JOESAM2002

If you guys haven\'t noticed, Gumbo likes to carry things to an extreme.

[Edited on 28/4/2005 by JOESAM2002]

BrooksMustGo

Extremism in the defense of Aaron Brooks is no vice?

JKool

Whodi, those examples were an attempt to understand your idea of a thief, not as a comparison to Sully.

NFL contracts do include playing clauses, incentives for meeting goals, and so on. However, the contract is to be a player on the team, nothing more.

Sullivan\'s contract is not to play, not to be a starter, not to be a good player - his contract is to be a Saint, period. Other clauses could be added, and if they were, I\'m sure Sully is not getting paid for them.

It is simply not the case that he is failing to do what he is contracted to do, namely be a Saint.

To answer your question, players are paid a lot of money to be on the team because the team believes they can really contribute something of value. However, the player is not contracted to do what the team believes they can do, they are contracted to be a player for that team. That is a risk the contracting team takes. Players negotiate their contract with the team - they do not merely take money from the team. A contract that hurts the team is as much (or more) the fault of the team than it is the player.

You can use words any way you like I suppose, but when you use them non-standardly, you can expect people to be confused. I am confused by your use of the word \"thief\". Literally speaking, Sully has stolen nothing. Metaphorically, I suppose I take your point - it is LIKE stealing to agree to do one thing and then not do it. However, it is only LIKE stealing, it is not stealing. Breaking a promise is not stealing; it is not thievery. It may be bad in the same sort of way, but that would require more analysis.

Is Cie Grant a thief? We pay him to be on IR. He is certainly not living up to his end of the contract. Is Stallworth a thief? We drafted him to be a #1 WR, not a #2 or #3.

I\'m really not making an argument here, I\'m just pointing out that you use the word thief rather oddly - thus, my somewhat odd response.

I understand, I think, what you are saying. However, you are not using the word literally. For this, there was some confusion.

If Sully were in breech of contract, I\'m sure we wouldn\'t hesitate to make him take a lesser contract or just let him go.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

Saint_LB

It\'s the people that he goes to extremes over that have me scratching my head :exclam:

saintswhodi

What we have here Kool is a difference of opinion. I am calling Sully a thief, not metaphorically, not any way but literally. HE is a thief.

If you say: I disagree 100000000000000%. You are saying Sully is just being paid to put on a Saints uniform. No way. I ain\'t buying. Using this logic, if a guy is paid simply to wear a uniform, nothing more nothing less, that goes for everyone in the league right? So why does Peyton Manning make more than Tim Rattay? They are both paid simply to wear a uniform right? Do you get paid more simply to wear a Colts uniform? Or is Peyton getting paid what he does because of what he does on the field? I can guarantee he did not get a 35 mil signign bonus and the highest contract ever for a QB to \"be a Colt.\" Back to our team, why does Sully make more than Howard Green? Not cause he looks better in a uniform, but because they sacrficed to get him and paid him what that sacrifice was worth to HELP this team. Players are drafted and paid to help the team they play for, not just to wear a uniform. I am having a hard time believing that you actually believe that is all they are paid for.

You are saying a player is paid to wear a team uniform, and whether or not they perform is secondary and that is unbelievable to me. We traded up to 6th to get Sully to help this team, not to wear 97 on the bench. You don\'t commit the dollars they are committing to Sully as a number 6 pick for him to \"be a Saint.\" That\'s bull. I have never once heard Haslett say, \"well, we are just happy Sully is wearing that uniform. That\'s why we traded up for him and made him the 6th pick in the draft, just so he could wear a uniform.\" I will bet right now you have never heard any coach in the league in the history of the NFL EVER say they brought in a player, whether through the draft or as a free agent just to \"be a person on that team.\" If they bring in a player, it is to help the team. I am sorry Kool. I know you wanna disagree with me, and that\'s your right, but that is absurd. Peyton Manning did not get a 35 mil signing bonus and the highest contract for a QB ever to \"be a Colt.\" He got that money to lead his team to the Superbowl. We did not draft and pay Sully to \"be a Saint,\" we drafted and paid him to help our run defense not be last in the league, and he has failed miserably. If you don\'t wanna call him a thief, don\'t, I and others do. But don\'t try to tell me he is paid to simply \"be a Saint.\" If that was the case, why are people mad at him? Why is the team mad at him? Why was he inactive? If his only duty for 11.5 million dollars is to \"be a Saint?\" Why do we boo players if their only job is to \"be a Saint?\" Shouldn\'t we be happy simply enough they are making millions of dollars to wear a uniform, and performing at a high level is secondary to just \"being a Saint?\"

