Its more likely than not that other teams engaged in something similar. But like the nfl made scapegoats out of pats for spygate they are gonna do the same to the saints here over the bounties. And the penalties for the saints are prob gonna make what they gave to the pats look lenient.

The nfl is probly aware if they investigate every team they will uncover alot and it would be a PR Nightmare for the league. By making the saints the scapegoat and giving them harsh penalties it will make the others team straighten up without having to out the whole league.

Obviously not very fair but that is life.

o/u on the number of teams that have a similar arrangement set up between groups of players is 6.5

Why???? Because your beloved Saints were caught? How about the fact when it was brought to the attention of those with power they ignored the situation....

Anybody think the Skins will get their 6th overall pick stripped? would be LOL if they do.

No i think the league is gonna focus all their discipline on the saints. If they start investigating all the league and penalising them there will prob be no teams left with draft picks.

Well maybe not no teams left but theres a good chance the number of teams running a system like this or similar is pretty high. On some nfl show on espn teddy bruschi said the patriots paid into a kitty that was awarded to the player who recovered first fumble or got first interception. But stopped when they realised it was against the rules of bonuses awarded outside of contracts.

There would just be too many teams at fault and you cant fine them all.

this is a good post

Well, this sucks. No doubt that the Saints aren't the only team doing this sort of thing, but hey they are the ones that got caught and are going to pay the price. Couldn't be worse timing with the Brees situation. Not sure how this affects his intentions.

But some of the fans of other teams acting holier than thou ITT are ridiculous. Every defensive player on every football team at any level HS or higher tries to knock out the opposing QB, bounties or not. If you're not putting the hardest legal hit that you're capable of on an opposing QB then you're not doing it right. What sucks is that I doubt the small bounties even affected the way they played. I mean dirty players gonna dirty regardless of $1,500 rewards, and there are dirty players on every team. Plus fines for obvious dirty plays would be 10-20 times worse than the reported bounties.

No, because it is a serious situation. But Prawney (quoted below) brought up some great points that I hadn't considered.

You obviously haven't even read my other posts. I acknowledged the same fact you brought up, said it sickened me. The Saints deserve punishment for this. Of course I hate to see it happen to us, but that's the way it goes.

And excuse me for being disappointed some; I've been a fan for a long time and have endured many losing seasons. It is finally great to have a successful team, and for people to say the Superbowl is "tarnished" or "fraudulent", it hurts, as a Saints fan. I hate to see the reputation of the Saints in the general public's eyes go down the drain. I want people to like them just as I love them. And I'm gonna get defensive when people make ignorant comments (imo) like those above. Realize that I'm being more of a realist than most die-hard fans would be in this situation.

As I said above, very good points. I hadn't even considered this. Probably not the best idea for the NFL to investigate the other 31 teams.

Basically what I said earlier when I first saw the reporting, and my attitude towards it is summed up in bold. *Hopefully this doesn't sway Brees into wanting to leave.

Haters gonna hate. It's one thing to be realistic about the situation (being a fan of another team), but it's another for thinking your team may not be doing the same or committing other acts along these lines.

Anyways, enough of the derail of taking things personally. Back to the thread. When do we think the NFL will come to a decision on the sanctions?

So that makes it OK because "everyone else" does it? And those "small" bounties mean something to ego driven athletes. It doesn't have to be a huge amount, it is a competition and all athletes are intense competitors who want to be the one to win it. The fact is the D.C. ENCOURAGED the players to hurt and/or take out star players from the other squads. With the NFL trying their best to curtail concussions as well as violent hits this is the last thing they need to deal with.

o/u on the number of teams stupid enough to leave a trail (paper or otherwise) that would produce 50,000 pages of evidence and continue to proceed as before even after being investigated by the NFL is 0.5.

And lol at anyone naive enough to believe that such a conspiracy among 20+ defensive NFL players and at least a half-dozen other people could withstand a thorough investigation.

