Vilma lawsuit puts Goodell on the run
 

A bounty has been placed on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, and Vilma is just the latest to lay his ass out.

It is a test, really. They want to see if they can get Goodell running sideways, get his head sideways. How did former New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator and blackballed league scapegoat Gregg Williams so eloquently put it?

"Kill the head, and the body will die.”

Yes, there is a new bounty program in the NFL, and players are paying (lawyers fees) to take a run at Goodell and the league on this steady stream of plausible deniability b.s. that:

a) Football is a game of physically punishing acts, and violence, and maliciously knocking the you-know-what out of your opponent even if, and in some cases especially if, somebody gets hurt.

b) How cumulative effects of this organized violence can be brutal and debilitating brain trauma.

The NFL not only thrived on this culture of violence, but it raked in billions from it. And as soon as things went south — public relations-wise and possibly legally — the NFL cut these guys loose.

Cut Vilma loose. Cut Williams loose. And cut loose so many untold former players — the stories we know and those we have no idea of — to battle the physical and mental demons at least partially brought on by careers spent bashing and having their heads bashed for the benefit of a league now claiming ignorance on brain trauma....

...The problem for Goodell is that the discovery process is a beast. He would have to show his work, revealing his sources on Bountygate, as well as any other info unearthed during the investigation that he has been able to keep in-house.

Goodell, if he has good legal counsel, probably has been advised that if he wants to avoid people going digging, he shouldn't give them reason to pick up a shovel. But he has given players such as Vilma every reason to dig by scapegoating them and making them look like rogue thugs who turned an otherwise safe Sunday activity into a dangerous sport. It is disingenuous when viewed generously and the height of hypocrisy in any light.

FROM FOXSPORTS.COM

The winds of change continue to blow

Obama and Goodell should be best friends because they both lie and are full of BS. Answer the freakin question Goofdell.

Wow. Embarrassing.

Just another day in my attempt to give Czar Goodell the BLACK EYE he deserves. I will post any negative Goodell news until this is resolved.

I will say that all of the noise coming out about how the NFL made billions off of players while they were getting brutalized, concussed, etc. is complete bullcrap. These guys willingly strapped the helmets on. They personally made millions of dollars, became famous, and were idolized. A lot of the guys who made millions actually used the game, not the other way around. For many, football offered them a "way out" from lives of crime and struggling.

You mean to tell me that getting hit violently in the head causes brain damage? No s***. These guys knew that the game is a violent one, but they wanted to reap the rewards. It's like smokers... who sued the tobacco companies. Or as Larry the Cable Guy says: "I currently have a lawsuit filed against Hustler because they caused me to get Carpal Tunnel."

There is no way he's getting around this minefield. It's too much for his hydrema of lawyers to clear.

... I posted this before, specifically comparing what happened to the tobacco industry with the NFL lawsuits: the issue with the tobacco industry was that their stance was cigarettes were safe, even proclaiming it was healthy to smoke, and had a myriad of ads everywhere stating "physicians and doctors say... " while they had conducted their own studies and those studies indicated smoking was really not good for one's health.

The NFL is facing a similar problem in that NFL doctors, from its top league doctor to team physicians, trainers, etc., basically proclaimed and told players that concussions were "safe" and had no repercussions in the future. This is documented, so...

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Yeah you right ... negative news does indeed sell! When, btw, is Goodell traveling to New Orleans?

No. The league knew concussions were dangerous and not only did nothing about it but continued to send players onto the field when they should not have been allowed onto the field.

This is the smoking gun that Roger cannot avoid no matter how many people he fines and suspends and no number of new 'safety' rules will make this go away. The NFL is up a creek, and Roger knows it. What we are seeing are the acts of a man desperate to influence a jury ahead of it's selection.

I agree with the above post.
If the league had told the players of the health issues it would not be in the position it is now and wouldn't have to be taking the big hits out.
Now players know the dangers that occur with playing and it is there choice wether to take the risk or not,but if players in other era's were lied to it is a different story.

Sorry for the rant but this pisses me off.... I can not agree.

There is a certain amount of assumed personal liability every time a player steps foot on the field.

Roughly 40-50 % of all NFL players hold a college degree, another 20-30 percent went to college, and I would say at least 95% of all NFL players have played football at some level in their life.

