Why would you remind someone one that you’re the reason for why they are even in the NFL if you weren’t trying to subtly threaten their career if they don’t deny it. What is there to even deny if they’re not doing anything wrong?

NFL just needs to release all the evidence at this point. It’s getting out of hand and too many people are concerned with semantics than they are with the fact that these guys denied, covered up & apologized for something.

The top team penalized was Oakland with 84.9 yards per game average. Tenn/SF/Arizona/Tampa/Carolina/Seattle/& Detroit were all in the 60′s per game and N.O. ranked 9th lowest from the bottom with a low of only 48.3 Y/per game.
Get real and do your homework before opening your mouth of which you know nothing about.

I admire your faith in cooperate institutions like the NFL. I mean if you run a multi billion dollar cooperation you would never do anything stupid. Just think of the great banking cooperations that dotting their i’s and crossed their t’s when they deposited all the bailout checks we gave them.

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Good point Viking, but…… I’ll stick with the assumption that with all that dough, Goodell and friends will hire the best counsel money can buy. (One would hope they would be smarter than the bankers.)

You want a fact? The Saints were the most penalized team for safety-related penalties during the bounty seasons. I wonder why.

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That is a completely untrue statement.

It should be kept confidential from the general public, sure, I’ll buy that. But there’s no way that it should be kept confidential from the suspended players. Again, I know that this is not a court proceeding, but the right to face your accuser and the right to review of the evidence against you is a basic tenet of not just the law, but of fairness.

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Didn’t the players have a chance to meet with the commissioner before the suspensions, but refused? That would have been the time to hear the evidence against them and respond to it. They chose not to cooperate and now have to suffer the consequences of those actions.

Showing the players all the evidence is the same as going public. You don’t really think the players and coaches wouldn’t tell the rest of the league who “ratted” them out?

It should be kept confidential from the general public, sure, I’ll buy that. But there’s no way that it should be kept confidential from the suspended players. Again, I know that this is not a court proceeding, but the right to face your accuser and the right to review of the evidence against you is a basic tenet of not just the law, but of fairness.

Clearly, something was going on. But despite the protests of some of the more legally challenged posters, “We all KNOW what was going on!” is not actually evidence.

There are confessions and evidence of a pay-for-performance program. But where is the evidence of the more severe offense of a bounty program for injury? Where is the evidence that Hargrove participated in the alleged program? Not in his affidavit.

The league is making too many inferences and suppositions to satisfy a level of certainty consistent with the severe punishment it has doled out. And if their case is as solid as they say, why not release the evidence to the accused? I know it’s not court, but seems pretty suspicious if they won’t.

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I don’t find anything wrong with them not releasing evidence. A lot of the evidence is testimony from players and coaches. There had to be some promise of confidentiality for the players and coaches to admit what was going on. If there is no confidentiality, coaches would be blacklisted and never get another job in football, and players would be treated like “scabs” that crossed the picket line. If there is evidence that doesn’t implicate a player or coach as the “source”, it should be released. If it would implicate someone, it should be kept confidential.

Your are from Georgia so I understand your confusion. I’m not sure I can dumb this down enough for you, but I’ll try. Everything stated is implied (a dictionary may help with the big words). The Williams quote you cherry picked says it. It is a pronoun. Pronouns have antecedents, we need to know the antecedent to the pronoun to have clear facts. We assume that the antecedent is bounty, but no direct fact. Do you no the real meaning of assume? The harshest penalties the NFL has ever handed out to players deserves clear evidence not guess work.

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If you aren’t intelligent enough to be able to draw the correct conclusion from what he said without him saying the word “bounty”, there really isn’t much I can do to help you. It ‘s like when Jason Giambo apologized without saying he actually used steroids. I guess you were probably one of the few who would say he didn’t use because he didn’t explicitly say “I used steroids”.

To borrow a phrase I heard Colin Cowherd say, “you’re born with an IQ and there is nothing that can be done about it”.

Clearly, something was going on. But despite the protests of some of the more legally challenged posters, “We all KNOW what was going on!” is not actually evidence.

There are confessions and evidence of a pay-for-performance program. But where is the evidence of the more severe offense of a bounty program for injury? Where is the evidence that Hargrove participated in the alleged program? Not in his affidavit.

The league is making too many inferences and suppositions to satisfy a level of certainty consistent with the severe punishment it has doled out. And if their case is as solid as they say, why not release the evidence to the accused? I know it’s not court, but seems pretty suspicious if they won’t.

shzastl says:

@neilnixon – agree with everything you write except the part about draft picks. It is pretty obvious the reason the NFL took away the picks is because that is the only practical way to meaningfully punish a team and deter others. If it’s just a fine, other teams might look at that and do the same thing because these teams have billions of dollars and a huge fine doesn’t really sting. Losing draft picks does.
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Thanks for your comments, but you state that it’s “pretty obvious” why the NFL took away draft picks. Obvious to whom? Like the rest of their actions regarding “Bounty Gate” they haven’t explained any of their actions. Why did Payton get more time than Vitt or Loomis? Why did Hargrove get 8 games and Fujita 3??? There is no stated logic or explanation.

You say they took away draft picks as a deterrent, but don’t you think banning a head coach for a year, a key assistant for six games , a GM for half of a season, and three players at a loss of million a dollars (indeed punishments that were by far the harshest ever laid down in NFL history and far worse than any of the so-called experts/prognosticators predicted) is enough of a deterrent?

Taking away draft choices that hurts the team’s future on-field performance is of no deterrent to Payton, Loomis, Vitt, Vilma, etc., especially in comparison to their suspensions and loss of salaries. To me, it only shows definitively how Goodell is petty and totally un-caring to Saints fans who didn’t have anything to do with this yet are still being asked to pay full price for tickets.

