Would that work for you Drew? This way everyone gets penalized and scum like you don’t get away with lying like you did when you claimed to not know anything about it!

1) “First one’s on me” 2) “”It was a terrible mistake,” Williams said in a statement Friday night shortly after the NFL released the report. “And we knew it was wrong while we were doing it.”

3) Williams quote to NFL investigators that they were, “rolling the dice with player safety and someone could have been maimed.”

4) The picture of Dog the Bounty hunter on internal documentation and the word “bounty” and COLLECTING it on internal documentation.

5) No matter how you slice it, when you watch the video of Joe Vitt talking about Favre possibly getting CARTed OFF, what was the player’s expectation if that was the case? He said it loud and clear. To get paid. Period.

If Joe Vitt was so cowed by the NFL and in fear of reprisal, why would he be stupid enough to offer to take a lie detector test and openly and publicly question Goodell’s decision? I don’t hate the Saints. I’m a Giants fan and my team won the SB.

It seems Saints fans like to talk about the lack of payouts but not the offers that were made in the first place. If you offer a hitman money to kill someone, but they don’t do it, are you going to jail for offering? Yep you are.

Lastly, Fujita tries to minimize everything, but his own words set off my BS meter loud and clear –

a) He admits Williams made some innappropriate offers

b) He says he didn’t participate in a “bounty” program, but he did contribute money to a pay-for-performace pool. We are expected to believe that pool did not offer payouts to “cart offs”. Let me illustrate why asking us to believe this is more than a little disingenuous. If you you put in money for a lottery pool for the powerball lottery and one of the tickets wins, but not your ticket exactly, what is your expectation? Isn’t it that you expect a share of the winnings? That’s the whole idea of a money pool. Once you put your money in, you’re in no matter what. The documentation form the team (via team pc’s) had a ledger item for “cartoffs”. Goodell didn’t edit the documentation, your team wrote it. If Fujita, put money in and he admitted that he did, then part of his money was offered for cartoffs. Period. The fact that nobody get paid for one doesn’t excuse the fact that it was offered as an incentive in the first place.

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I will answer all of your questions and then i will ask you a few questions.
answers:
1. First one’s on me is probably referring to a fine that a player might receive when he hits Alex Smith. Is it wrong? Yes. Is it a bounty? No. Does it go on all over the league? Probably.
2. It was a terrible mistake because any type of pay for performance is against the rules. This still doesnt prove they were “targeting” opponents. It just means that pay for performance is against the rules. Williams admits it was a mistake.
3. You roll the dice on player safety every time you take the field. Nothing in any of the NFL’s evidence shows that the Saints were playing dirty. Their entire pay for performance program was designed to reward players for good plays that were within the rules of the game. Big hits are celebrated as good plays by every team in the league. Thats part of playing defense, and has been a part of football since day 1.
4. The picture of Dog the Bounty hunter was a motivational slide. Nothing more. Gregg Williams also used a slide of an F-18 fighter jet. Does that mean he is planning an air strike against his opponent? Is he secretly plotting an attack using the Air Force? Come on man.
5. The players were happy that Favre was out of the game and for good reason. It was the NFC Championship game. Most of us believe Ayodele said give me my money. But wait a minute.. Ayodele wasnt the one who hurt Favre’s ankle. Mccray was. So if this program was designed to intentionally hurt opponents, then why would Ayodele get paid? McCray is the one who rolled on his ankle. This just further proves the point that there was not really a “bounty” on Favre, but it was simply just the pay for performance program that paid for “cart-offs.” Favre was not necessarily “targeted” but he was injured due to a legal football play.

If you go back to March 2nd, the day the NFL released it’s initial findings, you will see many flaws in the NFL’s “evidence”. The NFL punished the Saints based off of ALL of those findings. But when ou look at those findings today, 75% were found to be not true, not credible, and some are just plain ridiculous.

As a Saints fan, i am not happy with what my team has done, but i am also not happy with the way the NFL has handled this whole mess. So now here are the questions i will ask you, and i will remind you again that we were punished for ALL of these reasons. Now you tell me if you believe the punishments should stay the exact same way the are right now, even though the NFL’s findings are not the exact same as what is really the truth.

1. The NFL claims the Saints “targeted” Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton and Kurt Warner. There has been no evidence shown for targeting Warner. The other 2 are based off of the Ornstein emails, which are clear to everbody to be a joke. The dude was in prison for crying out loud.
2. The NFL claims the ledger proves that Vilma contributed 10k to knock Favre out. Well heres the thing.. that same ledger also has Joe Vitt’s name on it. The NFL acknowledged that Vitt was never accused of contributing money. Ok so then what the hell is that ledger talking about? The ledger loses any credibility just due to that fact alone.
3. The NFL stated in their initial findings that the ledger that was leaked out and then revised, “confirms” that Saints players were paid for injuring opponents. But when you look back at the games the ledger is referring to, none of it matches up.
4. The NFL claimed that Harper got paid for knocking Jacobs out of a game, but watch the tape, Harper didnt even make the hit. Sharper did.

The list goes on and on. The NFL has screwed this up royally. So now i ask you, since the NFL punished the Saints based off of their initial findings, and now that it has been proven that their initial findings are barely even halfway correct, dont you think the punishments should be reduced?

