Saints' Bounties

[paul secor]

Sportmanship at its finest

[Chuck Nessa]

yup.

[JETman]

It's funny that the article talks about possible penalties that the NFL could dole out for such actions. However, loss of championship is not one of them. Hmmmm.

[Brad]

Anyone associated with it should be fired and/or suspended from football.

[Larry Kart]

Who was it who whacked and injured Sean Payton on the sideline last year? A Saint or an opposing player? Hmmm.

Mixed verdict apparently:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/16/sean-payton-injury-sideline-collision_n_1014461.html

[JETman]

Who was it who whacked and injured Sean Payton on the sideline last year? A Saint or an opposing player? Hmmm.

Mixed verdict apparently:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/16/sean-payton-injury-sideline-collision_n_1014461.html

Apparently, he was the guy the Saints' assistant coaches instituted the program to knock off!

[T.D.]

Damn, this is ugly. Especially with all the concussion/head injury complications these days.

I've already seen calls to ban DC Gregg Williams from the league (he has a history of this shit).

NFL will throw the book at them: mega-fine, loss of draft picks, probably suspensions...I'd be surprised by bans, but won't cry if they happen.

[GA Russell]

Here's a follow-up that says that it is league-wide and has been going on for years.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/football/nfl-bounty-pay-extends-beyond-saints/article2357939/page1/

[GA Russell]

The Saints coach Gregg Williams previously coached at Buffalo and Tennessee, and now the word is that players from those two teams have admitted that they had bounties too.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/football/bills-titans-latest-nfl-teams-tied-to-injury-bounties/article2358173/

[Guy Berger]

Not surprising. It's a violent sport.

[Tim McG]

Anyone associated with it should be fired and/or suspended from football.

I'm with you, Brad.

Williams should be the first to get booted from the league.

[danasgoodstuff]

I'm thinking RICO charges...

[Kevin Bresnahan]

C'mon, we know what's going to happen. The commissioner (an avid Jets fan) is going to take away their 1st round draft pick in the upcoming draft. What? The Saints traded that to the Patriots? So what. We're still taking it away.

[JSngry]

Not surprising. It's a violent sport.

Yeah, as much as I'd like to think that a sport predicated on using bodies to move bodies in the service of the money and glory of victory would have its principled, built-in limits...real-world behavior in all walks of life kinda suggests that that's hoping against hope, at least when enough money and glory are at stake.

[BERIGAN]

Anyone associated with it should be fired and/or suspended from football.

I'm with you, Brad.

Williams should be the first to get booted from the league.

they'd probably punish a team more for administering HGH to players...it would nice to be proven wrong this time...

[Brad]

After reading the Times' coverage the last few days, this seems to be a prevalent practice in the NFL although one done more by the players themselves than team management.

[Dave James]

Clipped this from an article on Grantland. Interesting take as to one of the reasons Goodell is going to have to drop a serious shoe here.

Think of all the illusions about the National Football League that the revelations of a bounty program in New Orleans shatter. Think of all the silly pretensions those revelations deflate. The preposterous prayer circles at midfield. The weepy tinpot patriotism of the flyovers and the martial music. The dime-store Americanism that's draped on anything that moves. The suffocating corporate miasma that attends everything the league does — from the groaning buffet tables at the Super Bowl to the Queegish fascination with headbands and sock lengths while teams are paying "bounties" to tee up the stars of your game so they don't get to play anymore. What we have here now is the face of organized savagery, plain and simple, and no amount of commercials showing happy kids cavorting with your dinged-up superstars can ameliorate any of that.

[Tim McG]

I think that pretty much sums it up.

Thanks for posting the article, Dave.

Edited March 6, 2012 by GoodSpeak

[JSngry]

Clipped this from an article on Grantland. Interesting take as to one of the reasons Goodell is going to have to drop a serious shoe here.

Think of all the illusions about the National Football League that the revelations of a bounty program in New Orleans shatter. Think of all the silly pretensions those revelations deflate. The preposterous prayer circles at midfield. The weepy tinpot patriotism of the flyovers and the martial music. The dime-store Americanism that's draped on anything that moves. The suffocating corporate miasma that attends everything the league does — from the groaning buffet tables at the Super Bowl to the Queegish fascination with headbands and sock lengths while teams are paying "bounties" to tee up the stars of your game so they don't get to play anymore. What we have here now is the face of organized savagery, plain and simple, and no amount of commercials showing happy kids cavorting with your dinged-up superstars can ameliorate any of that.

