Thread: Saints get hammered by NFL for bounty program

Probably too much to ask but I hope Goodell gets all the "hangin' " out of his system before Marshall gets popped.

Last I heard that chick went underground and wasn't showing up for police or returning phone calls. I'm hoping it's because they said they were reviewing surveillance tapes and she scurred.

This is far from over in NO and they're gonna get hurt even more if Goddell starts suspending players. Man as stupid a deal as this was it was even more stupid to have ever have been caught and admitted to it.The fallout of Saints suspensions
Source: SI SI.com's Peter King discusses the impact the suspensions handed down to New Orleans has on the league and says why the disciplinary action isn't over yet.


Jonathan Vilma was found to have a $10,000 bounty on Vikings quarterback Brett Favre before the 2009 NFC Championship Game.
Saints Penalties
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• KING: Players likely next to be disciplined
• BANKS: Will be felt in 2012 and beyond
• BURKE: Who'll be Payton's replacement?
• BURKE: Current, former Saints reactions

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Assessing fallout of sanctions	How far bounty scandal goes in NFL
Goodell had to make a statement	the biggest stories of 2012, so far

After bringing the hammer down hard on the coaches, administration and future of the New Orleans Saints Wednesday, National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell clearly has one major job remaining in his discipline of those involved in the Saints bounty scandal: the players.


Goodell spared the 22 to 27 players involved in the case, for now. But it's clear from the tone of his statement in banning coach Sean Payton for a year and former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams for at least that long, he's prepared to rule harshly on some of the players involved too.


Said Goodell: "I am profoundly troubled by the fact that players -- including leaders among the defensive players -- embraced this program so enthusiastically and participated with what appears to have been a deliberate lack of concern for the well-being of their fellow players. While all club personnel are expected to play to win, they must not let the quest for victory so cloud their judgment that they willingly and willfully target their opponents and engage in unsafe and prohibited conduct intended to injure players."


So why didn't Goodell include player discipline today? Two reasons seem likely:


1. He's attempting to keep a good relationship with De Smith, the executive director of the NFL Players Association, by including Smith in the loop of those he has discussed the penalties with. Because the union is having its annual meetings in Florida late this week, Goodell likely wants to discuss the issue further with Smith after the meetings before making a final decision on player discipline.


2. One of the players who has admitted making contributions to a pay-for-performance pool, linebacker Scott Fujita, is now one of the most respected leaders of the union's 11-man Executive Board, and worked diligently to increase player safety in the 2011 negotiations for a new labor agreement with the owners. A source told Sports Illustrated earlier this month that Fujita and two other defensive leaders contributed between $2,000 and $10,000 to the performance/bounty pool the Saints defenders ran in 2009. It's likely the NFLPA would staunchly defend Fujita and other players accused by the league, and this could make the disciplining of players extremely sticky for the league.


The first reaction out of the box from a Saint seemed to ensure the players, if sanctioned, will appeal any harsh discipline. Soon after Goodell's ruling, cornerback Jabari Greer said he felt the NFL was "painting us as thugs.''
Added Greer: "The punishment that was imposed, it seems as if they are trying to destroy our season. They are trying to take away our leaders, take away our leadership. But it's not going to happen. We are New Orleans. We will be strong, we will get through this, we will fight through this, and we will win.''


The league charged that the Saints' bounty program paid players $1,500 for knocking a player out of a game, and $1,000 for a "cart-off,'' or a player helped off the field, as well as lesser rewards for individual plays. Those rewards, the league said, increased during the playoffs, and, as an example, the NFL has accused Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma of offering any player on the defense $10,000 for knocking Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre out of the NFC Championship Game in January 2010.


The bounties violated the league's $120.3 million salary cap as extra off-the-books compensation, number one, and also this specific portion of the league's constitution: "No bonuses or awards may be offered or paid for on-field misconduct (for example, personal fouls to, or injuries inflicted on, opposing players).''


Vilma seems like the player in most trouble with Goodell, and is almost certain to get a multi-game suspension for his brazen offer. But some other veterans, obviously, could be in trouble, including players still on the Saints roster. If Goodell has proof that multiple players funded bounties for injuring players, he could suspend or fine a slew of them.


That leads to questions about how severely the Saints will be impacted by the sanctions, apart from losing their head coach for a season and their highly respected general manager for half of the 2012 season. If there are multiple player suspensions for players still on the Saints, and they are not staggered but imposed all at the beginning of the season, it could be a major competitive disadvantage for the Saints.


The effect of multiple bans in September could get the Saints off to a poor start in a season that the city is hosting the Super Bowl.


Fujita, now with Cleveland, adamantly told SI earlier this month that he never funded a pool for players to try to injure another player. "Over the years, I've paid out a lot of money for big plays like interceptions, sacks and special-teams tackles inside the 20[-yard line], but I've never made a payment for intentionally injuring another player,'' he said. Fujita said he didn't think he ever put money into a collective pot; rather, when a player earned money for a football play, Fujita handed him the money he'd promised.


Fujita and former Cards and Steelers special-teams star Sean Morey pushed hard during the labor negotiations for improvements in working conditions, including fewer practices with full contact during the season. It was Fujita's emphasis on health care for former players who have debilitating illnesses, such as close friend and former Saint Steve Gleason, who suffers from ALS, that made the two sides include lifetime care for ex-players with ALS.
"You don't spend all this time with guys like Sean Morey and other former players, or have close friends whose health fails them, possibly because of this game, and not be affected by that,'' Fujita said at the time. "I wanted to be part of the paradigm shift.''