Common sense tells me yes.

What about the report with a player saying “sometimes people were injured (and we got paid)”. Guess that’s convenient to ignore, like everything Brees was involved in with Pamphilon he’s covering up.

This is the woosification of America at its finest. All these players now criticizing the game and saying they would not allow their sons to play the game are hypocrites. This is very easy to say – after they have made their millions. Their sons don’t NEED to play the game, as their families have made their money off the game already.

You can make the game safer to an extent, but the main thing that will make it safer for the long-term health of the players is the length of their careers. NFL careers of in excess of 10+ years are more the issue in my mind than a bounty scheme that lacks video evidence of almost any truly dirty hits.

Brees, meanwhile, has drawn his line in the sand in a much odder place, questioning from the beginning whether there were ever bounties at all. Thus, he’s left with implausible explanations for the coaches admitting their guilt. Why he hasn’t simply adopted the union stance (the union he’s a leader of, by the way) remains a mystery. Perhaps it is pure ego and he cannot bring himself to admit his team did anything wrong. Whatever the reason, he’s becoming a laughingstock.

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Interesting take on things. OK then since the rest of us are all deluded please explain the following:

1) “First one’s on me”
2) “”It was a terrible mistake,” Williams said in a statement Friday night shortly after the NFL released the report. “And we knew it was wrong while we were doing it.”

3) Williams quote to NFL investigators that they were, “rolling the dice with player safety and someone could have been maimed.”

4) The picture of Dog the Bounty hunter on internal documentation and the word “bounty” and COLLECTING it on internal documentation.

5) No matter how you slice it, when you watch the video of Joe Vitt talking about Favre possibly getting CARTed OFF, what was the player’s expectation if that was the case? He said it loud and clear. To get paid. Period.

If Joe Vitt was so cowed by the NFL and in fear of reprisal, why would he be stupid enough to offer to take a lie detector test and openly and publicly question Goodell’s decision? I don’t hate the Saints. I’m a Giants fan and my team won the SB.

It seems Saints fans like to talk about the lack of payouts but not the offers that were made in the first place. If you offer a hitman money to kill someone, but they don’t do it, are you going to jail for offering? Yep you are.

Lastly, Fujita tries to minimize everything, but his own words set off my BS meter loud and clear –

a) He admits Williams made some innappropriate offers

b) He says he didn’t participate in a “bounty” program, but he did contribute money to a pay-for-performace pool. We are expected to believe that pool did not offer payouts to “cart offs”. Let me illustrate why asking us to believe this is more than a little disingenuous. If you you put in money for a lottery pool for the powerball lottery and one of the tickets wins, but not your ticket exactly, what is your expectation? Isn’t it that you expect a share of the winnings? That’s the whole idea of a money pool. Once you put your money in, you’re in no matter what. The documentation form the team (via team pc’s) had a ledger item for “cartoffs”. Goodell didn’t edit the documentation, your team wrote it. If Fujita, put money in and he admitted that he did, then part of his money was offered for cartoffs. Period. The fact that nobody get paid for one doesn’t excuse the fact that it was offered as an incentive in the first place.

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This would be funny, of course all the players would get cut, not picked up and loss a boat load of money. The Saints would get “scabs” and the NFL would move on. So I guess the only pocket book getting crunched would be the players. Four players are being punished and mostly minor punishments, it’s not about the “penalties” that were called, it’s about a the team/players having an organized system around the rules/spirit of the game. Play hard, but fair. Get a grip. Oh and I’m sure that Vilma will be filing a law suit for concussion issues here in about 10 years, mark it down now.

How about earlier in your discussion when an unnamed player on your sidelines said “give me my money”. It doesn’t matter whether it was Hargrove or not; someone still said it

This also leads to thousands of part time employees losing their jobs.

Do a google search on “drew brees charity work” and peruse the results. Taking up for his teammates and coaches is what a leader should do. I’ll bet he is in the top three in the league amongst players on the amount of time he donates and money he raises for great causes.

So now we see exactly what happens when, in the course of last years CBA negotiations, the emphasis is put on money and time off, instead of equal doses of due process…in the event of disagreements !

And remember this….it is a long time until the next CBA……
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And I am sure the people who keep saying, “You signed the CBA, so shut up” would have been the first to back the players taking a firm stand on this “Commissioner” provision if it meant cancelling last year’s season. Yeah, right.

Think about it really, what are defensive players “paid” to do anyway?? Knock the ever living pi$$ out of the other guy, regardless if he gets up or not.

It’ll never happen but I think it would be just hillarious if on opening game the Saints players come out in solidarity and refuse to play this year… “F” Goodell and the league right in the pocket book. Then the game would get back to being for the players again in a big da.mn hurry.

At this point I think the people on this site who post assinine PRO-Saints comments are just doing it to convince themselves that the punishments are NOT justified. Let go of the BIAS and get a life. It’s just football and you haven’t seen the evidence, so there is no way that you can know so firmly that it is NOT true.
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That street runs both ways.
Just sayin.

Yes Brees has said quite a bit. Maybe too much. He still has the right to voice an opinion and it doesn’t change all the good he’s done off the field.

These players will stay suspended and we won’t stop hearing about it even after the first ball is kicked off. Goodell will get his way guilty or not.