“It’s easy to make that statement. But what would you have done? Even today, there are still many unanswered questions surrounding the science of concussion. How much was known about the effects of concussions in 1965 or 1980? How many guys get their bells rung then want to go right back in the game?”

That was the case at the time they were playing the game. What I haven’t seen is much in the way of sympathy from the Players Union for the players that built the league. A lot of the old-time players got denied medical benefits from the Players Union. Ironically enough, Dave Duerson as a member of the NFLPA’s board turned down hundreds of requests for the old time players to get help, when he was suffering himself from some of the same ailments.

Gene Upshaw’s Players Union did more for the owners than they did for the players.

10 years from now this blowhard will be suing the league because they didn’t do enough to protect his health.

DON’T PLAY FOOTBALL!

It’s easy to make that statement. But what would you have done? Even today, there are still many unanswered questions surrounding the science of concussion. How much was known about the effects of concussions in 1965 or 1980? How many guys get their bells rung then want to go right back in the game?

This is football, you are going to get hurt if you play the sport. Prevent it? There isnt a condom for that, if you play, you will get hurt! Am I wrong?

Even the NFL promoted big hits with “NFL Greatest Hits” videos it used to sell before it got weak-kneed. BSPN sold it with its “Jacked Up” bits on Sunday AM broadcasts. Go to YouTube and look at “NFL Greatest Hits”, there’s half a million hits on the videos. Fans love hitting, and they love big-time hitting. Tell me, Goodell apologists: What do you do when you see the opposing team’s loud-mouthed receiver get smoked the one time he goes over the middle?

And it’s a joke listening to Goodell talk about “safety of the players” when its really a cover for “please dismiss those class action lawsuits.” If the NFL and the Players Association had done something for the medical needs of the players who had broken up their bodies for the NFL and our entertainment from1965 to 2000, these lawsuits wouldn’t have much in the way of credibility.

I get it, there were no verifiable injuries due to this “system” and there and Vilma was likely punished more for lying than for anything he actually did. I get it. But I also get that he did the same thing Greg Williams did and that dude got suspended for at least a full year. I also get that I don’t particularly want a sport where bounties are tolerated.

I love my NFL football fast and I want to hear a lot of pounding, crunching, smashing hits, but they should be legal and they should be untainted by the promise of a little additional spending money… which is what $20,000 is to these guys.

And @eeeeeeetme… my guess is your knees have dropped more than a few times.

“Anyone not disturbed by the Gregg Williams audio and participants in the Saints bounty program must have a few loose screws. I’m not crying for Payton, Williams, or Vilma.”

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Pastabelly,

For all of the “talk” of Gregg Williams, the entire Saints Defense took it for what it was, just “talk” before a game. They did not act on it at all.

The Saints Defense, and Offense for that matter, played the entire game without a single illegal or dirty hit and didn’t even have a single penalty called against them.

Not One Penalty!

They Saints played a Clean Game.

Something Roger Goodell has failed to do.

The hitter thinks things are getting soft and complains, but it is not the guy getting hit on offense that complains.

I hate the whining from Defensive guys who call upon to be like it was back in some long forgotten time when they could basically assault other players and nothing would happen.

Vilma couldn’t be punished for lying because the NFL never spoke to them.

Eventually the ‘co-op’ will stop making sense the farther and farther they have to go to get boys to play. Then what? One less school that has football. Eventually another will drop football, too. And then another. And another. And so on.

Unless they make the sport safer it is very likely to go away. None of us want that.

This is not correct. Hargrove was suspended partially for lying. The NFL did not interview Vilma or Smith, and apparently didn’t even request to in Vilma’s case until after they told the world that they were guilty. In Vilma’s case, it was he who offered an interview in March, after the charges, and then backed away, almost certainly at the request of the NLFPA. They accused Vilma and Smith have having leadership roles in the program, not lying. They couldn’t be punished for lying because the NFL never spoke to them.

It is kind of frustrating to watch people get the facts that are out there wrong so frequently, then hear people saying that we don’t need more evidence that these penalties were justified.

I mean, really, are you people that dense? They broke the rules. What part of that don’t you understand? So nobody actually got hurt so it doesn’t matter, right? Well, if you just beamed down from planet moron that reasoning works, I guess.

Let me try to get it through your thick heads another way, k?

I finally decide I’ve had enough of my boss and decide to have a hit put on him. A friend of a friend gets me in touch with a hitman who says he’ll do the hit for X amount of dollars. Problem is the hit never takes place. Maybe the hitman is an informant. Or maybe the friend turns me in. The point is using Briggs’ and the morons who post here rationale I get away with it because I ‘did nothing wrong’ because, well, my boss didn’t die.

It’s the same dang thing, people. Just because the Saints didn’t succeed in putting someone out of the game on a stretcher doesn’t mean they didn’t TRY to by putting bounties on them. The sooner some of you actually realize that there was still wrong done despite actual injuries taking place the sooner the world will have a few less idiots in it.

I do have to say I am for the punishments of the Saint or former Saint players but Briggs makes some very valid points. The only thing I’ll disagree with is him saying that all the hits were legal. That isn’t true. However players can get hurt whether or not hits are illegal.
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The high/low is one of the few illegal hits they show when talking about “Bountygate”. Funny that they almost always include a few hits from the Niners playoff game in which the Saints weren’t flagged for so much as an offsides.

It started with purposefully altering the rules to benefit offenses to improve ratings. And now this.

I’d love an effort to improve player safety that wasn’t rooted in avoiding lawsuits, money and bolstering offenses. It’s not genuine.

Except it’s not clean because when you intentionally attack a specific body part with the intention of injuring that player it’s dirty.
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how many people were carted off when they played the saints? … Reggie Bush?
Compare that to Jared Allen taking out Matt Schaub’s knee or the Giants D taking out a couple QBs in 2010…. idk what point I’m trying to make but ….blah!

He stomped his arm, not his head. You must be so proud for surviving your mother’s back ally coat hanger abortion attempt.

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Unbelievable that pft would approve trash to post trash like this.

Stallworth wasn’t the only one that got of easy. Anybody remember Leonard Little of the Rams?

So I’m tired of hearing how “Vilma got off easy”. He got screwed!