They all KNOW the inherent risks associated with the game, and they CHOOSE to play.

This whole ordeal reminds me of people who enlist in the military for college money but when it is time to lace up the boots and go to war...cry like babies that they shouldn't have to.

If I drive my car off of a bridge, and get long term disability because of it, should i be able to sue GM because no one sat me down when I signed the purchasing agreement and said "you should know that if you drive this vehicle off of a bridge you could have long term disability".


This is like playing in the stock market.... When the payoff is huge people celebrate, when they lose money they start blaming everyone and their brother for their piss poor decisions, and "someone" must protect people from themselves. You do not see the same players complaining when they sign that contract, or cash that monthly check that is more than some people make in 10 years.

How in the fk can one person not assume that repeatedly hitting your head for 4 hours on a Sunday will not be a problem later.

This is the start of the stupification of America.

Whoa, whoa, whoa!!!

Smoking is NOT safe???

NFLPA is coming @ the NFL hard with all the lawsuits....just filed a collusion suit too....

First things first. Having a college degree doesn't equate to being smart or intelligent. I know FAR MORE stupid people that managed to finish college than people whom college made 'smart'.

As for the GM reference. IF GM told you it was completely safe to drive your car off a bridge, THEN you'd have something - but that's not what GM would tell you, because if they did you've have their ass, legally and rightfully so. The NFL was telling these players, if not directly then through the actions of coaches, physicians paid for by teams and by the league, and its culture, that, you know, it's a concussion. You'll be fine. Now GET BACK OUT THERE AND PLAY! THAT'S a BIG problem.

I ride a motorcycle 102 miles plus, every day, in stop and go traffic and in 90+ MPH traffic. I know it's dangerous. Now, I just put a brand new pair of tires on my bike, for safety's sake. If I wipe out because I do something stupid, I can only blame myself, however, if the tire manufacturer told me the tires were perfectly safe and promised me that I'd NEVER lose traction...I mean I know it's not a one-to-one, but you get what I mean...

The players absolutely have a case, and I think it's short-sighted to assume they're just trying to sue the NFL to get money because they're broke. I'm sure there's some of that going on. I'm sure too that some of those players are fine but pissed at the NFLs blatant disregard for what every doctor in the free world was saying about concussions while the NFL continued to push players onto the field in spite of them. I'd be pissed too.

You can believe Roger knows they have a good case. Again, that's why he's clearly going WAY overboard on all this safety crap. That's why Vilma and Sean and Loomie and Williams got raped. And Roger isn't done. He's just getting started, because he knows full well what the NFL is up against. And he is willing to scapegoat anybody as a means to a financial end.

And that's what hacks me off so much. While he talks about honesty and integrity and that he was (wah wah) lied to and about how people in the game have a responsibility to it, he refuses to just say, hey, you're right. The NFL marketed violence and has made a gazillion dollars and counting on it. Rather than rape people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, man up and settle with the players and with the Union. Take the cash hit for the sake of honesty and integrity - those things he professes to hold in such high regard, because up and until this very minute, the thing Roger and the NFL HASN'T been is honest.

... and how many of those have degrees in medicine or health research?

Let me give you an extreme example to get the point across:

As a reasonable person, you know that constant headaches are not normal. So, if you keep experiencing constant headaches, what do you do? A reasonable person goes to see a doctor. Say the doctor takes a scan of your brain and in it, sees a small mass, then he turns around and tells you "it's nothing... just take a couple aspirins".
Then, a year later, another doctor does a second scan after your headaches don't go away and tells you "I am sorry to say, but you are terminal because of this mass in your head. Had it been discovered a year year ago, you'd have a chance, but now..."

In the example above, you have a doctor who had proof that showed there was something really wrong with you, but decided not to tell you. And this is the allegation of the ex-players who are suing the league, that the NFL and its doctors had scientific knowledge of both short term and long term effect of concussions, and not only chose to ignore them, but went as far as deny them/instruct the players otherwise, and on-field medical staff allowed for players with clear signs of concussions back into games.

Can someone please reference the statement where the NFL told players.

