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Drew Brees just tweeted that Jon Vilma is back in the building! Its a great day for the Saints!

Vilma honorary captain on the field for the coin toss? Rub Goodells face in it.

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I like the way you think.

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just heard on nfl network that she is waiting to see what roger is going to do now

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THANK GOD WE GOT WILL SMITH BACK!

The d line was the one huge flaw the team had and now that will smith is back?

Now I can sleep soundly knowing that Goodell ISN'T sleeping soundly.

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Late to the party, but..... I've brought Champagne!



http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_RfTvvZdG3p...+VIlmart+1.jpg

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Its already starting. King is being an arrogant ass about it.

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Link please

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Although Goodell will be compelled to just uphold the suspensions anyway he will be doing so at his own peril. For starters cases are still pending in federal court. If he rules against the players again Berrigan will make her ruling for the players, then discovery starts (NOT what he wants).

And second…We for get that Freeh has yet to release the findings of his investigation to the public. Benson & the Saints have leverage if Goodell tries to continue to play dictator. Either significantly reduce the suspensions for ALL players & coaches/staff….or risk being publicly exposed by Freeh. No way he comes out of that PR nuclear bomb with his job...

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All good points...

:popcorn:

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why on earth would you volunteer to serve a suspension, if you DIDN'T DO WHAT THEY SAID YOU DID, IN THE FIRST PLACE?

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Saints player bounty suspensions overturned on appeal - NFL.com

Good point here in the video... Hargrove now has HUGE case for defamation... no one wants to sign him now.....

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<<<< New Avatar <<<<

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a nice vid here

Saints players win appeal versus NFL on bounty suspensions - CBSSports.com

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reference apocolypse now:

I love the smell of napalm in the morning....... smells like victory! I bet Godell's a$$ feels like it was gelled with napalm.....:p

Congratulations to Vilma, Smith, Fujita, and Hargrove....

I bet Sean is grinnin'!

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Judge Berrigan holds some leverage over RG in not making a ruling today. Nice way to keep the pressure on.

Judge Berrigan takes no action in bounty cases | ProFootballTalk

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Florio just posted this could be a mulligan for RG... not sure I agree... but here is his article.

From a P.R. perspective, Friday’s ruling from an internal appeals panel amounts to a huge win for the Saints and the players suspended as part of the alleged bounty program. From a legal perspective, the end result could be the same, eventually.

The ruling, made not by a court but as part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement’s internal procedures, sets the process back to square one and requires Commissioner Roger Goodell to impose discipline from scratch, with a requirement that his decisions stay clearly within the confines of his authority. He has the power to impose discipline for conduct detrimental to the game, but he lacks the power to impose discipline for any salary-cap violations arising from the alleged pay-for-performance/bounty system.

This time, Goodell needs to make it clear that he has remained in his lane.

That’s the import of the ruling. Nothing more. The arbitration panel didn’t determine whether there was — or wasn’t — a bounty program or whether the players may — or may not — be disciplined for their participation in the program.

Instead, the panel said it wasn’t clear from the documents generated by the NFL whether Goodell imposed discipline for conduct detrimental to the game (which he has the power to do) or salary-cap violations (which he doesn’t have the power to do). At this point, then, there’s no reason to think the ultimate outcome will be any different, with Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma suspended for a year, Saints defensive end Will Smith suspended for four games, Browns linebacker Scott Fujita suspended for four games, and free-agent defensive end Anthony Hargrove suspended for eight games.

Actually, this gives Goodell and company an opportunity for a Mulligan. They can go back to square one and re-do the process in a way that will make it more likely to withstand any and all challenges, in court or otherwise.

link back

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Well basically this whole thing means that the original case was handled so poorly that Goodell is now forced to be a professional instead of what he really is lol. There's so much egg on the NFL brass' face right now. God this weekend is awesome!!!

WOW
What a thing to wake up and read at 4am.

Great timing,it will give the players a massive boosts.

Now,gives us our coaches and draft picks back.

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WHoooooooooooooooooooooo !

Wish I was going to the game on Sunday.
Can only imagine the noise when Smith and Vilma come in the field.


We must be getting next seasons draft pick back.Even if they go after the team on a salary cap violation they have set president on the issue with the Broncos a few years back.They got find less than $1ml and a third round draft pick for their second offence.

I still think he may try and suspend the players but only for a game or two,if not he is a sneaking barsteward and will wait for the first sign of a late hit/head hit and suspension fine Saint players.

The coaches need to be asking for a meeting now and seeing if they can get the penalties reduced.
Even a 50% reduction would be great news.

Guess he will be back soon, too. Guess the nfl figured that they have to let our guys go DO THEIR JOB because they did not really have evidence!


Somewhere over the rainbow!

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I'll bet you still have mustache burn from it, too!

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I'm not 100% sure what you're insinuating sir, but...

:bugeyes:

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Goodhell can still suspend the players but not for the reasons he gave, now he has to come back with some other reason that he has evidence for. Now if the players can come back why aren't the coaching staff and Ton Benson fighting this unjust action by mr. Goodhell? Can anyone tell me, if he hasn't the evidence to suspend the players then why are the coaches so different?

