenberetTFS
03-06-2012, 19:26
I like football,I played it in high school,but now I know why I LOVE hockey,pussies don't even try to play in this game or when they do try it's always a short game.........;) :cool: :D
Big Teddy :munchin
Horned Frog
03-06-2012, 19:53
I agree with sacamuelas and RL as well. I played rugby in college and it doesn't matter what the situation is during the game, your job is to win as long as time is rolling. If the other team is hurting or if they're scared of being hurt, it's just that much easier. Sportsmanship comes into it when you can hang out after the game and buy a beer for the guy whose nose you broke earlier in the day. Safety is important, but you don't play a "mean" sport and get surprised when folks get hurt. in my opinion, all of the stupid whining when players don't agree with calls, showboating, spiking the ball, "easy downs", etc. is less sportsmanlike than playing to win.
PedOncoDoc
03-07-2012, 04:57
I'm heading down to NO today - this should make for some interesting dinner conversation. :o
Do you think the pads have lead to more or less injuries? They certainly wouldn't be hitting each other the way they do now if hey might hurt themselves in the effort. The only thing out there for the players to hurt themselves on is eachother. :munchin
I'm heading down to NO today - this should make for some interesting dinner conversation. :o
Do you think the pads have lead to more or less injuries? They certainly wouldn't be hitting each other the way they do now if hey might hurt themselves in the effort. The only thing out there for the players to hurt themselves on is eachother. :munchinDoc--
FWIW, it has been my observation that NFL players are wearing fewer and fewer pads below the waist. Also, there have been a number of reports that many players no longer wear cups.
IIRC, the guys over on Fox Sports offered an observation last season that they've never seen NFL players compete as hard as they do today. Given the fact that Howie Long and Jimmy Johnson vigorously agreed with this point, I'm inclined to think that even if players wore neither pads nor helmets, they'd still go at it with all they had.
Horned Frog
03-07-2012, 11:13
I'm heading down to NO today - this should make for some interesting dinner conversation. :o
Do you think the pads have lead to more or less injuries? They certainly wouldn't be hitting each other the way they do now if hey might hurt themselves in the effort. The only thing out there for the players to hurt themselves on is eachother. :munchin
Pedoncodoc,
It's my understanding that in the early 1900s football as we know it began to diverge from rugby, most noticeably at first with the allowance of the forward pass. Other rules followed until the game exists as it does today.
When the forward pass was instituted (in colleges of course; no pro ball at the time), hits started getting bigger and injuries started getting worse. I seem to remember reading that some players died, but I don't remember the source so I hav no data there. The first pads derived from the scrumcap, it was made thicker, more rigid and more padded which of course is now a helmet. In my experience with playing both sports for a few years, rugby players get hurt a lot more. However, I've only seen one really serious injury during rugby, a severe concussion when a player was driven into a goal post. In football I've seen broken femurs, concussions, torn up knees, bad juju. So I think football has more serious injuries when they do occur.
Rugby hurts more though, so why would you bother playing football? :D
Pedoncodoc,
It's my understanding that in the early 1900s football as we know it began to diverge from rugby, most noticeably at first with the allowance of the forward pass. Other rules followed until the game exists as it does today.
When the forward pass was instituted (in colleges of course; no pro ball at the time), hits started getting bigger and injuries started getting worse. I seem to remember reading that some players died, but I don't remember the source so I hav no data there. The first pads derived from the scrumcap, it was made thicker, more rigid and more padded which of course is now a helmet. In my experience with playing both sports for a few years, rugby players get hurt a lot more. However, I've only seen one really serious injury during rugby, a severe concussion when a player was driven into a goal post. In football I've seen broken femurs, concussions, torn up knees, bad juju. So I think football has more serious injuries when they do occur.
Rugby hurts more though, so why would you bother playing football? :DFWIW, the following link will take one to a Library of Congress webpage. The webpage has links to newspaper articles on football during the early 1900s and the efforts of progressives (especially Theodore Roosevelt) to reform the game in order to limit the number of fatalities <<LINK (http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/topics/football1.html)>>.
Badger52
03-21-2012, 12:44
New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton was suspended without pay for the 2012 season by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was banned indefinitely on Wednesday because of the team's bounty program that targeted opposing players.
Handing down sweeping and serious punishment for a system that paid out thousands of dollars when hits knocked specific opponents out of games, Goodell also suspended Saints general manager Mickey Loomis for the first eight regular-season games next season, and assistant coach Joe Vitt for the first six games.
In addition, Goodell fined the Saints $500,000 and took away their second-round draft picks this year and next.
Payton and Loomis took the blame for violations that they acknowledged "happened under our watch" and said Saints owner Tom Benson "had nothing to do" with the bounty pool, which reached as much as $50,000 in 2009, the season the Saints won the Super Bowl.
Takin' one for da Boss.
Rest of link here. (http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2012/03/21/saints-coach-sean-payton-suspended-for-2012-season-by-nfl/)
Takin' one for da Boss.
I'm not sure if you're implying the Benson family was in on it and Payton is the fall guy. I seriously doubt Tom Benson got involved at this level of detail, and Rita either.
The Saints likely weren't the only team doing this, and were made an example off. I don't have a problem with their penalty, I also don't see much pussification in the NFL, these are bigger faster men than anytime in the sport who knock the crap out of each other. There are 260 pound LBs running sub 4.5, these days, that would have been a defensive lineman size with RB/WR speed in the past.
These bounties warrant stiff punishment for two reasons one, it's a QB driven league, targeting elite QB's like Manning, Rodgers, Brady, makes the NFL very nervous, (who wants to watch a Curtis Painter vs Brian Hoying matchup?)
Second note the reaction in support of the commisioner here by current and former players, especially the latter. Retired players can voice their opinions without being subject to league discipline. There seems to be an unwritten code among NFL players, hard hits make the game, but don't deliberately go for knees or heads, the former can end a career or livelihood and the latter can lead to very bad things.
A team bounty which offsets fines for illegal play isn't where the NFL wants to be, they have a great product and don't want to jeopardize it.
Badger52
03-22-2012, 05:44
I'm not sure if you're implying the Benson family was in on it and Payton is the fall guy. I seriously doubt Tom Benson got involved at this level of detail, and Rita either.Not at all; poor phrasing on my part I suppose. In the midst of alot of dominoes it seems to be have been a stand-up comment to make.
Not at all; poor phrasing on my part I suppose. In the midst of alot of dominoes it seems to be have been a stand-up comment to make.
Post-Katrina the Benson family did a lot for the city of NO, way beyond the pigskin, and I doubt would have promoted this "win at all costs" behavior. But then again, Sean Payton was regarded as an all-around "good guy" so who knows...
On my local ESPN talk radio yesterday they were talking about how 100% of the teams in the league have, or have had, bounties on hits. But most have never been caught. They spent a lot of time talking about how not to get caught and how to punish the snitches. No mention of not doing things you know are wrong to begin with. :rolleyes: