Comments on: League’s offer to Vilma may implicitly concede Tagliabue’s conflict of interest

By: hor2012

hor2012 — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 18:29:44 +0000

justintuckrule

I assuming by your posting name that you’re a giants fan. And, you’re in no position at all to jump on a moral high horse especially sense the giants all but posted on the internet you plan to go after the 49ers punt returner in the playoffs.

By: f4phantom9277

f4phantom9277 — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 01:27:02 +0000

@FinFan68,

Payton must behave for Goodell, GW caved in to Goodell under pressure and with some animosity towards the Saints because people seem to forget that the Saints did not want him back before this sordid affair began….he was basically fired. GW knows that the only way he’ll ever coach again in the NFL (and he will…already 40% of the players across the league admit they would play for him now before the Bounty farce is totally exposed) is by admitting whatever Goodell wanted and he thought the Saints would take their lick and go with it. It hasn’t played out the way Goodell and GW thought it would. All the more reason I am proud of Vilma, Vitt, Brees, and the rest saying they were scapegoated.

By: FinFan68

FinFan68 — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 00:43:04 +0000

f4phantom9277 says:
Dec 10, 2012 5:37 PM
@FinFan68,

You are wrong about Payton’s suspension as he does have to be re-instated by Goodell….he is eligible after serving his year and it is dependent upon his conduct during (not attending college games, not contacting, etc) the suspension.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I didn’t realize he had to ask for reinstatement. I thought that was for GW only. I wasn’t trying to imply that Benson was happy with everything. The Benson stuff is purely speculation–on both sides. (Just like the whole bounty saga in general) I’m just saying that the sanctions seem a bit harsh and he hasn’t done anything as the owner. (Once the picks are gone you can’t get them back)

By: bgrab1

bgrab1 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 23:03:58 +0000

Look Benson is the NFL. He wants to handle this matter in a way that is not reckless that will bring damage to the league ie owners which he is one of 32. This is why I believe he will do his work behind the scene unlike Mr. Goodell the attention seeking hound. Benson will be heard from but not until the court has ruled.

By: usmutts

usmutts — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 23:00:35 +0000

If Tagliabue upholds Goodell’s punishments, which are not based on credible evidence, I hope Vilma (or, perhaps, Judge Berrigan) file ethics complaints against Tabliabue for his obvious conflicts of interests in agreeing to serve as an “impartial” arbitrator where one party is, in actual fact, his own boss from whom he and his partners derive significant income. This guy needs to have his license suspended, no matter how he rules, for knowingly engaging in such a crass conflict of interest.

By: f4phantom9277

f4phantom9277 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 22:37:45 +0000

@FinFan68,

You are wrong about Payton’s suspension as he does have to be re-instated by Goodell….he is eligible after serving his year and it is dependent upon his conduct during (not attending college games, not contacting, etc) the suspension. Never forget that Benson is in partnership with the other owners and has a huge stake in the league’s image also…..we have no idea what Benson knows as of yet. We do know that whatever his meeting with Goodell was about didn’t affect his loyalty to Payton and Loomis, nor his trust in them as Loomis was made GM of the Hornets also and he has openly said he would make Payton the highest paid coach upon his return……doesn’t sound much like Goodell intimidated Benson at all. More likely that Benson knows that keeping quiet about this and working on the inside will benefit the NFL more than confronting Goodell. Loomis may have more to say as this plays out with the wiretapping allegations that were thrown out during the media frenzy against the Saints.

By: snaxdsp

snaxdsp — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 22:33:01 +0000

Plain and simple…..if Goodell is found to have fabricated this whole ordeal, he should be removed from his position and himself banned from the NFL for conduct detrimental

By: FinFan68

FinFan68 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 21:21:14 +0000

@sb44champs,
What was that meeting about? You assume he went to complain to Goodell and maybe he did. Did he say anything afterward? Nope. If he believes his team was wronged, why hasn’t he said anything? He has nothing to fear from Goodell and Payton/Loomis suspensions were finite and do not require reinstatement. Is it possible he was shown the “evidence”? I am not saying he was shown anything at all but I believe that Benson knows that something happened and has decided to not fight it. Who knows, maybe there are some damaging things that have not been released. He did hire his own investigator and as far as I know, nothing has come of it. Maybe there is some exonerating evidence but I would think that his players would like to have it. There is a reason that Benson is not fighting any of this. Fear of the commish is probably not it.

By: bayouranch

bayouranch — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 20:50:22 +0000

The NFL needs to admit that Goodell is a Bonehead and give the Saints and Players whatever they want to drop the lawsuit against him. The evidence is lacking. Here say is obviously what Goodell uses in his court. Take the job of deciding punishment away from the Fool that is Goodell

By: bgrab1

bgrab1 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 20:49:19 +0000

Benson may actually be working behind the scene on this. He is not a publicity seeking Dictator like Roger Goodell. Benson has hired his own investigator to look into these alleged charges against the Saints. Believe me it will be large when Benson does decide to act.

