Football: Saints bounty program

[Ted King]

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/763860...m-nfl-says

New Orleans Saints players and at least one assistant coach maintained a bounty pool of up to $50,000 the last three seasons to reward game-ending injuries inflicted on opposing players, including Brett Favre and Kurt Warner, the NFL said Friday. "Knockouts" were worth $1,500 and "cart-offs" $1,000, with payments doubled or tripled for the playoffs.

The NFL said the pool amounts reached their height of $50,000 or more in 2009, the year the Saints won the Super Bowl.

The Saints "bounty" story is worse than the Patriots' "Spygate" incident, and New Orleans and Gregg Williams should be severely penalized, writes John Clayton.

If the Saints were out to harm others and team officials did nothing, look for Roger Goodell to throw the book at the Saints, writes Pat Yasinskas.

Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams is known for his aggressive defenses. Mike Sando looks at what allegations that Williams was privy to a "bounty" system could mean for his new team.

The league said between 22 and 27 defensive players were involved in the program and that it was administered by defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, with the knowledge of coach Sean Payton.

Edit: Oops, meant to post this on the "Deals" side.

[RgrF]

The consensus among most football writers seems to be that this has been unspoken aspect of football since before Lombardi days. The only twist here is actually the hanging of a specific price tag and talking about it.

[davester]

This supports the patented davester definition of what american football actually is. I quote myself here:

davester wrote:
In american football, what they seem to have done is taken soccer, removed all of the regular playing time and replaced it with commercials and big guys standing around scratching their butts, legalized all the fouls, provided protective equipment so that the fouls don't hurt anybody, then distilled the entire between commercial parts of the game down to nonstop fouls.

I guess they'll be needing some extra protective equipment now that some teams have discovered that with concerted effort they can destroy the bodies and careers of the star opposing players. This being the US, perhaps loaded guns will soon be permitted equipment.

[vision63]

Actually they took soccer and made it entertaining.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Not a new situation, I have been hearing about bounty programs like this since before John Matuszak got drafted.

[Ted King]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
Not a new situation, I have been hearing about bounty programs like this since before John Matuszak got drafted.

If that is true, then this is as good a time as any to stop it. The NFL says they looked to see if other teams were actually putting bounties on players on other teams and did not find evidence of it. If they do come upon such evidence of other teams also doing so, then they should go after those teams as well.

[Acer]

Meanwhile, over at the NHL...

[Seacrest]

Hi guys.

[haikuman]

Fanatical coaches and players are currently ruining and diminishing football as a "sport" imho ymmv
The league, the officiating, all concerned, there is blame to be shouldered by everyone for permitting
this to evolve and continue.
Rudie

[btfc]

"Meanwhile, over at the NHL..."






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7c69r3mD8w