No wonder players loved playing for Gregg Williams and his aggressive style of defense. A chance for a bonus on every play!

Did he say it was ok? I don't believe he did. We've acknowledged it obviously isn't ok. Move on from that.

Gregg Williams obviously will be punished here as well, rightfully so. I wish I could say that I wish the Saints hadn't hired him to begin with, but I did like his style of blitz packages for a while and his intensity. And I can't say whether we would have won the Superbowl without him. So I'm glad we had him. I just wish we could fire him now.

It should hurt more that players were getting bonuses for ending people's careers, or trying to.

hai guise - your incentives for extra sacks and tackles...just make sure they're not too deadly. don't want to appear dangerous!

Not sure where it was stated they were getting bonuses for trying to end a player's career, but yes, it also hurts that players were getting bonuses for trying to knock other players out of games for a bonus. However, it wouldn't hurt if they were doing this without receiving a bonus. That's just how most are taught. It's just a shame that a monetary incentive had to be involved.

I think you completely missed the point of my post. I never said the bounty program was OK. I never said they don't deserve the penalties coming their way. I said that defensive players should be trying to put the hardest legal hit on the offensive player at all times. If that injures the guy you hit, then it's part of the game. If your hit was dirty according to the rules, you deserve a punishment, which these days the NFL will surely issue and it will be 10-20 times greater than $1,500.

I do agree that the Saints the bounty system indicates a dirty culture on D, but I'm not sure how it actually influenced the play on the field. I'd like to see some stats on how many fines were issued to Saints players in comparison to the other teams in the league. The NFL monitors this stuff closely.

I understand especially if you lived through Katrina, however, this does indeed tarnish the championship the Saints won. From what has been published through several media outlets, the Saints organization, excluding the owner, acted in an unprofessional manner as well neglecting what I am sure was a warning from the NFL to stop the head hunting but they didnt and from the sound of it thought they were above it all. Vilma's actions prior to the '09 Championship game and his subsequent refusal to admit any wrong doing is just a small sample of the arrogance of the people involved. Did the dirty hits affect the '09 Championship game? That is up for debate because who knows what would have happened if Favre's ankle isn't rolled up.

The Saints will be punished harshly especially if draft picks and players suspensions are involved and this could lead the Saints back to mediocrity once again....

It is one thing to try and knock out the opposing QB, It is a different beast altogether to offer rewards and bonuses to players for injuries they cause. And even if the hits the saints did during this time were clean and werent intended to injure, The fact that there was a reward for injuring players make people from the outside look at every hit as if they had intent to injury.

The saints are gonna get ripped in the media for the rest of the off-season if not more and rightfully so as this kind of system is wrong. I fully believe that other teams have similar systems but the fact is that the saints are the ones that got caught. And they are the ones that are gonna face the all the fines.

The thing is that now that the info is out that saints players were rewarded for knocking out/injuring opponents, you cant distinguish between big hits if they were the D just playin hard or the D looking to earn some money from the bounties. No matter what arguement you but forward you still wont be able to distinguish them so that is where the problem lies for the saints

I agree. My main point is that the bounty system is doubly ******ed since players should be laying vicious LEGAL hits when given the opportunity anyway, and most do. The ones who do it illegally are usually caught and fined much more than the reported bounties, so it just doesn't make any sense. So the Saints are going to pay a hefty price (which I agree they should) for a system that was likely not really providing any real incentive to play any differently than they already would have.

he runs on that last interception instead of throwing across his body, longwell hits FG, vikings roll colts and end 50 years of complete failure as a franchise

Yep totally agree with what you are saying.

obviously the system created an extra incentive.

vilma dumped 10k on a table for a reason.

I love the sanctimonious posters that only seem to come out when a scandal breaks in sports and take the most extreme, ridiculous view.

Yeah, this is wrong and terrible and the Saints are going to get fined, but the reality is that football is a physical, violent game, and you have your head in the sand if you don't think that defensive coordinators don't talk about hurting players.

he mad

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