By: sb44champs

sb44champs — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 20:31:56 +0000

FinFan68 says:
Dec 10, 2012 3:01 PM
justsayin973,
That is not completely accurate but whatever. What about Benson? Jones/Snyder threatened to sue the league while they were claiming to be wronged by the cap penalties. What has Benson said about this? –”I have been made aware of the NFL’s findings relative to the “Bounty Rule” and how it relates to our club. I have offered and the NFL has received our full cooperation in their investigation. While the findings may be troubling, we look forward to putting this behind us and winning more championships in the future for our fans.” — He has not tried to fight the sanctions in any way. He has not tried to help Payton or Loomis or the players. Nothing. Why?
=============================
Actually, Benson flew into NY and had a meeting with the commish on August 14th and, of course, it didn’t make a difference as GODell’s ego probably got in the way..

By: jetnotjets

jetnotjets — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 20:20:58 +0000

Meanwhile Dan Snyder is watching with great anticipation as he sees how this case is shaping up in favor of the players. He has to be drooling over the increased chance of gaining more cap room to add to the RGIII supporting cast. The Saints case is just the beginning. If the shield loses this first one, there are may more to come. And if the NFL starts losing multiple suits with monetary settlements, then Goodell is gone. That would be a great day for the NFL fans.

By: FinFan68

FinFan68 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 20:01:57 +0000

justsayin973,
That is not completely accurate but whatever. What about Benson? Jones/Snyder threatened to sue the league while they were claiming to be wronged by the cap penalties. What has Benson said about this? –”I have been made aware of the NFL’s findings relative to the “Bounty Rule” and how it relates to our club. I have offered and the NFL has received our full cooperation in their investigation. While the findings may be troubling, we look forward to putting this behind us and winning more championships in the future for our fans.” — He has not tried to fight the sanctions in any way. He has not tried to help Payton or Loomis or the players. Nothing. Why?

By: justsayin973

justsayin973 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 19:44:00 +0000

bucsnsincity …

You’re not hearing anything from Payton or Williams b/c there isn’t a coach’s union & coach’s contracts are subject to Goodell’s final approval. Williams is suspended indefinitely & Goodell is the only person who can lift the suspension so he’s kinda really @ Goodell’s mercy. Payton has a different fight in that a year after he signed his contract extension, Goodell decided to throw it & hasn’t granted permission for Payton’s agent & the Saints to negotiate a new one. Imagine his wrath if either decided to fight Goodell in a courtroom!!

By: bucsnsincity

bucsnsincity — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 19:23:13 +0000

I really don’t care who comes out on top, vilma or the nfl. The only thing I question is why vilma is the only one really fighting this… I haven’t heard anything from Payton and he actually served his suspension unlike vilma! Same goes for Williams.

By: kellij666

kellij666 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 18:29:00 +0000

the reason the league is now in a “no win situation” is because Goodell put them there. His arrogance and ego persuaded him to try and make an example of some when there was not enough proof they did anything wrong. just because some little weasel of a coach (childress)
“felt” there was a bounty on a qback (favre) does not make it so!!! the strategy for hitting favre that game is the same one i would have employed if i were the coach. if you hit a qback repeatedly, i don’t care how good he is, he’s gonna make mistakes. as i recall there was only 1 late hit penalty called. it’s the job of the officials to offficiate not Goodell’s. he didn’t like the outcome so he changed the overtime rule. now he wants to eliminate the kick off. a case can be made that he’s doing that, because without the second have kickoff in the superbowl where payton called an onsides kick and the saints recovered, they probably would not have won that game. just one more instance where he’s trying to make the saints pay. what an arrogant idiot.

By: mdd913

mdd913 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 18:26:54 +0000

Fans of all NFL teams should be furious at Goodell for this. What he did effectively destroyed the league’s competitive balance.

Look at it this way: Under Sean Payton the Saints have been a 13-3, 12-4 type of team. Suddenly without him they’re a 6-10 or 7-9 team. You’ve effectively neutered one of the league’s elite teams and its entire impact on the win-loss record of all the teams on its schedule. Combine that with the Seahawks fraudulent win over the Packers and you have an entire 2012 season that doesn’t reflect the true competitive balance of the league.

If I were a fan of a team that missed the playoffs by one game this year I would be absolutely livid, because the chances they missed out because of one of these two factors is substantial. Especially in the NFC.

By: ilovefoolsball

ilovefoolsball — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:47:16 +0000

I don’t see as many people championing the Great Goodell. I guess when things don’t go their way the cowards run away.

