Turns out "Saints" probably isn't the proper name for the football team from New Orleans. Not after what they did. Their defensive bounty system was completely unacceptable. That's why Roger Goodell dropped the hammer on the franchise today in a way nobody thought he would. Good. They deserved it.
The NFL's foremost concern is player safety. That a team was going out intentionally trying to knock opposing players out of the game is almost unthinkable. The Saints were doing it for three years. They were trying to knock Brett Favre out of the 2010 NFC Championship Game. Everybody knows it. Football's a dangerous game. If you're lucky, you might get 10 years out of the game. Most careers are much shorter than that. And let's not even mention the effects the game has on its players years after they retire. How many games do players miss per season for any variety of injuries? How many guys are knocked out of the game with a concussion every week? To think that Saints players, who knew the risks they were taking with their own health every time they stepped on the field, deliberately went against the game's unwritten code and went out of their way to commit dirty plays is unconscienable. I'd even be willing to bet a number of them knew what they were doing was wrong.
Even still, I didn't expect the hammer to get dropped the way it did. But in a way, it had to. It got the point across. It's like when Pete Rozelle suspended Alex Karras and Paul Hornung each for a year for gambling. Gambling had no place in the game then. Rozelle made sure everybody else got that. Likewise, bounties have no place in the NFL, either. Point made. Hopefully, point taken.
I haven't liked Gregg Williams since he was head coach of the Bills and for some reason thought Rob Johnson was better than Doug Flutie. To hear that he was the mastermind of this bounty program isn't really a surprise. His guys play dirty. Now we know why. He's suspended from the NFL indefintely. Goodell won't even consider discussing reinstatement with him until next April. The hammer fell the hardest on Williams, as it should've. It was his idea, he was the guy running the operation, and he kept it going after he was told to stop. There's no defense for his actions. I have no doubt that Williams will show contrition and will be reinstated at some point in the future. But his ban needs to be longer than the one year it's already going to be. Michael Vick was suspended indefinitely the entire time he was in prison. He missed two seasons. That works for me.
Sean Payton's one-year ban is certainly the most surprising. Nobody expected him to be suspended without pay for an entire year. But, he's the head coach, and this happened under his watch. Thus, he's ultimately the one responsible for the bounty program. And it's not like Payton is completely without fault here. Ignorance would still be unacceptable, but it would at least be slightly more defensable. The fact that Payton knew about the program, supported it, and even contributed to the pot, makes him just as responsible as everybody else involved. If not more so. The head coach is supposed to be the one making sure stuff like this doesn't happen. Sean Payton gets that now.
Losing Payton turns the Saints from a Super Bowl contender to a team that'll struggle to make the playoffs. The man who probably would've taken over coaching duties in his absence, Assistant Head Coach Joe Vitt, can't. Not for the first six games of the season, at least. Vitt was also suspended for his role in the bounty program. So was general manager Mickey Loomis, who received an eight-game suspension. Like Payton, Loomis knew about the bounty system and didn't stop it. He admitted as much, and acknowledged that it was his fault. It doesn't change the fact that Loomis was just as deserving of a suspension as everybody else. Eight games seems right.
I also agree that Saints owner Tom Benson didn't deserve any direct discipline himself. Yes, as the owner, he's ultimately responsible for anything that happens with his franchise, but you also can't expect him to know everything that goes on. He left the football matters to his coaches. When Benson found out about the bounty program and how much he knew are the important questions here. If he'd known earlier, would he have been able to stop it? Probably. If that's not the case, I'll have to rethink my stance on whether or not Benson deserves a suspension himself, but I still think it's the right call. The franchise was fined and lost draft picks. But more importantly, the Saits have essentially lost the chance to become the first team to play in a Super Bowl that they're hosting. That's more than enough of a punishment for Tom Benson.
The fallout from the Saints' bounty scandal likely isn't over, either. We still don't know what the penalties for the players involved will be. Expect some suspensions there, as well. If Goodell can regularly single out guys like James Harrison and Ndamukong Suh for specific hits, it sends the wrong message if none of the Saints players are suspended. What they did was much worse. And it was encouraged by their teammates! Jonathan Vilma was the ringleader among the players. In my opinion, he's just as responsible as all of the coaches who were suspended today. Vilma deserves a significant ban. At least six games. I'd vote for more. Half a season.
What the Saints did is unacceptable in every regard. They weren't just breaking unwritten rules. They were brazenly spitting in the face of official NFL rules. The fact that they knew it and didn't care (and lied to the NFL about it!) only made it worse. That's what makes today's ruling so significant. That sort of behavior will not be tolerated. It never should've happened in the first place.
No comments:
Post a Comment