The other reason to be quiet when in “exile” is that he can spin the story how he wants AFTER his return. Much can happen between now and then. Nothing he can say will be helpful to anyone until then.

Plus as a man of authority, he has to respect authority to keep his integrity.

Time off for good behavior is a good policy.

first, coaches have a much longer career life. payton’s been coaching since 1988, in the nfl since 1997 with a long career horizon. a year of a player’s career is much more of a penalty. vilma was 6 in 1988 and after 8 seasons at linebacker, has a very limited window in his career. Also, the concept that soldiers shouldn’t pay a heavier penalty than the generals…

secondly, the league called payton and loomis in on the issue a year earlier, with instructions to eliminate the system. this is what they are being hammered for. to my knowledge, vilma wasn’t part of that process.

and to the management tool denigrating unions, i would point out that america was functioning much better before big business bought the country and allowed itself the right to pay non-living wages and import illegal aliens (without consequence to the corporation) to man the jobs so distasteful and difficult that american workers would demand to be paid more than minimum wage to do.