i like how none of the bullet points have anything to do with football whatsoever

This is what I'm talking about. Have you been reading the pft articles? This isn't a decisive victory for anyone. The NFL looks incompetent and the Saints organization looks just as dirty as ever but instead of the players being responsible its the coaches.

Someone needed to go down in flames here and except for Payton (who probably wasn't directly involved but is responsible due to his position) and Williams, no one did.

Eh, considering where we started with Goodell being all "50K PAGES OF EVIDENCE BOUNTY BOUNTY BOUNTY IRONCLAD PROOF OF ERRRRRRRRRRRYTHANG DIRTIEST ORGANIZATION OF ALL TIME" I really don't think the Saints look as "dirty as ever". Goodell looks like a moron for massively overstating his case and stonewalling endlessly and the Saints still look like they obviously had some issues. Where are all the people saying he was hiding the worst evidence to protect the NFL now?

And RT, saying nobody besides Payton and Williams, who easily could never work again, went down in flames and acting like that's nothing in and of itself also ignores that we were stuck with a halfwit for a coach for 7 games and someone who is clearly below Payton for the rest. Goodell ended up dealing a pretty harsh blow to what was widely considered a playoff to contending level team, Loomis got his games for whatever that's worth, there were fines, etc.

In the end Williams was the one most responsible for pushing this and he got the worst penalty. Peyton/Saints were penalized for lack of oversight (or willful ignorance, don't really care to argue it). Punishing the players to the degree Goodell tried was idiotic.

OH YEAH WHERE DIRTYDIANA AT?

And yeah the legal side of this is far from over

You mean this one?

Pretty glad I didn't troll this thread and saints fans despite it being so easy to do at the time. I was one of the people who thought he must have been protecting the nfl tho, when the alternative is the sociopathic audaciousness of an individual to continually lie and deceive for seemingly no great reason.

Goddell should be fired, can't trust him in light of what's happened.

I mean its cool the players didn't get punished but look at what came out. Does it matter which player said "gimme my money" in that video? Does it make it better that the NFL couldn't prove it was Hargrove so he didn't have to sit a few games?

That's the same as saying "well XXX was found not guilty do they didn't do it". The Saints pretty obviously had some bounty program (as do most teams I'm sure, if less formally) and players and coaches seemed clearly responsible.

That the NFL couldn't suspend them is cute but doesn't exonerate the Saints or those players.

It would've been incredible to see Goodell get exposed for making **** up or fabricating evidence but what ended up happening was that the players got off because we can't be sure which specific ones did the bad stuff, even if we can be sure the bad stuff happened.

You're right the Saints did suffer though. Wouldn't wish Joe on anyone.

Yep but read the facts they lay out, not their attempts to editorialize.

Now this is the kind of money shot we need here.

I will say though, goodell getting his ass handed to him on the due process stuff was pretty awesome.

Yes, it matters, because it exposes how backwards the NFL's original investigation was. Goodell wanted a big PR move to prove he was tough on player safety, and he made it. He then proceeded to obfuscate ("We have 50,000 pages of ironclad evidence, but you can't see it!") and stretch and misrepresent evidence to fit his conclusions.

No, it's not.

The decision is pretty explicit in saying the coaches are the ones to be held responsible.

We're still not even sure what happened, and that's part of the problem with the way this whole affair was conducted by the league. The Saints players still contend any pay-for-performance program was for legal plays. Tagliabue says something stinks, but it's not clear what or to what degree,

I really want our draft pick back this year.

I mean, it's just weird that you'd say "read this website" and then disagree with what it says.

I mean, Goodell did repeatedly make **** up. Like when he said Hargrove's statement said he was to to lie about bounties when it didn't. Or when he said that Kennedy from the Vikings was the source of the initial tip, to which Kennedy immediately went on Twitter and called him a liar. Or when they released those "ledgers" that a massively disgruntled employee just happened to keep around for years and couldn't figure out what game they were supposed to represent. Or when he tried to use a piece of paper to say Vilma put 10k on Favre but that the bounties offered by other people on the same sheet weren't part of his punishment process. Or when he publicly chastised the players for not just going with his process or calling witnesses when he had to be removed from the process and barred the players from the witnesses they requested.

I mean some of these things range from making **** up to just general stonewalling douchebaggery of a guy who overstated his case. And lol at not being sure what players did the "bad stuff" when the "bad stuff" to begin with was massively, massively overstated. You act like they just got off on a total technicality or via an incompetent jury or something. Go back and read this thread and see what people were saying happened. Go back what I was writing basically the entire time, only really wavering when some evidence got dropped that was publicized before it could be analyzed.

Sorry bro, I'm gonna drop a fairly big I Told You So right here. Goodell looks like a moron. It is a good day.

Yeah, that's really been one of the most vindicating parts of this decision. That, and all the people who said the Saints organization was dirty and rotten top-to-bottom and up-and-down can now eat crow because it basically seems to me like Gregg Williams came in and started a bounty program like the ones he'd had at Tennessee, Buffalo, and Washington (and maybe Jacksonville too).

But at the end of the day, we're still out of the playoffs and don't have another one of our draft picks this year. So lol is still on us, I get that.

I wonder how many times dirtydiana voted

Also the NFL still has a massive interest in placing as much fault as possible away from Goodell for legal reasons. Hell they just offered Vilma a settlement last week that Tagliabue would reconsider his suspension if he admitted some guilt and dropped his defamation suit. Which was pretty dumb considering the ball was already in Tagliabue's court to reconsider the suspension which couldn't go beyond the 2012 season anyway. Clearly a desperation offer.

Right-- another point PFT pointed out.

jfc

Huge WTF @ that?? Is that from Tag's full statement? Saints should probably riot if true.

I think this is a pretty fair conclusion. Something obviously happened and the coaches are the ones that deserve the blame.

Yup, Tags wrote it himself. Looks like we can go back to saying the Pats and Packers are the darlings of the league instead of us.

It could be seen as inconsistent treatment or it could be seen as escalating penalties to finally put a stop to something.

Saying it's inconsistent would be like the Patriots saying, "hey in the past only warnings were given out about filming so how can you punish us now more severely than that."

This thing, like Spygate*, is starting to really seem like it was all about Goodall going completely overboard in a show of power to finally stop something he had been trying to stop for a few years with lesser punishments.

My guess is if no players were punished the truth never would have come out because coaches and owners would rather just take the punishment and move on rather than fight the league or even comment about it for the record.

* As a Pats fan I'm probably biased here.

Yeah they have no union, there's no way for them to do anything like the players did.

Also Loomis and Vitt were apparently fined 500k and 100k individually in addition to the team fine of 500k. God damn.