saintfan

"Strong" reaction from players? Which ones? A kickers and rookie center from the Vikings? Most of the player reactions I've read pretty much state the whole thing isn't that big of a deal.

Tobias-Reiper

You should have stopped right there.
You have ABSO-F*ING-LUTELY NO IDEA what goes on in NFL locker rooms.

Here is a story for you. The year is 1987. Saints are playing the Oilers. Morten Andersen kicks off, and a LB playing STs makes a b-line for him and just crushes him. A couple of years later, the same LB signs with the Saints. Morten asked him "why did you do that?" Dude says "they gave me $1,000".

$1000 in 1987, when the average salary in the NFL was something in the neighborhood of $200,000, and special teamers most likely made something in the $50,000-70,000 range. Oh, and in those days there were no fines for illegal hits, and I don't recall any sort if hit being illegal other than the head slap.

Nowadays the average NFL salary is close to $2,000,000. I think the minimum is around $700,000? And you put a good lick on someone, chances are you are going to get a $20,000 fine (unless of course, you knock out Pierre Thomas and yell "that's how we play the game, we knock people out"), so $1,000... hmmm, not what I would call a "bounty".

So, what does that tell you?
"Bounties" have been around for a looooong, long time.
Given the amounts of money involved today (what players allegedly got vis a vis fines), "bounties" are the equivalent of a rich man's office pool or a sticker you get for your helmet in college football.

And make no mistake, every defensive player out there is looking to knock someone out. Period. I only play HS (SS), and even in HS, no one ever told me not to hurt anyone, or how to hit them, other than "hit'em as hard as you can, but see what you're hitting", "make him cry", "make him not want to carry the ball no more".

The NFL is a league which has no issues marketing Dick Butkus sitting on a bench with bloody hands licking his chops, Deacon Jones giving head slaps, Jack Lambert body-slamminga kicker, Ronnie Lott showing his pinky (or what's left of it), or a bleeding Ray Nitschke. This is a league which promos include LT telling his teammates "let's go at'em like a bunch of crazed dogs" or "you come around here again I'll kick your MF ass"; Bill Cowher telling Frank Lloyd "rush the QB" (and we all know what that means, don't we?); this is a league which has no issues airing bits and pieces of The Bounty Bowl, or The Body Bag Game... they love to make the money from the violence.

... but then again, this is the same league that made PrimeTime stop airing the Jacked Up spot because it added fuel to the fire that is the lawsuits stemming from oh, yeah, the commissioner lying to the players about medical implications of concussions.

There is no misdirected anger here.

'Cause the simple man pays the thrills, the bills and the pills that kill

W. Kovacs

Velvet Llama,

As most people here know (because I post about it ad nauseum), I was raised a Steelers Fan. I nearly stopped watching football altogether after the Roethlisberger debacle. Instead, through a series of events I won't explain here, I became a Saints fan.

I bring up the Roethlisberger situation because, to me, it is relevant to the Saints situation.

Initially, the Saints were being investigated for the Bounty Program. The program paid for big plays and for knocking players out of games. What it did NOT do, was pay for illegal hits. The Saints were around 4th in the league in personal foul penalties during the time of the bounties. I don't know of any serious, career threatening injuries that were incurred by Saints opponents. So, the initial charge was, really, for payments outside the salary cap. The term "bounty" makes it sound like players were being taken out at the knees or having their heads targeted when, to my knowledge, there is not a single instance of that on record. I mean, Jesus, why the heck didn't Marshawn Lynch get his knee smashed in the playoff game against Seattle a couple of years ago if the Saints were so willing to injure people?

Then, there was the lying. Okay, this one is tough for me. I want to believe my new team would not do this but, apparently, they did. I'm disappointed but hopefully everyone will learn, become better people, and move on.

So, to recap, there was a violation of the salary cap and then a cover up about it.

Let's compare that with what Roethlisberger did. He raped at least one girl, probably more. He lied to police about it.

Which is more severe? Ben Roethlisberger should have been banned from the league forever. It's the fact that The Steelers didn't cut ties with him immediately that caused me to cut my ties (i.e. my fandom/support, I know they don't give a sh*t about me in any way) with them.

4 games for RAPING somebody vs. an indefinite suspension, a season's suspension, an 8 game suspension, a 6 game suspension, a 1/2 million dollars in fines (and even more than that in salaries lost), and TWO draft picks for covering up a salary cap violation. I'm sorry, you have to be effing kidding me.

Or compare it to the Patriots' cheating scandal. Their actions actually brought them a competitive advantage. Their penalty: $250k and a draft pick...one first-round draft pick...in a season where they had TWO FIRST ROUND PICKS!!! Essentially, their penalty was NOTHING!

That's why I'm so mad at Goodell. This is absurd. If he was SO concerned about player safety, he should have suspended Payton/Williams/et al as soon as he learned about it 3 years ago.

