WhoDat!656

The NFL’s internal dispute resolution system carries with it an added benefit, above and beyond the fact that the Commissioner gets to make the decision and then determine whether he made the right decision: The in-house appeal process keeps most of the arguments and facts out of the public eye.

In contrast to courtroom proceedings, which are subject to full public exposure, the only way we’ll know anything about anything that happens during the Saints’ bounty appeals is if someone leaks something.

Here’s a little something that has leaked in advance of the hearings.

According to a source with knowledge of the situation, the appeals may consist of arguments based on the fundamental difference between the placement of “bounties” on players and the actual infliction of injury. If, in other words, the offer of cash for a “cart-off” didn’t actually result in a player being carted off, the situation arguably becomes a case of intent without a crime.

Then there’s the possibility that, as it relates to the infliction of injuries, the bounty concept was more hyperbole than reality, with the promise of payments for knocking offensive players out of the game simply a device for getting the defensive players properly motivated to play with reckless abandon and appropriate zeal, different in form but no different in substance from the many other ways that teams get players fired up before games.

Also, one or more of the appeals could focus on the unexplored question of whether other teams did the same or similar things, and thus whether it’s objectively fair to nail the Saints simply because, more than two years after the league investigated the situation and got nowhere, a whistleblower blew the case open. Nailing the Saints for something that other teams quite possibly have been doing, but that the NFL hasn’t fully investigated, could be painted as inequitable.

Moreover, there’s an unwillingness to accept without scrutiny the work of NFL Security, which somehow was duped by the Saints in 2010, and which otherwise was unable to catch the Saints without the help of a whistleblower. The raw data generated by NFL Security undoubtedly will be studied and picked apart and, wherever justified, attacked as flawed.

In the end, it may not matter, given that the same office that imposed the penalties is reviewing them. At this point, any softening of the penalties will create the impression that the league has decided to tolerate bounties.

So while it may not be fair for the Saints to be the scapegoats, the league has little choice. And the league will undoubtedly justify the punishment based on the fact that the Saints lied about the existence of the bounty system in 2009 — and that the Saints continued to brazenly use bounties for two seasons after the league investigated the situation.

Appeals may focus on disconnect between bounties, on-field actions | ProFootballTalk

"A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."

saintsfan1976

Unless any of the above points are found to vilify the team and its coaches.



I doubt any suspensions are lightened. But I do hope that enough evidence is leaked to give us a better understading.

saintfan

The league doesn't have a choice now. I agree with that 100%.

The opportunity for choice was prior to setting the media ablaze - which is precisely what the NFL did - on purpose.

The league SHOULD have investigated, determined punishment (reasonable punishment) and after informing the guilty parties of their sentence, releasing the info to the media, and it should have been done right before the draft so the media whores would have moved on a day or two after.

That's what Roger SHOULD have done, but Roger, as we know, is an idiot.

Rugby Saint II

"Hey Roger do me a favor let and me sharpen that knife before you cut my throat with it."

BIGEASY504

IMO this will not be an affective appeal if they don’t look at this from both sides and the overall NFL. You have to look at the way the entire league defenses approach as a whole not just the Saints, the SNITCH will be reveled and the physical evidence that money was exchanged. They’re really going to look at the 09-playoff wins in my mind those were legit hits and compared to other games the hits/tackles were the same.