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ok as i now understand it, goodell has to breakdown the punishment and say how much was for the bounty (conduct detrimental) and how much was for the player pool(salary cap violations). the reason for this is he only has jurisdiction over conduct detrimental. so if he states all of it was for conduct detrimental he can re-issue the same punishments. if he says it half and half, he will be expected to reduce his punishment by half and so on.
i think they are baiting him to say its all for conduct detrimental and then they will ask for proof or something out of left field. there is no salary cap violation because it was all player money and not team money. its silly to assume that if two players on the same team made a bet , the other pays him, and thats a salary cap violation. so watch for it but i think someone is going to backdoor goodell like he has been doing these players all along.

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I think many people got this whole lifting of the suspensions ALL WRONG.

We aren't getting back draft picks. We aren't getting Sean back and as soon as this weeks is over the players will have to serve their suspensions.

They are merely asking Roger to say if the violations are finacial then that falls into other person's responsibility not his to level punishment. Or if it is detrimental to the game fine... then THE PENALTIES will still have to be served because that falls under his jurisdiction. So it is just a delay of what was already been given.

Next week the players will be told they are suspended and that is that.

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Until Judge whatshername gets a hold of it again...

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Seems the rub however comes from the fact that to enforce these amazingly brutal fines/suspensions, Roger is going to have to show his evidence - either now or in a real court. Should he choose NOT to expose his very questionable sources, he can fine until he's blue in the face. Is that right or am I misinformed?

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He also can't use the player pool of money as evidence unless he can specifically tie those payments to injuries. This ruling forces Goodell to be COMPLETELY CLEAR on his punishments, so he can no longer confuse investigating authorities and the public by saying:
"Look at all of this proof of a pay-for-play system! We also know that intentional injuries were part of this system, and here are the punishments for these things."

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I'm happy mainly because this sends the statement that, to me, was always obvious... Roger never had any evidence to fit the punishments, and ruled as a dictator.

Beyond that, I would be very surprised if Roger let's this change his mind when it comes time for him to "re-assess" the suspensions. We'll probably end up right back where we started, at least for a bit... I say for a bit because that could cause him serious problems considering the judges did specifically tell Roger that he could only rule on a pay to injure bounty with *gasp* EVIDENCE. You'd think he'd learn his lesson after this ruling was overturned, but somehow I don't think his ego will let him give it up until he completely burns himself.

But if nothing else, this is a victory in showing that we fans aren't the only one's who aren't seeing the proof.

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No... that isn't what it is about at all. This is mainly who has jurisdiction on who can impose punishment on this.

It comes down to is it a Salary cap violation... which everyone agrees it is not.
Is it a Detriment to the game violation which is where Roger will lean towards because the statements were made to that fact. Once it is clear then the latter is Rogers jurisdiction and then he can impose penalties.

Judge in the matter will have nothing to say or can't do anything because it falls under Rogers jurisdiction.

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You are forgetting about Judge Berrigan. His evidence in her court has been primarily about pay for performance, with circumstantial (read: witness testimony) about injuries being a part of it. Now, when he reissues the punishments, he won't be able to use any of that pay for play evidence when trying to justify that his punishments weren't undue and malicious.

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Goodell can issue a death by lethal injection writ if he wanted to, but that is not the point.

The point is that the appeals panel instructed Goodell that he has to define what is pay for performance (salary cap violation, not his jurisdiction) and what is conduct detrimental (his jurisdiction).

So, any money that was given to players for INTs, sacks, "kill the head", 4th and 1 stops, and so forth, is out Goodell's reach, and cannot lump it into one neat package of "pay-for-something, therefore you die".

Now, if Goodell attempts to call a salary cap violation "conduct detrimental", then he is going to have to suspend Jerry Jones, Jason Garrett, Daniel Snyder, Mike Shanahan, and whoever else is involved over the very recent salary cap violations of the Cowboys and Redskins. So, he's not going to do that. And he ( I don't think) would be stupid enough to call the Saints' salary cap violations "conduct detrimental", and issue the same punishments for the Saints, because he already set the precedent on salary cap violations.

So he's left to define what constitutes "conduct detrimental". So, this time around, to punish players, he's going to have to specify who did what when. An alleged ledger page showing 4 entries for alleged payments is not going to do it. He's going to have to say "this one is the payment for the cart-off". Then pinpoint the player who took the money. After all, if the player didn't take the money for the cart-off after the legal hit, then there's nothing that can be considered "conduct detrimental".

And Goodell needs to be very cautious as to how he handles this, because of the 2 court battles he's facing. Whatever he does here will have an impact in court.

And one other thing, once the "pay-for-performance" part is defined, when it goes to the rightful arbitrator, the CBA compels Goodell to give ALL evidence found in his investigation, which is what Vilma and Gingsberg (not to mention all Saints fans) wanted to see in the first place.

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Well said...

:popcorn: