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Gregg Williams didn't cheat. His teams have not been routinely flagged for being the dirtiest in the NFL. His teams haven't paid the most fines in the league. Targeting players for money is tacky and classless, but it isn't fundamentally different than targeting them by instructing a defender to key on a dangerous opponent. What Williams will pay for over the coming weeks is providing a glimpse into a clubhouse matter that was intended to stay private. His biggest crime was putting into words, into policy, what happens on the field every day.

Full article.
New Orleans Saints bounties for injuring players exposes tawdry football culture - ESPN

CharityMike

Slowly but surely more of the Big media are starting to see the light. To bad the sheep are to stupid to comprehend what the smart people are saying.

SloMotion

Yeah, typical modus operandi for the media, "write first - get facts later" ... our resident Who Dat Writer, BGWhoDat, being the exception to that rule of course ... now that ESPN has finally come around, I can climb off my soapbox.

Article makes a good point in that the game hasn't changed, society has.

Kinda' chuckled at the use of "tawdry", ... better then 'seamy', I suppose.

Saint_LB

Instead of coming out of the locker and saying something like, "LET'S GO KILL THESE GUYS!!", the new NFL wants them to come out yelling..."LET'S GO OUT THERE AND LET THESE GUYS KNOW WE MEAN BUSINESS!!"

...and since when is offering a guy a few million a year to play defense in the NFL not a bounty?

In my simplistic way of thinking, a guy on offense is paid boo-koo money to try to advance the ball while risking injury...and the guys on defense are paid boo-koo money to do whatever is necessary to keep the guys from advancing the ball, which, in the good ol' days, meant that sometimes somebody was gonna get hurt.

Have you ever wondered why these guys get paid more than brain surgeons?

Whether you think you can or think you can't...you're right!

dsrdsrdsr

Twenty-odd years ago, a Green Bay player called Charles Martin picked up Beears' QB Jim McMahon and dumped him on his head. It ended his season and more or less ended his career. It wasn't a bounty, but it was after the play had ended.

If you send players out with a "bounty" attitude, then that's the sort of play you're encouraging. Not the legal hits, that's what you're paying them for anyway. The bounty is to encourage the illegal hits.

Suppose you pay Brees his gazillion dollar signing fee and a bounty hunter hits him helmet-to-knee on a handoff and ends his career? Are you OK with that?

FinSaint

A very good question, but let me counter it with another:

CharityMike

Why are you breathing the same air as me? Get real!

Saint_LB

If you don't think they are already playing with "bounty" attitude, then you are kidding yourself. This money they are exchanging is pocket change...and nobody is encouraging illegal hits. Legal hits hurt, too.

mike27

I hardly think a $1500 bounty is going to sway someone who is making millions a year.

While I defended Williams last year, it hurt me a little bit to know this was going on. But are we going to completely take out the "ringing of the bell," as part of the game, to make offenses hear the footsteps coming? I think that'd make things pretty boring. Clearly I realized with Favre and Manning that they were trying to get to them, and hit them hard, try to make them think, to throw the ball a bit early. But for those hits that were illegal, they were fined, and penalized in the game.

I saw that hit, where the guy rolled up over him, nearly snapping his neck by the way. It was bad enough where I remember it. (McMahon, was it??) Ouch, and uncalled for, obviously on purpose.

As far as any punishment, I think Williams should bear the brunt. I think it's pretty stupid to penalize current teams, with draft picks removed, that earlier teams caused. Where is the sense in that, punishing those who didn't do it???

And SF, with the helmet to helmet on the 3 yard line in the playoff game this year. He didn't have to do that, and probably altered history with that one play. But it was "legal" to do so, while clearly he was targeting Pierre for a concussion. Were SF players paid bounties? It's hard to say. Plus earlier while Jimmy Graham was going down the right-sideline, the defender was trying to twist his arm back, long after the ball was gone, and the play was done.

Are all those other Williams teams going to receive the same punishment? Are all of the other teams? It sucks pretty bad, this happening when NO was riding high, and seems unfair, as they've got the chance to play in their own city for the SuperBowl. But I won't count them out, as I know Brees has a fantastic work-ethic. But after paying his salary, will there be enough crumbs around to pay all of the linemen he needs to make himself safe, receivers, the defense? Sometimes I wonder if paying a guy 20 million a year isn't a bit over the top. How many other good players could you get for that? Indianapolis made a good decision, and Drew is like 33 now, he's going to be waning for sure.

Danno

I'm still in disbelief that after all thats been revealed someone can still think that this locker room bravado actually encourages any NFL player to take a cheap shot on another player with the intent on seriously injuring them, all for a few hundred bucks, which would be dwarfed by the $50,000 fine accompanying it.

Its locker room tough guy antics. If you can't see that then you don't know much about football.