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New Orleans Saints Bounty Gate Scandal

Hypnotik1

Hypnotik1

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Discuss! Ill be back later to give my take on my beloved Saints

New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton suspended for 1 year
03/21/12 12:28PM
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James Varney, The Times-Picayune
The NFL has suspended New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton for a full year following an investigation into a bounty program the league said the Saints employed from 2009 to 2011, according to internet reports.

Payton's suspension is supposed to begin on April 1.

New Orleans general manager Mickey Loomis was also hit with an 8-game suspension and fined $500,000. Former defensive coordiantor Gregg Williams, now with the Rams, has been suspended indefinitely.

Assistant head coach/linebackers coach Joe Vitt was hit with a 6-game suspension without pay as well.

The team loses the second round pick in this year's draft as well as a second-round pick in next year's draft and will be fined $500,000.

The punishments come against a backdrop of looming litigation. A growing number of players have filed lawsuits against the NFL and various equipment makers, alleging the parties were insufficiently diligent in making player safety a priority. Goodell has made it clear he wants player safety to be a hallmark of his time as commissioner, pushing for rules changes that protect players on the field and levying heavy fines against players for hits ruled too savage.

New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, left, and Coach Sean Payton, have been punished by the NFL.
The report Goodell and the league issued on the Saints March 2 could be seen as another important step in that campaign. In addition, there was widespread speculation the penalties imposed on New Orleans would be severe as the league looked to send a message.

Since March 2 several players came forward to say "pay for performance" systems were far from unheard of in the NFL, although all of them drew a distinction between bonuses for high-impact plays like interceptions or recovered fumbles and plays seeking to injure an opponent.

It was that latter element the NFL alleged comprised part of the Saints' operations and thus made it particularly malevolent. Although the league carefully guarded its evidence, Goodell and NFL officials claim to have sorted through some 18,000 documents, whose veracity was established by "forensic experts," and "multiple independent sources."

That investigation proved, most tellingly, that there was a lack of institutional control in New Orleans. Tuesday's penalties also fall under the "conduct detrimental" standard that gives the commissioner wide latitude.

http://www.nola.com/saints/index.ssf/2012/03/new_orleans_saints_are_penaliz.html
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Just like college athletes who get paid, this happens all the time. The Saints just got caught. I feel bad for Sean Payton having to be the fall guy but such is our society today. Teams will still do it but in more of a dont-ask-dont-tell policy.
 
How is there any difference between this and a good defensive player getting a contract extension for a fantastic season of intimidation? When your job is to stop a man with your body and intimidate them not to run your channal next time of course you are aiming to inflict pain. We aren't talking about illegal hits here, we are talking about hard hits that come with risk to both players. If you are worried about injury then reduce the legal tackle zone to between hips and knees (and watch your fan base die).

Personally I think the hard helmet should be removed. If there is a greater risk of self injury you might see a depowering of the tackle zone. You are less likely to lead with your head if you risk injury yourself.
 
We are talking about illegal hits though. Williams was caught paying bonus money for players to cheat, hit illegally, put the QB or the oppo's best player on a medical cart. A good defensive player getting a new contract for having a great season isn't the same thing as a player being rewarded for intentionally knocking someone unconscious illegally. It's not even sport anymore. The Kurt Warner and Favre games are obvious looking back on it.

What if it came out that Robbie Deans had payed Rocky Elsom 20k to eye gouge Richie McCaw at the bottom of a ruck that put him out of the WC semi. You would expect severe punishment.
 
the nfl has been getting hammered with health related lawsuits by ex-players

they are scared

a huge rule broken, and one that seems to get over looked, was paying players under the table

and lying about it
 
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yeah paying guys to injure people is obviously bad, but the NFL is getting so soft nowadays. The whole point of the defense is to make you constantly expecting a huge hit. It puts guys off their game. Like this hit on Reggie Bush by Sheldon Brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwiMtGsFHwA

you think Reggie Bush was the same for the rest of that game? Btw watching that hit live with 5-6 other dudes may have been the loudest cheers I've ever heard
 
suburu said:
We are talking about illegal hits though. Williams was caught paying bonus money for players to cheat, hit illegally, put the QB or the oppo's best player on a medical cart. A good defensive player getting a new contract for having a great season isn't the same thing as a player being rewarded for intentionally knocking someone unconscious illegally. It's not even sport anymore. The Kurt Warner and Favre games are obvious looking back on it.

What if it came out that Robbie Deans had payed Rocky Elsom 20k to eye gouge Richie McCaw at the bottom of a ruck that put him out of the WC semi. You would expect severe punishment.
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You can knock someone out cold with a legal hit too. I bet they still got paid for that. There is no way you can compare a heavy tackle with an eye gouge. If the hit is illegal then it should have been punished at the time. What about aiming to break someones ribcage with a perfectly timed hit? I accept rules are rules and the illegal payments are probably what pushed this over the line but I just think it is a little unfair to rub out the head coach when it is pretty much accepted that most other clubs are doing the same.
 
paull tagliobo(sp?) wouldn't have given a shit

goodell gets hard-ons handing out suspensions
 
Busty St Clare said:
You can knock someone out cold with a legal hit too. I bet they still got paid for that. There is no way you can compare a heavy tackle with an eye gouge. If the hit is illegal then it should have been punished at the time. What about aiming to break someones ribcage with a perfectly timed hit? I accept rules are rules and the illegal payments are probably what pushed this over the line but I just think it is a little unfair to rub out the head coach when it is pretty much accepted that most other clubs are doing the same.
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I was using it as an example. I agree you can knock someone out legally, theres nothing wrong with that. If someone gets their ribcage or collarbone broken with a legal hit, well tough shit its a nasty game. Its called doing your job. Theres plenty of hard hitting teams/players in the league who do this anyway. The Saints were fined after the NFC championship, 40,000 dollars for illegal hits on Favre.

They intentionally went out to injure players illegally and all the coaching staff were involved. I dont think its unfair that they got banned and fined. If you go out to cheat and get caught you should expect punishment
 
not to mention the NFL is trying to act like its about player safety, yet want an 18 game schedule at the same time. More like they want the marketable QBs to be protected. Nobody cries foul when the punter gets blown up on a punt return when hes not even near the ball (Warren Sapp destroyed a punter before I think it was against the packers)
 
The hits themselves are not illegal, the bounty system is. They may have had a few illegal hits over the years but not much more than other teams.

I really don't like this action by the league, these are very harsh penalties. I think Sean Payton is a great coach and he is being made an example of because the media decided to run with this story. I dont think there should be bounty systems in the NFL but this is too harsh a penalty for a thing that I would guess many teams do to varying degrees.

Sucks for the Rams too, time to find a new D coordinator.
 
rams are considering a DC by committee, allegedly....too bad, greg williams paired with cortland finnegan had potential to piss off all comers

don't blame the media, this story warranted the attention

again, goodell realllly gets off handing out fines and suspensions
 
i file this in the 'sports fans are the most fickle bunch' file.

if it's your team doing it, they're playing hard, playing the way football is mean to be played. if you lose a qb because of it, the other team is a bunch of dirty cheats...

just like taping - if your team is doing it, it's "everybody does it, we just shouldn't have got caught". if it's the patriots, they murdered your children and now they're the cheatriots...

:)

i think a season-long ban is a stiff penalty but that's where the buck stops. it's pretty hard to feel sorry for somebody who gets paid $7,500,000...

alasdair
 
It's not like he won't be pulling the strings during the season either. Are there rules in place to stop him directing play via tweets as he sits in his lounge room?
 
alasdairm said:
i file this in the 'sports fans are the most fickle bunch' file.

if it's your team doing it, they're playing hard, playing the way football is mean to be played. if you lose a qb because of it, the other team is a bunch of dirty cheats...

just like taping - if your team is doing it, it's "everybody does it, we just shouldn't have got caught". if it's the patriots, they murdered your children and now they're the cheatriots...

:)

i think a season-long ban is a stiff penalty but that's where the buck stops. it's pretty hard to feel sorry for somebody who gets paid $7,500,000...

alasdair
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There is a big difference between offering bounties and videotaping practices as far as going outside the rules to gain an advantage, I dont really think the two are comparable.

Once again I want to state that I agree with certain rules that protect defenseless players and I think the league should enforce them. But I have no problem with viscous hits that are within the rules. Bounties just put an additional $ incentive to make those legal and viscous hits, something that sounds distasteful, but not different than paying salaries for what they already do.
 
the players who had bounties on them are making millions of dollars, to play a game, something they love.... lots of everyday people making 10 dollars an hour, doing something they hate face the risk of career ending injuries everyday.....if i lost the use of my legs i wouldn't be so concerned with how it happened, why bother to ask how or how? bottom line is i can't walk anymore and this sucks

actually attempting to injure a play can be counter-productive, injuries are inevitable, intent isn't really relevant...unless they were highly trained, 40 hours a week on how to execute the kill shot, maybe they were? but i doubt it

it's not like the saints had hidden knives in their jocks and brass knuckles on their fists....that would be pretty awesome if they did
 
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Busty St Clare said:
How is there any difference between this and a good defensive player getting a contract extension for a fantastic season of intimidation? When your job is to stop a man with your body and intimidate them not to run your channal next time of course you are aiming to inflict pain. We aren't talking about illegal hits here, we are talking about hard hits that come with risk to both players. If you are worried about injury then reduce the legal tackle zone to between hips and knees (and watch your fan base die).

Personally I think the hard helmet should be removed. If there is a greater risk of self injury you might see a depowering of the tackle zone. You are less likely to lead with your head if you risk injury yourself.
Click to expand...

the difference is that no other team was stupid enough to have 50,000 pages of documents on the bounties. For that stupidity the team should be banned from existence. Roger Goodell went easy on them.
 
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