It was thought that Goodell would issue all of the Saints sanctions at the same time. The fact that he didn't now puts a shadow over the players union meeting in Florida this weekend -- and over the NFL's annual meetings in Palm Beach, which begin Sunday afternoon. You can be sure there will be a lot of players not sleeping well in the coming days, and maybe weeks, as the players await their fate from a commissioner who has a history of harsh penalties when he feels the league's integrity is being threatened.

Read more: New Orleans Saints bounty players can expect to*be disciplined as well - Peter King - SI.com

Originally Posted by Bear Goggles

Last I heard that chick went underground and wasn't showing up for police or returning phone calls. I'm hoping it's because they said they were reviewing surveillance tapes and she scurred.

I've never believed there was anything more to it then someone out for a fast buck. Maybe she's an evil bitch who should have been popped but I doubt it went down the way she's claiming. What high profile lawyer (or so they say) takes on a non civil case for an unemployed person who most likely can't even come close to paying his bill?

Lawyers don't work for free unless they're with the firm of Duey, Cheatum, and Howe.

Looks like Sean Payton may land on his feet this year but the same may no be said about quite a few players.
Deep Posts: Sean Payton to FOX?



By Doug Farrar | Shutdown Corner – 9 hours ago



Sean Payton may learn to love the camera. (AP)


-- Suspended New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton will have a lot of free time in the upcoming season -- he's out of the game for the entire 2012 campaign, and he's $5.8 million lighter in the pocket after Roger Goodell told him that he was not needed this year as a result of BountyGate. Fox Sports would like to fill Payton's Sundays by making an analyst for the network's NFL broadcasts.


"Our feeling about Sean is that he's bright, articulate and obviously contemporary," said Lou D'Ermilio, FOX's senior vice president for communications in a statement. "Any network with NFL rights would have to consider it."
While the league can prevent Payton from finding gainful employment in a coaching or administrative position until his one-year suspension is done, there's no mandate to keep him out of the booth.


"He is suspended from the NFL for the season," the league said in a statement to The New York Times. "His involvement in any non-NFL employment or business matters is not our decision." [NFL.com]


-- While Goodell now considers suspensions and other possible punishments for the 22 to 27 players involved in the bounty system, the Saints did get a bit richer at the linebacker position by signing former Atlanta Falcons defender Curtis Lofton to a five-year contract. Terms of the deal are not yet available. The Falcons' second-round pick in 2008 out of Oklahoma, Lofton has since started 63 of 64 possible games, 492 tackles in the past four seasons. He posted a career high of 147 in 2011. (A hedge against losing Vilma or others to suspensions?)


"Curtis is a versatile, hard-working player that has displayed a knack for being around the football, and more importantly, making plays on the ball," Saints soon-to-be-suspended general manager Mickey Loomis said in a statement released by the team. "He has the ability to play all three linebacker positions and we feel that he's just entering the prime of his career. We think he can come to New Orleans and fit in well and provide us with a significant contribution to our defense."

The team insists that the Lofton signing does not automatically mean that veteran Jonathan Vilma will be released, though the NFL could have a hand in that. Vilma is one of the highest-profile suspects in the bounty investigations. [NOLA.com] (Automatically may not be the best word. "Likely" may be a better choice)


-- The Philadelphia Eagles are looking to trade cornerback Asante Samuel, which could come as no surprise to anyone.


Last season, the Eagles' defensive secondary was a disaster, as defensive coordinator Juan Castillo employed a number of highly questionable tactics with the three-headed DB monster of Samuel, Nnamdi Asomugha, and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. While Casillo was playing Asomugha as safety at times and forgetting that he had DRC on his roster, Samuel was over on the left side doing what he does -- playing off-coverage, jumping routes, and generally avoiding man coverage.


The complication in trading Samuel is that as good as he can be, he's not a completely versatile player. And with more teams employing press coverage as a staple, Samuel may find that his skill set is a bit out of date in most places. Oh, yeah -- there's also the matter of the contract -- Samuel is set to earn $9.5 million in 2012, and those are scary numbers for a 31-year-old cornerback. The Eagles will no doubt try to wrap something up at the owners meetings, which start on Monday. [Philadelphia Inquirer] (That pretty much quashes any interest anyone would have in trading for him. Teams who are interested will wait to see if he's released, which is likely, so they can negotiate a smaller paycheck)


-- Speaking of the owners meetings, you can expect the salary cap penalties handed out to the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins as a result of the two teams' nebulous violations of unwritten rules to be a fairly major topic of conversation. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who lost $10 million of his 2012 cap for alleged funny business in a contract extension for receiver Miles Austin, has said that he will fight the ruling tooth and nail.


"We will and have expressed that we don't agree with that," Jones said on Friday. "What we're doing is a combination procedural and legal and all of that ... all of our contracts were approved by the league and you can't approve a contract that is in violation of league rules. You can't even get it on the books if it isn't in sync with league rules. So you start there." (As much as I hate JJ and love to see his miseries I have to admit that he has a good point. How can the league OK something then comeback and punish him for what they said was OK. Who do they think they are, the IRS?)


To that end, Jones is open to the previously unthinkable -- an alliance with the Redskins and owner Dan Snyder, whose team was hit with a $36 million sanction as the result of several contract offloads during the NFL's uncapped year.


"There is no joy in Mudville, having to team up with the Redskins on a point with the league," Jones said. "They're competitors, not cohorts. It just shows you, independent of that, some of the issues we have with this cap space issue. Sometimes you can have strange bedfellows and this is one of them." [Dallas Morning News]