This was nothing more than a politically correct way of saying "we got robbed", so he can feel like he's a bigger man. You can say it in as many ways as you want, Jared, but the message is still the same. You have not, and will not ever get over being beat by a better team that day.

Here's a new cup of milk. Drink it this time.

I disagree. Allen isn't really the sort of guy who would plant hidden messages within his statements, as clearly evidenced by the quote from him by WhoDat!656 - he doesn't really have a filter when it comes to statements.

And even more so, he clearly states that the penultimate reason for their loss was, in his opinion, the fact that they turned the ball over too many times.

He states the obvious, that according to the league investigation and ruling on the matter - however we might feel about their correctness - the Saints had an illegal pay-for-performance program. But he never says that he thinks that the Saints had bounties on Favre - that is just you molding it into what you want to read.

And if you think that the high-low hit on Favre wasn't vicious then I don't understand your definition of the term, and I do think that they should've thrown a flag on that play, because that combination hit was against the rules no matter what the other variables involved were. If the Vikings would've tackled Brees like that, you can be damn sure I would've been screaming at the refs and I'd probably still be talking about it as a missed call.

I wholeheartedly agree with you on that they were ultimately beaten by a better team that day regardless of the events and circumstances, but there's no shame in showing some grace when you're victorious and toward a guy who came out in defense of the Saints and their win over them - because a lot of Vikes' fans have been crying about how the Saints' bounty program affected the outcome of that conference final, and this was an answer to that false perception by Allen.

GO SAINTS!

...but also Go Vikes!

I especially don't appreciate the notion that I molded Allen's words into what I wanted them to be. He most certainly believes the Saints had a bounty on Favre by saying "Obviously the Saints were wrong in what they did and they're being punished accordingly". Are you going to tell me that he isn't talking about what they supposedly did to Favre as much as anyone else? It isn't a hidden message, it's a politically correct message, as I said before.

Just because Roger said so, doesn't mean we are guilty. But Jared Allen took an opportunity to say the Saints were wrong, when he hasn't presented any more proof than the NFL has.

Obviously our perceptions differ, I understood that passage you quoted as him recognizing the verdict given by the league that the Saints had an illegal program going on at the time, but I certainly didn't interpret that as him saying that the Saints specifically had bounties on Favre.

Furthermore, that recognition was essential for his statement as a whole, because he makes it clear that he understands that such a program existed, but at the same time he states that the outcome of that game had nothing to do with the existence of such a program.

I just can't read that statement in a way that would support your claim that Allen went out of his way to say that the Saints were wrong, because he mentions the bounty program because it's essential to the overall contextualization and he simply refers to the judgment passed down by the league - he couldn't say publicly that the league is wrong and that the investigation was a joke even if he felt that way. At the end of the day he is an employee of a team, which functions within the greater infrastructure of the league, so it wouldn't really be in his best interest to question the league's ruling on this matter.

As for the the term vicious, it has numerous meanings which bore down to semantics. It can mean like you said an action that has a malicious intent behind it, but it can also mean an action which is characterized by violent or destructive behavior - or simply that the action was severe or intense in nature. And that is how I understand that term in general, but it might be a faulty disposition caused by the fact that English is not my native language.

But I do think that that hit was a violent hit, and that is what I was referring to. And I bet you would see that hit getting a flag probably 8 times out of 10, so I think Allen was correct in stating that the refs should've maybe thrown a flag at that juncture. I'm not saying the rules are correct or that it's easy to interpret them during the game and based on an instance which last maybe 2 seconds in real-life, but that is how the game is called nowadays. I don't think even Allen himself would argue against getting flagged if he was one half of the party committing that hit - he just doesn't seem like that type of a guy based on the numerous games I've seen him play in and he certainly brakes and/or bends the rules himself occasionally.

But I didn't mean to make this into a big deal, and I apologize if I made you feel like I was attacking you, because that was never my intention.