Instead, the Saints Program hit the media and he felt he needed to show everyone who is really in charge. If this was about any sort of "justice" there would be an investigation into EVERY team. We know there were programs that Williams led in Washington and wherever he was before that. Why aren't they being punished? None of that is happening because Goodell doesn't really give a rat's behind. He just wants to save face in front of the media and the potential lawsuits that are out there.

I am disappointed in Payton, Loomis, etc. and I recognize they were wrong. But two wrongs don't make a right and Goodell's overreaction is wrong as well.

|Mitch|

Very nice Kovacs;

However you are wrong with one thing, it's actually $1,000,000 in fines...

Loomis was fined 500,000 and then Benson and the organization was fined another 500,000 (I think that's right)

W. Kovacs

I think you're right, Mitch.

I had actually written $1,000,000 in fines, initially, but went back and changed it because I thought to myself "no, that's just too insane."

I also forgot that we haven't even seen player suspensions yet.

God, writing it all out like that makes me even angrier!

SaintsRule11

Ahem. I don't think people here are mad at Goodell because of the penalties. I think it is because of what happened with Spygate where Bill Belichick got a tiny slap on the wrist.

$500,000 and no suspsension versus $5.8 million and a year suspension - does that seem fair to you? It doesn't to me. Add to that the fact that there were no penalties whatsoever leveled against the Packers for their bounty program which was clearly in violation of league policies and yeah, so we're really f*cking pissed here! I have no problem with the severity if there had been even the slightest precedent for it. The Patriots got one measly draft pick taken away along with a monetary fine which was extremely small in comparison to how much money Bill Belicheat has made over his career. It was truly nothing at all and he's the man who INITIATED the f*cking program.

YES, we are all livid at Gregg Williams for initiating the program. YES, we are extremely disappointed in Sean Payton for lying to Goodell and trying to sweep everything under the rug. What those two men did was truly awful, but so was what Belichick did and the punishments are not even close to similar. And btw, with regard to the Steelers, James Harrison is out there essentially trying to kill people during every game and he gets a one game suspension after Dick LeBeau has personally assured him it's okay to keep playing exactly the same way. "Don't change a thing" he told Harrison after his third fine.

So yeah, we're totally f*cking pissed off at the inconsistent way our team has been treated in this mess. I just hope the Saints are mad enough to go out there and f*cking kick everyone's ass and stomp them into the dust. I hope they are out for BLOOD.

SaintsRule11

Another thing: both Darren Woodson and Mike Golic thought this was way, way overblown and they both said these so-called bounties went on when they were playing football.

And here is a direct quote from Calvin Johnson: “I didn’t think anything of it when I heard it. I was watching 'SportsCenter' with one of my boys -- he plays ball, too - and we were like, ‘That’s part of the game. It’s nothing new.’”

SloMotion

... you're welcome. I read the entire thing, twice, just to be sure, and it's several minutes of my life that I will never be able to get back. The key misperceptions in your 'perspective' have been addressed for the most part, so I won't go into those.

I'm left wondering how old you are, how long you've been a fan of the NFL, and what life-experiences and/or sources you base your 'perspective' on.

Only the future will tell if you're a troll or not ... why not get over to the Welcome Wagon/Defend your Handle threads and introduce yourself, VL?

mikesaintfan

how many teams in history have played a "home" game in the opponents building??? I only know of 1...but we are not singled out huh...that game vs the Giants could have(and should have) been played in a neutral site...but NOOOOO...we played in their building

lumm0x

Sure we could play the "punishment precedent set in other circumstances card".

Sure we could play the "proof that it happens in many if not every organization card".

But these have already been discussed ad nauseum.

The penalty is what it is now and I guess we wait and see what comes down on the players. Once again, more adversity but frankly nothing we cannot prevail from and still succeed. The best way to respond is simply to go win football games despite this joke of a ruling.

And why is it a joke beyond the arguments already discussed (which is more than enough)? First off it has been openly discussed and confirmed that as early as 2009 the NFL was investigating the Saints and other teams about alleged bounty programs. They have also admitted they instructed Mickey Loomis to see these practices ceased and this was to be communicated down through the team's heirarchy. As a result, Loomis, Payton and Vitt were all suspended for being knowledgeable about an illegal activity and failing to take reasonable steps to eliminate it.

Pardon me if I fail to interpret legal protocol relative to this, but isn't what Roger Goodell and the NFL did from 2009-2011 exactly what Loomis, Payton and Vitt did? Knew about something, took no diligent actions to stop it and brushed it under the table? Goodell knew we were doing this. Rather than respond in a manner an impartial and upholding governing body should, he chose to hide it, try to get it to go away without too much awareness.

All Goodell has done is show he looks out for the best interests of the league as a business. The only time he cares about player safety or anything moral about the game is when it can impact the financial bottom line. As said earlier, the NFL has repeatedly circumvented medical research to secure profits at the expense of player health. Only when public pressure and player lawsuits get too much media attention does it start to hit the league pocket and responses are generated to protect finances first and players second.

Roger Goodell....where is your suspension? Who polices the police? Corruption is obvious and Goodell is the Paterno of this situation.