Honestly Kool, no matter how you present that argument, I will never buy it. I respect the hell out of what you say, but telling me any player is paid millions of dollars simply to \"be a Saint\" is pretty ridiculous in my mind. Not you, that argument. In that logic, Mayberry is paid not to help our offensive line, but to \"be a Saint?\" Same with Smith. He is paid to \"be a Saint,\" not to help our secondary. All the players we drafted, we should not expect them to help the team no matter how much they make caus ethey are paid simply to \"be Saints.\" Uh-uh. No way.

BrooksMustGo

I\'m not sure why we are arguing the fine points of theft on a thread that looks to me like:
a means of propping up Brooks
by doing a hatchet job on McPherson
by equating him to Sullivan
whom everyone universally reviles.

But here goes, I\'m guessing that Sullivan signed his contract in Louisiana and that Louisiana law applies. So I pulled this out of the Louisiana criminal code.

Ok, so on the first part of the statute we fail. Sullivan had the consent of the Saints when he signed the contract. They weren\'t deprived of the signing bonus without their consent.

On the second part of the statute, we have a maybe. Maybe Sullivan misappropriated the signing bonus by fraud. So now we have to think of \"fraud\". Black\'s calls \" fraud--a knowing misrepresentation of the truth or concealment of a material fact to induce another to act to his or her detriment.\"

I\'ll give a nice example of how this might work in the NFL. Josh Heupel, QB from Oklahoma was signed by the Dolphins. The Dolphins later waived Heupel after a wrist injury became evident during the pre-season. I want to think that the Dolphins later tried to recover whatever money they had paid Heupel. Their theory was that Heupel went into the draft with the wrist injury and had willfully hidden that fact from the Fins. Don\'t know what ever became of the issue, but the Fins\' action was based on the idea that Heupel had hidden that he was physically unable to perform.

Now in the present case, no one has ever challenged that Sullivan is incapable physically of being a dominant player. The problem has always been desire/discipline. Haslett has frequently said that he wished Sullivan were the player that he saw at Georgia. It seems to me that while Sullivan is a fat, lazy sack of steaming monkiey- carp, he is capable of being an NFL starter. Seems like he doesn\'t meet the concealment of a material fact that triggered detrimental reliance from the Saints.

It doesn\'t look to me like Sullivan was running a criminal scam designed to sucker the Saints into drafting him and paying an exhorbitant signing bonus. Since we\'re using the word \"thief\" then we need to realize we are talking about criminal liability here.

So I think that Sullivan\'s actions fail on the \"fraudulent misappropriation\" prong of the statute too. It seems more likely that the statute was written with things in mind like phone scams designed to get old people to give out Social Security Numbers, or posing as a valet outside a parking garage. Sullivan was posing as a football player to try and work for a football team.

This is the key distinction. Sullivan is certainly a carpy football player, but he is a football player nontheless. Sullivan played football for a major college program. Sullivan went through the entire pre-draft process/workouts, Sullivan was unquestionably a top 5 prospect at DT, a position on a football team. The Saints were looking to hire a football player, and they did.

