The problem is that because the bounty system was in place, every big hit will be looked upon as trying to hurt the players in any way possible.

While obviously not the case how are we supposed to distinguish people who are trying to earn a bounty and people who arent. Its not really possible to do so, so they are all just gonna get lumped into the same group of intentionally trying to injure.

WARNING: Poker Analogy Incoming

You know how guys will have last longer bets in big poker tournaments? So we have Guy A betting a trivial amount that he will last longer than Guy B. At absolutely no point is it correct for either man to switch his strategy in order to win the last longer even though there's a tiny bit of money riding on it - equity in the tournament is always more important.

If the bounties were for significant money, I would believe this, but they're trivial compared to going out on the field and playing, and they're even more trivial when compared with the fines that the NFL hands out for illegal hits.

$10-50,000 is trivial?!?!?! Even $1,000 to these people who are wired differently than us is enough of a motivational issue to purposely harm someone, which is really sad. You have to remember these athletes will risk millions of dollars on such trivial things as weed,illegal supplements, coke, etc... so their rationale is questionable at best.

Did they pay taxes on their bounty earnings tho? That's the real question.

I heard James Harrison will get fined at least 100K for all this.

bc that post is a load of crap.

ofc there will be less "noncontact" injuries when you define it like that. like, cant there be a sudden deceleration and change of direction due to contact? ofc there can be.

you cant be so dense as to not realize why this is. you just cant be. i tried to explain it to you before but i guess ill try again. proly not worth it but it so obv mebbe it will stick. there is tons less contact in soccer, basketball, volleyball, baseball, evey single other sport than football. thats why there are more non contact incidences.

we arent talking about women here obv.

and i saying if a player gets hit while cutting/planting and it causes him to cut/plant while being driven by the momentum of the tackler, that should damn well be attributed as a "contact injury."

This is a fair point, but reducing it strictly to the money is not completely fair. You have to think about the team dynamics, machismo, competitive nature of the guys, etc. When Vilma throws down the gauntlet, guys want to step up to the challenge, be a badass, whatever you want to call it. There's added motivation that isn't strictly monetary in a system like this.

At the same time, the non-monetary portion (and let's face it, probably that too) isn't exclusive to the Saints. When a linebacker in a meeting room says "Whose gonna step up, be a man, and knock Favre the **** out?" that carries some of the same motivation I was speaking about above.

Where's the line? It's difficult to say. But making the line "money" makes a lot of sense, plus it gives us a nice bright distinction (and that's even before the illegality re: the salary cap and so on).

excellent post

Oh, I agree, and that's why the Saints are gon get raped - but Vilma could say that anyway without having any sort of financial incentive.

I posted before and didn't get an answer, but I haven't seen any confirmation on how much of this stuff was actually paid out, anyone know?

NFL distributed a 4 page document to all 32 NFL teams giving a short outline of the 50,000 page indictment. I am sure the full 50,000 page report will be open for reading in the future.

Why aren't the Bills included in the title change?

If it turns out the Skins and Bills had similar systems under Williams, do the Saints get raped less and most of the punishment goes to him?

Bills,Redskins,Saints will be under review.

I dont think so. Similar to when spygate came out, there was widespread reports of many others teams doing the exact same thing. The NFL isnt going to go after every team and investiage them. They just made an example out of the patriots.

So in this situation im sure they say they are going to investigate other teams because i think its a rule or something that they must investiage any reported rule breach. But when all is said and done they are just gonna make an example out of the Saints so that all the others teams get the message.

Sso what will the Redskins' punishment be, if any? Is there any sort of statute of limitations with this type of thing? It seems the only appropriate punishment would be to fine Dan Snyder as none of the other characters are still there (except for three players, two of whom are not likely to be with the team next season).

Is Jacksonville exempt from this? I haven't followed this at all.

I think it will depend on how much Snyder knew about everything going on as well as the Bills owner also. How didn't Gibbs know about this is the real question?

jacksonville's punishment is being the jacksonville jaguars

I generally agree with what you say, but the easy response to that is: If it wasn't a motivating factor, why would they have it in the first place?

have to be able to tackle someone in order to be able to injure them, so they're pretty safe.

I'll take that as they are clean of this. **** Gregg Williams.

If you read a bit about behavioral economics you'd get the feeling that the coaches/organizers of this might have structured the incentives differently and gotten better results by leaving monetary compensation totally out of it. The key idea is that people are always mentally switching between "market norms" and "social norms". Its not uncommon for people to be more incentivized by social norms than market norms, and when you introduce a market norm and offer payment that's relatively trivial to what they get on the market it actually disincentivizes people. Think of it like this; if a good friend asked you to help him move you'd gladly do it but if he offered you $5 to help him move you'd be offended. A better way to structure the incentive would be to ask you to help and have a 12 pack ready to drink while you're working on it.

I think Williams might get a year suspension since he's clearly been the ringleader of this in multiple locations (he also probably won't be a DC again ever, position coach probs), Loomis will probably get massively fined since you can't really suspend a GM, Payton will get a lesser fine and some games, Vilma will probably also get a substantial fine and some games, other assorted players lesser fines/games than Vilma, something like the 1st/2nd round picks gone next year assuming they don't get their act together in time for this year's draft, and probably a million+ dollar fine to the organization itself. Redskins/Bills might get some fines and suspensions if more info comes to light.

As absurd as it is the thought of the Saints having the Super Bowl title stripped as well as the division title and Championship title would be LOL.

Well keep loling at something that would never, ever happen I guess. Productive imo.