SaintsBro |
05-02-2012 11:08 AM |
I have Vilma and Harper down as definites on my little list; the rest are maybes. But remember how NOBODY guessed the suspensions for Payton, Loomis, Vitt and Williams correctly, everybody underestimated how bad it would be, including myself.
For that reason I am a pessimist, and I could easily see Vilma being done with football, which gets appealed into 1 year, and Harper getting a year, which gets knocked down to 10 or 12 games. Others getting 6, 8 games, stuff like that. It will suck.
BUT... I still believe this, that if the Saints had fired Loomis and Payton on the spot when this story broke back in the beginning of March, which is what Goodell wanted Tom Benson to do, then the player suspensions would have been lighter and faster and this would all be over with by now... This delay in the suspensions is mostly about making Mickey Loomis' job harder and more uncomfortable for him, affecting the draft, negatively influencing the deal with Brees, aimed at formulating discontent among the fans towards Loomis, keeping it in the news, etc. etc. They are hoping that eventually Tom Benson will say "enough" and can Loomis. Problem solved, as far as the league is concerned.
Notice how they said cryptically a few weeks ago, that the door was open to re-evaluating the Saints draft picks next year, they might give them back to us, depending on how the league felt the Saints were handling the situation. That is CODE SPEAK for, "fire Payton and Loomis, and maybe we'll give you back your draft picks."
Also it's weird how they are hardly mentioning Gregg Williams at all, you're not hearing a peep about him from the league or in the media, and they are already talking about his "rehabiliation." Which is really odd, since he was the ringleader and orchestrator of it all, you would think the league would be all hot and bothered about persecuting him.
But they could care less about him, this whole thing is all about sending a personal message from Roger Goodell to Sean Payton and Mickey Loomis. For being "arrogant" and "disrespecting the shield" and whatever else. The ideal outcome for Roger Goodell would be for him to be rid of those two, that has been pretty clear from day one in all of this.
So now I actually kinda think that the suspensions will not come down until a while from now, maybe even the first week of the season, while Loomis is gone, so it fricks the Saints over completely, and makes people blame Mickey Loomis even more. That's what Goodell really wants, is not to hurt Benson or the Saints, he wants Loomis' and Payton's heads on a stake. If Loomis had already been fired a month ago, I get a real feeling the suspensions would be very mild and already would have been announced by now. That's just my take on it.
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