SmashMouth

On September 8, 2008, a year before Brett Favre would join the organization, the Minnesota Vikings traveled to Lambeau Field to face the Green Bay Packers. Aside from being Aaron Rodgers’s debut as a starter, the game was noteworthy for its physicality and aggressiveness. In the first half alone, the teams combined for 12 penalties for 86 yards. It was a sloppy, messy, nasty affair, and in the days and weeks following the Packers’ 24–19 win, Minnesota’s coaches stewed. After watching the tape, they were convinced that Nick Barnett, Green Bay’s outstanding linebacker, had gone out of his way to injure Adrian Peterson, the Vikings halfback.

The rival franchises played again nine weeks later, and three days before kickoff a Minnesota coach stood up in a team meeting, mentioned Barnett by name, and said, “I will give $500 to anyone who takes this mother****er out of the game.”

This was hardly a shocking move in the Vikings’ locker room, where piles of money were regularly collected—then distributed as rewards—for injuring opposing stars. “It was part of the culture,” said Artis Hicks, a Minnesota offensive lineman. “I had coaches start a pot and all the veterans put in an extra $100, $200, and if you hurt someone special, you get the money. There was a bottom line, and I think we all bought in: you’re there to win, and if taking out the other team’s best player helps you win, hey, it’s nothing personal. Just business.”

Although the Barnett affair occurred in 2008, Hicks insists the Vikings were no different a year later, when Brett Favre was quarterback. He recalled no one on the team complaining, nobody arguing with the approach. “This isn’t a game or culture for the fainthearted,” Hicks said. “You bleed, you suffer, you sacrifice, and if need be, you try and knock people out. It’s the NFL.”

Following the win over Dallas, the Vikings weren’t thinking about injuring opposing players, or taking someone out. That type of talk was often reserved for meetings with the league’s more aggressive teams; black-and-blue franchises like Green Bay, Chicago, and Pittsburgh.

Not the New Orleans Saints.

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WhoDat!656

Other than an apology from the league, there is nothing that can be done now.

Utah_Saint

And Peter King.

skymike

I dont like to play victim, but we got singled out.

AsylumGuido

We got singled out for far more than ever occurred. The Saints had nothing more than a simple player run production pool like every other team. High school teams have the exact same thing and get helmet stickers for the awarded plays. None of them called for "injury" of an opponent. Knocking the snot out of them? Yes. That is what you should be trying to do every damned play.

jeanpierre

Good read so far as the game events; would like to have read more of the aftermath, including, but not limited to -

how Herr Goodell stated he had thousands of pages of evidence and testimony, yet only a few of the special, loyal media people would be allowed behind the Emerald Curtain to see it...

how former Commissioner Tagliabue called Bullshinski on the supposed evidence and overturned his protege's misguided attempts to rectify a league-wide practice, problem...

Story needs two more acts to be somewhat complete...

Utah_Saint

how a federal judge called his evidence "bologna".

Euphoria

I so moved on from all this...

jeanpierre

I'm not a lawyer, but can't help but think that when fans who plunk their money down to support their favorite team have two draft picks taken away among other penalties to severely limit the competitiveness of their team on bogus process and evidence (and that's per Goodell's own compulsory, binding mediator in Tagliabue) then there should be some remedy for consumer fraud...

burningmetal

Nothing will change the past, but every time a new player admits to his team running a "bounty" system, I just think about all the smug fans and media around the NFL that pointed their finger at us while putting their hands over their eyes and saying "my team wouldn't do that".

It's not just that all teams do it. The word "bounty" is just a buzz word. Nobody is putting a contract out to kill anyone. It's just chump change being tossed around by rich athletes over a hard hit. These guys are paid to play football, which has hard hits. So what's the difference?

To see a Vikings player admit to it is especially satisfying after all the crying they did. Hypocrites.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.