I don't see how the "revelation" that players "shoot to kill" (so to speak) shatters any "illusions" created by staged prayers, flyovers, martial music, suffocating corporate miasma, whatever.

Hell, it just reinforces them. America loves shoot-to-kill and America loves to sentimentalize it. Organized savagery is the wave of the future if the present social/economic trends continue.

The illusions are the reality.

Having said all that, I still love a good football game. But not like that.

[Guy Berger]

Clipped this from an article on Grantland. Interesting take as to one of the reasons Goodell is going to have to drop a serious shoe here.

Think of all the illusions about the National Football League that the revelations of a bounty program in New Orleans shatter. Think of all the silly pretensions those revelations deflate. The preposterous prayer circles at midfield. The weepy tinpot patriotism of the flyovers and the martial music. The dime-store Americanism that's draped on anything that moves. The suffocating corporate miasma that attends everything the league does from the groaning buffet tables at the Super Bowl to the Queegish fascination with headbands and sock lengths while teams are paying "bounties" to tee up the stars of your game so they don't get to play anymore. What we have here now is the face of organized savagery, plain and simple, and no amount of commercials showing happy kids cavorting with your dinged-up superstars can ameliorate any of that.

I don't see how the "revelation" that players "shoot to kill" (so to speak) shatters any "illusions" created by staged prayers, flyovers, martial music, suffocating corporate miasma, whatever.

Hell, it just reinforces them. America loves shoot-to-kill and America loves to sentimentalize it. Organized savagery is the wave of the future if the present social/economic trends continue.

The illusions are the reality.

Having said all that, I still love a good football game. But not like that.

In many ways this is similar to steroid usage in baseball. It's all part of the spectacle that fans want.

Edited March 6, 2012 by Guy

[Brad]

Yes, it just reinforces them. Truer words were never spoken. And, yes, we all like a football game because of its legalized mayhem.

However, the detritus it leaves behind are real people, whose lives have been shattered by the violence.

I"m always reminded me of the George Carlin bit about the differences between football and baseball.

[JSngry]

Vicarious warfare. We love it. We love it in movies, in TV, in video games, you name it, we love it. The more "realistic", the more we get into it.

And there's a real lack of "adultness" to the dialogue. It's either All Bad or All Ok, never, well, in this case it's probably more appropriate for some people but not for others...no, it's ALWAYS ok or it's ALWAYS bad.

Hell, no wonder we love vicarious warfare. We can't process ambiguity worth a damn, and we sure as hell don't like getting hurt ourselves.

[Tim McG]

Clipped this from an article on Grantland. Interesting take as to one of the reasons Goodell is going to have to drop a serious shoe here.

Think of all the illusions about the National Football League that the revelations of a bounty program in New Orleans shatter. Think of all the silly pretensions those revelations deflate. The preposterous prayer circles at midfield. The weepy tinpot patriotism of the flyovers and the martial music. The dime-store Americanism that's draped on anything that moves. The suffocating corporate miasma that attends everything the league does — from the groaning buffet tables at the Super Bowl to the Queegish fascination with headbands and sock lengths while teams are paying "bounties" to tee up the stars of your game so they don't get to play anymore. What we have here now is the face of organized savagery, plain and simple, and no amount of commercials showing happy kids cavorting with your dinged-up superstars can ameliorate any of that.

I don't see how the "revelation" that players "shoot to kill" (so to speak) shatters any "illusions" created by staged prayers, flyovers, martial music, suffocating corporate miasma, whatever.

Hell, it just reinforces them. America loves shoot-to-kill and America loves to sentimentalize it. Organized savagery is the wave of the future if the present social/economic trends continue.

The illusions are the reality.

Having said all that, I still love a good football game. But not like that.

In many ways this is similar to steroid usage in baseball. It's all part of the spectacle that fans want.

I think that is a fair assessment, too.

In both cases, the owners turned a blind eye, so-to-speak.

Edited March 6, 2012 by GoodSpeak

[Jazzmoose]

Is the term "organized savagery" supposed to be a putdown of NFL football? I hate to break it to anyone, but that's the main selling point...

[Tim McG]

Is the term "organized savagery" supposed to be a putdown of NFL football? I hate to break it to anyone, but that's the main selling point...

True dat.

But not for the sole purpose of injuring another player.