By: silentcount

silentcount — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:35:57 +0000

The bottom line is the punishment didn’t fit the crime. First and foremost, what the players do on the field is the main concern. What they supposedly say in a pre-game pep rally makes no difference, unless you record every team’s locker room tough talk and judge them all equally. Goodell over reacted by suspending the head coach, assistant coach and general manager, which had never been done before in the NFL, even for things that effected the outcome of the game. The focus has been on the player suspensions, but Sean Payton’s suspension was what needed to be fought, because of the effect it had on so many people who had nothing to do with Goodell’s bounty fabrication.

By: ultimatesaintsfan

ultimatesaintsfan — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:06:08 +0000

I wonder if all these legal battles open the floodgates to a classaction lawsuit for saintsfans (ticketholders) . That Roger Goodell wrongfully accused saints players of these actions and that the actions he took defamed the names of those player accused as well as distracted the whole organization and torpedo’d the Saint’s season, thus not allowing the Saints organization to put a worthy product out for the fans.

In otherwords can we the saints fans (ticketholders) find Goodell liable for tanking the Saint’s season?

By: chattanola

chattanola — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:50:25 +0000

The Commisioner’s mistake is two-fold. First, was to make accusations public. Second, was to single out a few specific players for suspensions. This soap opera wouldn’t be dragging on were it not for the players individually fighting back.

Hubris prevented Goodell from cutting his losses by simply making a magnanimous pronouncement that the administrators’ penalties would stand because they sanctioned prohibited activities, and that the players penalties would be rolled back with a stern warning that p4p programs would not be tolerated across the league.

But his need to trump the NFLPA probably got the best of him. Now we have a royal mess.

Power grab failure.

By: justsayin973

justsayin973 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:08:10 +0000

Was it a pay-for-pain or pay-for-performance program? That’s really the question here. Regardless of that answer, there’s a bigger issue Judge Ginger brought up that could potentially affect all 32 teams … Is the “conduct detrimental” clause in the CBA ambiguous & therefore unenforceable? If it’s determined that it is ambiguous & unenforceable, will the NFL have to return all fines collected under this clause? Will the NFL & NFLPA end up right back @ the bargaining table again?

By: ajb3313

ajb3313 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:51:15 +0000

At this point I don’t really care what the ultimate outcome is, I just want the story to go away.

By: johnster67

johnster67 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:36:36 +0000

Teh bigger issue, is if there is a finding that they Saints did no wrong, then what do they do about Payton, Williams, & Vitt. Each has had a monetary as well as public damage. The NFL is in a damned if they do, damned if they don’t situation. I dont’ see the difference in paying Ray Lewis big bucks under contract to level players and hurt players, vs what the Saints are accused of.

By: jchuber

jchuber — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:25:29 +0000

Hopefully, the bottom like will be that business entities like the NFL will be required to prove their cases via a court of law, and not some BS decision made by a hyprocritical boss, who doesn’t want to understand the word “justice”.

He said/she said testimony “CRAP” (like the bounty case) should never be used to justify anyones punishment, and anyone accused has the right to face their accuress in a court of law ( as opposed to corporate BS).

By: hor2012

hor2012 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:16:25 +0000

Ok, I said I wouldn’t post anything if it GW testified that Vilma put up money for a bounty program. I will go even further now. I won’t post anything again about this if GW stated that any money changed hands at all

By: bgrab1

bgrab1 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:08:01 +0000

The league will not stand a chance in a court of law. Not one chance, their window closes with Tags ruling. They have had enough time to get this right but instead are more interested in covering their own lies than doing right by the falsely accused. The Saints are guilty of running a pay for performance pool (So is every team in the NFL) The punishment did not fit the crime because the NFL needed to look tough against violence in the game (Even if that so called violence was a fabricated lie) because the league is about to loose their you know what in the concussion law suits.
This is damage control gone ugly. I just hope things dont get out of hand when Roger pays a visit to inner city New Orleans for the Super Bowl. He better call in the Military actually.

By: macbull

macbull — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:05:44 +0000

The Bounty Case that Roger Goodell and the NFL, chose to pursue needs to be litigated to the very end.

If Vilma wins substantial monetary judgement from the NFL, either via litigation or settlement, it will prove that Goodell was absolutely wrong to pursue this case.

I look at what Goodell’s Bounty case has done to the Saints in a year when they should have challenged for another Super Bowl and I wonder, what price does one place on that opportunity?

An opportunity wasted, lost, due to a gross misjudgment by an NFL commissioner and his people, who hyped a situation in an attempt to flex their muscle.

I wonder is the NFL owners get it yet?

By: justintuckrule

justintuckrule — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 14:47:39 +0000

If the nfl is mishandling this bounty nonsense this bad, what makes you think they are protecting the game any better? With the crap
Product we’re forced to watch lately, fans should be signing petitions to get rid of goodell

By: jbaxt

jbaxt — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 14:44:30 +0000

No one cares! Stick to your job of sports, not your hobby of law.