You're right, I'm sorry for pointing out your backward ass comment. While you're at it, care to drop a few racial slurs for our reading pleasure? We can discuss the Saints and our mutual disdain for Goodell without resorting to slurs, that's all I'm saying.

Well, sense no one was paid for any hit, and godell has no evidence of player involvement. My take is, he is just fining the leadership in hopes of winning a possible court case. Hardgrove is clearly for fan approval, and makes the least sense.

Steve Wyche said Hargrove had a part in hiding the bounty system in 2010 when the NFL was asking the Saints about it and that's why he was suspended

that's some old school loyalty covering for Vilma & Fujita....dude just got made...

I don't like the legnth of the penalties and am a huge Vilma fan, but IMO this is a big win for the Saints. I was expecting many players to be suspended. Most folks were prepared to lose Vilma. This board was calling for him to be cut to clear space. Lofton is possibly an upgrade. So basically we lose Smith for 5 games. That's a huge win. I was bracing to lose way more than this. We have a soft 1st 5 games. This is best case scenario IMO.

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.

Sounds to me if you denied any part of anything that you might have known about, you were suspended for 1 year.

if you admitted to it, you were suspended for 3 to 8 games.......

then there is Gregg Williams, which leads me back to the God-Dell Equation of Punishment:

:pokechop: + :band: = :peace:

Simple, yet INEFFECTIVE!

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

Alaska

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?

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

I find cigarettes offensive ;)

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.

thanks Mitch and Mike

ok..lets move pass the 3 letter word comment. It has gotten way to much press. Halo, please delete my original rant, if you haven't already :)

Yeah, your right.

Come next February, none of this will matter and all of us will be partying on Bourbon Street

All in all this really isn’t gonna hurt us all that much. If I we’re Vilma though I’d spend the whole season getting in best possible shape. Him and SP should spend some time together.

depending on how much intake, this could be tomorrow....

Only if they band together as a duo to fight crime. I am hoping, just hoping, it resembles Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers. I would even put in for the Hawaiian shirts.

Well, I guess I will see come opening game in the Dome. I have 4 months to work on a jersey!:red:

I agree with this. What would have been worse, losing Vilma for the season or many of our defenders for a few games? I tend to think the Vilma's best says are behind him and he has injury issues. I think our improved LB corps will help us absorb this blow.

Losing Smith will hurt, but who knows with the appeals process he may not have to serve until he's no longer on the team either?

Where's my "Free Vilma" t-shirt...

This is not right at all.

Agreed. Losing any of these players HURTS! Worst case was losing a LOT of defensive players, which did not happen, so we lucked out.

All of us were hoping Will Smith would turn it around this season and Vilma wouldn't be injured. Luckily the front office has made plans to fix the problem.

I am borderline happy about only Vilma and Smith.
Goodell could have really pushed hard and dropped the whole turd - really stank up the place.
We kind of knew Vilma would get hung in the middle, but I expect 1/2 the defense to be gone and/or fined.
We know how to play without Smith for 4 games, and we learned how to play without Vilma.
If Lofton does as well as Dunbar did, we should be in pretty good shape.
We are in a much better position than I ever expected.
So Let's Geaux!

Where's the Evidence

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.

So does this mean I need a Free Vilma shirt to go along with my Free Coach Payton shirt?

But honestly this just shows how messed up this whole situation is. Out of all the pages Goodell had about our bounty program he only suspends 4 players and only one really takes the fall.

Could've been much worse, I sad for Vilma and Smith, but I'm glad it wasn't worse.

So, the Saints free up $ 5.6M in cap space?

Vilma's whole base salary $5.4M and 1/4th of Smith's base salary 206K, it would've been much better if they hadn't restructured Smith's contract because his entire bonuses will still count towards the cap ($6.5M).

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.

What i want to know is wtf did Hargrove sign...they keep hammering this **** .And the NFLPA can protest all they want, Goodell can care less

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.

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.

Yea I agree. Also I was really looking forward to seeing some of the LB configurations we would have used with our new guys and Vilma.

I think with the new DQ Spagnuolo, the sets and the cadences will be different anyway.
I think Spags will bring a different focal point and priority list to the group.
I'm sure Vilma would have gobbled it up but I also think Lofton can handle it.
If the defense, with all it's newness, can just play middle pack, we are right back in it.

Oops forgot to add

Michael Vick - brutally torturing and Killings dogs, while making money from the fights he hosted - 6 months.

This is what scares me most. He does for our D what Ryan Clark does for the Steelers, D. Look what happened to them in the playoffs without him on the field to assign coverages based on pre-snap looks. It's his leadership that will be truly missed.

I am hoping Lofton can pock up some of the slack there but I don't know much about him as a leader like that.

And at the risk of incurring an " internet slap" I would love to see Shanle step into that leadership role. I can't help to root for the underdog and if Shanle's not an underdog around here, I don't know who is!! ;-)

Underdog:
http://stanleybronstein.com/blog/underdog.jpg

Scott Shanle:
http://www.humor-articles.com/wp-con...ed_picture.jpg


There is a difference.

http://cdn0.hark.com/images/000/002/...0/original.jpg

http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/c...ars/E671C6.gif

Vilma WAS the QB of Williams's defense.

Spags, especially coming from a HC position will probably be more hands on.

Vilma called the shots in GW's defence, naturally that would make him the leader on the field.

Different DC, different methodology, etc...

It would be more damaging if GW were still the DC...