Yep, yep, and yep

And this; ladies and gentlemen, is the main reason the NFL is making an example of us. Ex-NFL players blow through their money after they retire and making up lawsuits is the only way they can get another payday. The NFL realizes more and more players are suing to make up for their poor financial management. When the bounty scandal fell into the NFL's lap it gave the NFL a way to protect themselves. Unfortunately, some of these pathetic losers may actually win their cases but with the actions the NFL took against us, no player will have a case in the future.

... I don't know. It may actually backfire on the NFL. Once it gets to court, the lawyers for the plaintiffs are not just going to stop at the 2009-2011 Saints, they are going to dig a lot deeper into all the other teams, for a lot longer time period. Lomas Brown, for example, finished his career in 2002. The players suing the NFL and their lawyers understand why the NFL did what they did now, they aren't stupid.

This is nothing more than 4 former "Broke" (as in no money), players want to get them some money.

This is something I would expect from a Siefield episode. With the Lawyer "Jakey:. "Who told you to put the balm on?"

24 kt pools ain't cheap, son!!!!

I agree, in the short term they may face a few more lawsuits and players may dig for evidence of other bounties. But this was a long term move by the NFL. They can now say any player drafted from here going forward will have no case against them with these kind of lawsuits. That was the point I was making all along. It gives them a cutoff where in the future these lawsuits will have no premise. NFL's thinking is pay a little more now or pay a lot more later.

You underestimate the power of the smell of money and out-of-court settlements... er.. dark side of the force, young Skywalker

(gasp!) a sport where everyone runs into everyone has a violent culture!

A sport where lineman practice hitting a dummy is violent!


Hockey on the other hand has no culture of violence....just a crappy dental plan.

It would be hard to argue otherwise, since they allow fist fights during the game.

But, hockey has been dealing with a serious problem with concussions for the past couple of years, and there have been rule changes in an attempt to cut down on those type of injuries - heck, next year they're even going to change the icing rule to a "hybrid icing" which will supposedly cut down on the heavy collisions when players race the length of the ice to touch the puck.

So, all contact sports are dealing with their own problems, which is simply a result of players having evolved to a different level than what the particular rules were designed for - and the leagues always blame the players.

There's serious talk of eliminating the kickoff from games now.

Next: The forward pass!