My analogy is this: If your kid was suspended for “bad actions” at school, would it be fair to garnish the parent’s future wages??
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Bad analogy. It’s not just “the kids” misbehaving here. It’s the players and the coaches, with the GM helping to cover it up. So, you have all three levels misbehaving (players, coaching staff, front office). A much better analogy would be college football, where the NCAA would call this a complete lack of institutional control. The Saints organization is responsible for what those in the organization do, especially when you’re talking about multiple coaches and the GM. That being the case, the loss of draft picks is appropriate if you believe the charges. The Pats lost a first round pick for spygate, and that didn’t involve plotting to injure players or any attempt to lie to the league. The Saints lost two 2nd round picks simply because the lacked a 1st round pick to take this year. Two 2s is pretty much fair trade value for a 1.

Budgrant is now the grammar policy
Grammar policy alert total loser checks grammar instead of content. Hahaha.

I admire your faith in cooperate institutions like the NFL. I mean if you run a multi billion dollar cooperation you would never do anything stupid. Just think of the great banking cooperations that dotting their i’s and crossed their t’s when they deposited all the bailout checks we gave them.

vikingamericann says: May 7, 2012 6:13 PM
“Your are from Georgia so I understand your confusion. Do you no the real meaning of assume?”

@neilnixon – agree with everything you write except the part about draft picks. It is pretty obvious the reason the NFL took away the picks is because that is the only practical way to meaningfully punish a team and deter others. If it’s just a fine, other teams might look at that and do the same thing because these teams have billions of dollars and a huge fine doesn’t really sting. Losing draft picks does.
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Thanks for your comments, but you state that it’s “pretty obvious” why the NFL took away draft picks. Obvious to whom? Like the rest of their actions regarding “Bounty Gate” they haven’t explained any of their actions. Why did Payton get more time than Vitt or Loomis? Why did Hargrove get 8 games and Fujita 3??? There is no stated logic or explanation.

You say they took away draft picks as a deterrent, but don’t you think banning a head coach for a year, a key assistant for six games , a GM for half of a season, and three players at a loss of million a dollars (indeed punishments that were by far the harshest ever laid down in NFL history and far worse than any of the so-called experts/prognosticators predicted) is enough of a deterrent?

Taking away draft choices that hurts the team’s future on-field performance is of no deterrent to Payton, Loomis, Vitt, Vilma, etc., especially in comparison to their suspensions and loss of salaries. To me, it only shows definitively how Goodell is petty and totally un-caring to Saints fans who didn’t have anything to do with this yet are still being asked to pay full price for tickets.

My analogy is this: If your kid was suspended for “bad actions” at school, would it be fair to garnish the parent’s future wages??

“It was a terrible mistake, and we knew it was wrong while we were doing it,” Williams said. “Instead of getting caught up in it, I should have stopped it. I take full responsibility for my role. I am truly sorry. I have learned a hard lesson and I guarantee that I will never participate in or allow this kind of activity to happen again.”

You want to call people doofuses for believing there was a bounty program? The guy who started it and ran it has admitted to it. The only “doofuses” are those who actually still believe it didn’t happen. How much more proof do you need than Williams admitting it?

Your are from Georgia so I understand your confusion. I’m not sure I can dumb this down enough for you, but I’ll try. Everything stated is implied (a dictionary may help with the big words). The Williams quote you cherry picked says it. It is a pronoun. Pronouns have antecedents, we need to know the antecedent to the pronoun to have clear facts. We assume that the antecedent is bounty, but no direct fact. Do you no the real meaning of assume? The harshest penalties the NFL has ever handed out to players deserves clear evidence not guess work.

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This post shows exactly why the NFL should not release their evidence. This not a situation where you have DNA or someone with a hidden microphone recording conversations (other than the before the 49er game). The evidence is going to be multiple players and coaches admitting to the league what happened. The one statement that is out there and the guy is called a snitch. If any coaches admitted to it and gave information to the league, they would be blacklisted from getting any future coaching jobs. Players may be targeted for being a “snitch”. I would bet the players and coaches we told by the league that their statements would be confidential.

“I want to express my sincere regret and apology to the NFL, Mr. Benson, and the New Orleans Saints fans for my participation in the ‘pay for performance’ program while I was with the Saints. It was a terrible mistake, and we knew it was wrong while we were doing it. Instead of getting caught up in it, I should have stopped it. I take full responsibility for my role. I am truly sorry. I have learned a hard lesson and I guarantee that I will never participate in or allow this kind of activity to happen again.”

He does not confess to bounties, he confesses to a “pay for performance” program, which many players have fessed up to. There is a difference.

It should also be repeated that this “confession” was written by the league (reported first by Dan Patrick), after they determined his initial statement wasn’t contrite enough.

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Booker – I found the quote at Fox News, via the AP, so I will conveniently blame them for half the quote. (apparently they don’t want the link on here…)

And I have no doubt the confession was written for him – I doubt that he’s sorry at all… only sorry that he got caught. And, yes, I believe he got caught coaching much more than ‘pay for performance’. The NFL doesn’t do anything without crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s.

“I want to express my sincere regret and apology to the NFL, Mr. Benson, and the New Orleans Saints fans for my participation in the ‘pay for performance’ program while I was with the Saints. It was a terrible mistake, and we knew it was wrong while we were doing it. Instead of getting caught up in it, I should have stopped it. I take full responsibility for my role. I am truly sorry. I have learned a hard lesson and I guarantee that I will never participate in or allow this kind of activity to happen again.”

He does not confess to bounties, he confesses to a “pay for performance” program, which many players have fessed up to. There is a difference.

It should also be repeated that this “confession” was written by the league (reported first by Dan Patrick), after they determined his initial statement wasn’t contrite enough.