Bounties, the New Orleans Saints, and the NFL
On January 24, 2010, I watched on TV as the New Orleans Saints hosted the Minnesota Vikings in the NFC Championship Game. I was mildly rooting for the Vikings, just so that old man Brett Favre could get one last shot at a Super Bowl. The Vikings dominated the game, but turnovers and penalties doomed them. Favre was injured due to a questionable hit, so much so that he couldn't hobble for a fist down to set up a last minute winning field goal. Instead, he threw an ill-considered pass that was intercepted, and the Saints eventually won the game in overtime.
Cut forward to 2012. On March 2, the NFL announced that the Saints may have been intentionally trying to injure Vikings players, including Fare, during that 2010 matchup, including paying bonuses for causing injury. Of course, I was appalled. Had the result of that game been unfairly influenced by a bunch of bounty-hunting thugs?
It only got worse: On April 5, filmmaker Sean Pamphilon released audio of a defensive team meeting featuring Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams, prior to the team's 2012 playoff matchup against the San Francisco 49ers. The tape showed, quite clearly, that Williams wanted to target punt-returner Kyle Williams and running back Kendall Hunter, possibly via injury.
Williams, coach Sean Payton, GM Mickey Loomis and assistent coach Joe Vitt were suspended. To be clear: I have no sympathy for management employees who set out to injure players or have a bounty on them. "Let them sit," was my initial thought.
Now, on to the players. Although the league claimed that "between 22 and 27 Saints players" were involved. only 4 were punished. They appealed, of course, as a result of which the league supplied the NFL Players' Association (NFLPA) with the evidence it planned to use for the appeal, as required by the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the NFL and the NFLPA. As pretty much the entire world has learned, the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has authority both to issue punishment, to hear the appeal, and then rule on the appeal. Policeman, prosecutor, judge, jury, and appeals court, if you will. But they still had to show their evidence for the appeal.
Words such as "overwhelming" and "compelling" were used by the league and some in the press, to describe the evidence. There was only one small problem: Once the NFLPA had the evidence, they could release it, to the public. And so they did. It is available from https://www.nflplayers.com/Articles/Public-News/NFLPA-Makes-Exhibits-Available-for-Review/
So... I finally examined the "evidence."
The evidence consisted of 16 "exhibits," mostly powerpoints by coach Williams designed for midweek meetings in preparation for the next opponent. There were also several "transcribed" notes from various paper sources such as handwriting on a simple envelope. There was also a blog piece by Sam Pamphilon, and one newspaper article, both of which post-date the alleged events.
There was plenty of evidence that coach Williams is a bit detached from what I might call "normal." That coach Williams took the warlike rhetoric of football a bit too seriously, and that he possibly had an issue with Muslims -- even going so far as to use one slide to regurgitate a hoary urban legend about General Pershing.
What there wasn't, however, was convincing evidence of a bounty program. Or, for that matter, any evidence of a bounty program. Once I got over having forced myself to read, in its entirety, the appalling ineptitude of the so-called "evidence," I started also checking various forums about this "scandal." I found that, while some pundits quickly called out that the evidence was lacking, on the whole the response was tepid. Comments on nearly every forum exhorted the players to "man up" and accept punishment; some even claimed that the players had already admitted guilt (they had not). Nearly everyone who wasn't a confirmed Saints fan lined up in condemnation, as if schadenfreude outranked basic common sense.
In the meantime, the league faces several lawsuits. Most notably, a class-action suit by more than 2,000 ex-players alleging that the NFL for decades ignored evidence of links between concussions and permanent brain damage. In this case, Jonathan VIlma, who was suspended for longer than any other player -- one year -- has filed a defamation suit against Goodell, and has filed for an injunction against implementation of his suspension. It will be interesting to see how far Vilma gets. I'm no Saints fan, but I'll make an exception for his case.
Cut forward to 2012. On March 2, the NFL announced that the Saints may have been intentionally trying to injure Vikings players, including Fare, during that 2010 matchup, including paying bonuses for causing injury. Of course, I was appalled. Had the result of that game been unfairly influenced by a bunch of bounty-hunting thugs?It only got worse: On April 5, filmmaker Sean Pamphilon released audio of a defensive team meeting featuring Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams, prior to the team's 2012 playoff matchup against the San Francisco 49ers. The tape showed, quite clearly, that Williams wanted to target punt-returner Kyle Williams and running back Kendall Hunter, possibly via injury.
Williams, coach Sean Payton, GM Mickey Loomis and assistent coach Joe Vitt were suspended. To be clear: I have no sympathy for management employees who set out to injure players or have a bounty on them. "Let them sit," was my initial thought.
Now, on to the players. Although the league claimed that "between 22 and 27 Saints players" were involved. only 4 were punished. They appealed, of course, as a result of which the league supplied the NFL Players' Association (NFLPA) with the evidence it planned to use for the appeal, as required by the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the NFL and the NFLPA. As pretty much the entire world has learned, the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has authority both to issue punishment, to hear the appeal, and then rule on the appeal. Policeman, prosecutor, judge, jury, and appeals court, if you will. But they still had to show their evidence for the appeal.
Words such as "overwhelming" and "compelling" were used by the league and some in the press, to describe the evidence. There was only one small problem: Once the NFLPA had the evidence, they could release it, to the public. And so they did. It is available from https://www.nflplayers.com/Articles/Public-News/NFLPA-Makes-Exhibits-Available-for-Review/
So... I finally examined the "evidence."
The evidence consisted of 16 "exhibits," mostly powerpoints by coach Williams designed for midweek meetings in preparation for the next opponent. There were also several "transcribed" notes from various paper sources such as handwriting on a simple envelope. There was also a blog piece by Sam Pamphilon, and one newspaper article, both of which post-date the alleged events.
There was plenty of evidence that coach Williams is a bit detached from what I might call "normal." That coach Williams took the warlike rhetoric of football a bit too seriously, and that he possibly had an issue with Muslims -- even going so far as to use one slide to regurgitate a hoary urban legend about General Pershing.
What there wasn't, however, was convincing evidence of a bounty program. Or, for that matter, any evidence of a bounty program. Once I got over having forced myself to read, in its entirety, the appalling ineptitude of the so-called "evidence," I started also checking various forums about this "scandal." I found that, while some pundits quickly called out that the evidence was lacking, on the whole the response was tepid. Comments on nearly every forum exhorted the players to "man up" and accept punishment; some even claimed that the players had already admitted guilt (they had not). Nearly everyone who wasn't a confirmed Saints fan lined up in condemnation, as if schadenfreude outranked basic common sense.
In the meantime, the league faces several lawsuits. Most notably, a class-action suit by more than 2,000 ex-players alleging that the NFL for decades ignored evidence of links between concussions and permanent brain damage. In this case, Jonathan VIlma, who was suspended for longer than any other player -- one year -- has filed a defamation suit against Goodell, and has filed for an injunction against implementation of his suspension. It will be interesting to see how far Vilma gets. I'm no Saints fan, but I'll make an exception for his case.
Comments