You need to stay away from analogies, and watch 12 Angry Men.

... anyway...

Football players hit each other as hard as they can. The rules of the game allow for this. When you hit someone as hard as you can, there is a chance the other guy is going to get hurt in some way: plain shaken from the impact, or get his bell rung, get the wind knocked out of him, bruise a muscle or a bone, to breaking a bone, or snapping a tendon, etc etc etc. This occurs every week in the NFL. On every game. That there may be an extra $1,000 dlls for someone who makes 2 mil a year and during the course of legal play knocked the wind out of someone else, or rang someone else's bell, that doesn't make it that the player is out to purposely maim someone with the intention to receive what amounts to $10 for you and me.

Now, let's take a real life example: how about the hit that knocked Pierre Thomas out of the playoff game against the Whiners. The safety hit Thomas with the crown of his helmet on the side of the head of Thomas. A legal play. Did the safety intend to injure Thomas? Yes or no? You cannot tell what his intention was unless he tells you, but you cannot argue that, if the safety got a token sum of cash for the hit, that he intended to injure Thomas, but if he didn't get the token amount of cash, he didn't intent to injure Thomas.

And therein lies the issue: the outcome and consequences of legal play are the same, whether there is a token reward for any particular outcome or consequence, or not. Goodell has you believing that hitting someone senseless within the rules is OK, but hitting someone senseless within the rules and then getting a token reward makes you detrimental to the game of football.

Now, let's talk about what started this all, Brett Farve and the 2009 NFCCG. I dare you to watch any Steelers or Eagles game, and see the hits Big Ben and Vick take, on any given Sunday... can you honestly tell me that there is a difference from the hits Big Ben and Vick take on a weekly basis from the hits Farve took that day? Can you watch the 2009 Saints-Vikings game and tell me all the hits on Farve were illegal, with the intention of hurting him? I also dare you to watch the very Vikings defense in 2008 and 2009, especially the 2008 Vikings-Texans game, and you tell me which team was out to injure a QB. Guess which defensive player had the highest amount of fines due to illegal hits in 2009? Jared Allen.

And lastly, Goodell has you believing the Saints are the only team who do/did this.

Now, let me ask you, remember 2010 and the fines Dunta Robinson got for spearing WRs, all illegal hits? Remember your coach saying "that is how we coach them" when asked about Robinson's hits? What do you think about that? Is your coach coaching his team to intentionally hurt players? After all, they are coaching players to lay illegal hits...