So with the 2 prongs of the Louisiana theft statute covered, we need to think about Sullivan\'s intent. This is kind of a moot point, but I\'m going to go all the way through it. It could be that Sullivan intended to sign a big money deal, play like carp and then fade into obscurity on his 1 big paycheck. That is possible, but I think if you\'re trying to prove intent \"beyond reasonable doubt\" as you would have to do in criminal liability, then it will be tough sledding.

A much more plausible theory is that Sullivan didn\'t realize how much harder the competition would be, how much more effort is required to be a starting DT in the pros and how much harder those Offensive linemen and RBs hit in the pros. I think you have a hard task in proving the necessary intent to prove theft under Louisiana statute.

Lastly, in order to prosecute theft, the ball gets rolling, by someone filing a complaint with the local prosecuting attorney. I don\'t see Benson going by the Jefferson Parish DA\'s office to file a complaint and I don\'t see the DA taking the case. Any hope the Saints would have of ever recovering their money from Sullivan is in a civil action and I doubt they would succeed there either.

So even though Sullivan is a worthless, lazy, infuriating, pile of steaming, stinking, monkey- carp. He is no thief.

http://www.blackandgold.net/site/signature/buddysig.jpg

JOESAM2002

Well, the least he could do is wear a mask when he picks up his check!

saintswhodi

I appreciate your effort BMG, but why is this so hard to understand? I am calling Sullivan a thief. If ANYONE disagrees, have at it. Fine by me, DON\'T call him a thief. Kudos. But if I wanna call him a thief, I can do just that. Ignore it if you want. A player who got picked as a top 6 pick in an NFL draft and does not even have the decency to be in shape, show respect to the team, even pretend to care by making statements like \"11.5,\" is in my mind a thief. I don\'t care about penal codes(no jokes please), statutes, legal rhetoric or any of it. Sullivan is a thief TO ME. Means he doesn\'t have to be a thief to anyone else BUT ME. So arguing the merits of whether he is or isn\'t a thief isn\'t gonna change that in my mind one iota. Again, TO ME, Sullivan is a thief, and a fat lazy one at that. Call him whatever you like, this is what I am calling him. HE is taking a paycheck and not performing the job he is paid for, he also has a weight clause in his contract that he is not meeting, so every Monday when he gets his check IN MY MIND it is theft. If you don\'t agree, I ahve no problem with that. But don\'t try to convince me of what I should and shouldn\'t be able to call a player, if that\'s how I see it. If I am at work and I see a co-worker not doing their job and goofing off all day but cashing that check on Fridays, I am gonna call them a thief too. Guess that comes from being in the military, where if you weren\'t doing your job you were stealing from Uncle Sam. Just, if you don\'t wanna call Sully a thief, fine. I applaud you. But I do.

I mean, if I wanted to call him a steaming pile a poo, would that generate the argument that a steaming pile of poo is actually smaller and different in color than Sullivan, has a different consistency and hopefully a different smell(though I have no proof of this last one). Also that Sullivan was not excreted from the bowels of animal or human(again no proof) and will not dry out and decompose and act as fertilizer? Jeez.

Euphoria

I can go along with the thief theory. You get paid to play, if you don\'t contribute then you are essentially taking money and not doing your part. He doesn\'t care, for whatever reasons he just doesn\'t care to play football. He doesn\'t have heart, he is an ass, he doesn\'t have honesty nor integrity, all he does have is 300 pounds of fat taking up space on this planet.

GumboBC

I go to extremes? Yeah, okay.

But, if I do go to extremes then maybe it\'s because some of you guys go to EXTREMES.

Calling Sullivan a \"thief\" is one heck of an extreme statement.

And it\'s not true nor is it justified.

Whatever yalls definition is of a \"thief\", it\'s much different than mine.

You guys call Sullivan a thief and I\'m the one making extreme statement?

Here\'s the definition of thief:

Albert Connel is a theif. What Adrian McPhearson did was stealing.

All Sullivan has been guility of doing is being lazy and unmotivated.

I\'m such the \"extremist\".