neugey

Let's hope this is it and there are no other suspensions. The suspension of only two players - even if Vilma for the entire year is insane - should be fairly easy to work around. Kudos to Loomis for signing other LBs in free agency.

AlaskaSaints

Vilma was out how many games last year? And we were fine. Leader? Yes. Leading productivity? No.

Alaska

SapperSaint

So with Vilma being suspended are we contractually obligated to pay him and if not does what he would have made go against us on the salary cap?

|Mitch|

I think he doesn't count against the cap now, I could be wrong though

CharityMike

His salary is not counted against the CAP as soon as the suspension starts. Which is now. All others are going to be pro-rated, which will give us a little bit more money.

pherein

Yeah, your right.

hitta

It's starting to really annoy me how the NFL constantly uses scapegoats to get their point across. And while I'm extremely happy more players weren't suspended, as I thought this entire bounty issue was bull****... I find it extremely unfair that Vilma is being used as an example; and it just goes to show the common theme with this whole bounty investigation and how the Saints franchise is being used.

A few football points: If Brees' contract isn't tied up quickly with the sudden stream of cap space we've acquired from these suspensions, then we all have a big reason to worry... cause something doesn't make sense.

I'd highly optimistic about the D-line going into the start of the year. I think Will Smith is and has been a very consistent player for us, but I'm highly excited about the young guys(Junior Galette, Greg Romeus specifically) as I think this gives them an opportunity to showcase their talent. I'm really high on Brodrick Bunkley.

Our secondary as it looks, is pretty much intact. A lot of pundits were saying that we needed to draft players to fill the roles of the suspended players during the draft; turns out they were wrong and our defense looks pretty much together.

sharke

Once Vilma's name was said negatively on the view (or any nonsports centered show) his days were numbered. It's bad P/R to people who only know football for the superbowl and nothing else. Vilma's name came up in a scandal that has exposed said audience to the realities of contact sports thus jeopardizing potential revenue. Now, they see that the NFL has punished said evil doers and can feel guilt free for watching professional football irregularly.

hitta

You know what the funny thing is, according to the NFL one of the major reasons that such a harsh suspension was given to Sean Payton was that the Saints organization ignored the NFL's warnings about using a bounty program. So what exactly is the logic behind the Scott Fujita and the Anthony Hargrove suspensions? As a matter of fact, how in the hell should Vilma and Sean Paytons suspensions be equal? Vilma didn't get no warning.

MistaBigXXL

I believe this is going to hurt us a lot more than some of you guys think (Most importantly Vilma). He was the "quarterback" of our defense, and even though his physical play has declined a bit, his football intelligence was top notch.

The bright spot is that the organization planned for this situation and made some great moves in the off season that will help us deal with it.