" you have no chance of concussions playing in the NFL"

Obviously that would have been followed by "maybe you did in College, High School, Jr. High.... but not here in the NFL... We are concussion free!"


Goodell's posturing is not completely because of liability. An equal % of the reason is NFL football is popularity driven. He does not want to "look like".


And at the end of the day helmet to turff causes nearly as many concussions as helmet to helmet.
Rodgers has concussion, won


If a person does not have enough sense to know that being told " a tire will NEVER lose traction" is absolute bull they do not belong on a bike.

As far as the NFL "KNOWING" of the long term effects of concussions and suppressing that the following is all i can find.

Certain parties have "reason to believe" that the NFL "may" have had information, that linked concussions to "possible" long term effects



Come on! This is about as rock solid as Goodell "may" have supporting evidence that would cause him to "believe" that Vilma "could" have paid to have players injured.

You cant hold the parties to different standards because it suits you. In one hand some people say the NFL is guilty because they "may" have known and "possibly suppressed"... then those same people turn around and say if Goodell doesn't show concrete evidence for pay for injure then he is lying.

We can agree to disagree. Time will certainly tell.

Yep! Because in the end... facts do not matter. Who has the better lawyer does. ;)

Sad, but deadly accurate.

You either don't comprehend what you are reading, or you don't want to.
No one ever said there is no chance of getting concussions playing in the NFL.

I agree that players put themselves out there and should have known the risks. I have stated this in several previous posts. Players need to know their limits and know when to stop.

But here's the problem that I think you've missed: This isn't a matter of whether or not the players are partially responsible for what happens/happened to them. The issue is that the NFL knew what was happening to players, and never did anything to stop it because the game was too popular to mess with. But now that these retired players have decided to sue, whether we agree with them or not, it has sent the NFL scrambling for a way out. And so now that they dug up, or possibly made up something on the Saints, they're pretending to care about player safety, and acting as if they never knew concussions could cause long term brain damage. We know that both the players and the league had to know the dangers, but both are playing dumb. Common sense should tell anyone that getting hit in the head repeatedly is not good for you, regardless of what a doctor says. If it were me, I'd seek an outside opinion rather than trust a team doctor. Companies, corporations, politicians and in this case a league have been misleading people for years in the quest for money and power. Anyone who doesn't know that is incredibly ignorant. But at the same time, there is no excuse for the league doctors to lie, and so they should be held responsible in some way.

The Saints, however, have nothing to do with that lawsuit. We're the scapegoat. So yes, the NFL did make billions off of it's violent nature, and for them to suddenly throw a team under the bus to deflect blame from themselves is cowardly. I do not support the lawsuit by the retired players because I believe both parties are at fault, but the NFL's response has been highly hypocritical, dishonest and unfair. That, my friend, is the problem.

Au contrair mon frair ~ It was implied that a concussion was nothing to worry about.

" The NFL was telling these players, if not directly then through the actions of coaches, physicians paid for by teams and by the league, and its culture, that, you know, it's a concussion. You'll be fine. Now GET BACK OUT THERE AND PLAY! "


Furthermore there has to be an assumption of at least average intellectual capacity. E.G. If it takes more than a few advil and you have to go to the hospital.... its serious.


The grounded truth.... They all knew, they all knew quite well that they were risking their health and safety each and every time they stepped foot on the field.

They also knew they were not going to make that kind of money ANYWHERE off the field. Greed and want drove them to suit up every Sunday.

Just like with the tires.... If I am concussed and a coach tells me "just get back on the field, you'll be alright"... Im telling him where he can stick it.

Ive had it happen to me on the football field before, in High School, 16 years old. I staggered my self off the field and refused to go back in.

If the overwhelming studies say one thing and the NFL's experts say something else that could be a big problem. I look at it like this, If I hand you a box of rotten apples and place a handful of good ones on the top who's fault is it if you choose to not sort through them. Did I mislead you if I intentionally put them on top. Of course I did.

Exactly.... and if I bought the box with out checking all of them with you standing in front of me, its my problem once I got home.

If you sign a loan document for a vehicle and didn't read the part that stated that the first 48 payments all are front loaded interest payments, and nothing goes to principal, its your fault for not reading the contract.

We are all responsible for a certain modicum of due diligence.

... again, oh boy... ok..