"Vacated" is short for "Vindicated": Bounties, the New Orleans Saints and the NFL, concluded

In August, I wrote a blog post called Bounties, the New Orleans Saints, and the NFL. The post was just my personal thoughts on the then 5-months old public flogging of the New Orleans Saints organization, from its highest management level to its defensive players. While I noted that certain coaches of the Saints were "a bit detached from what I might call 'normal'," what seemed inescapable to me at the time was that the league had not presented "any evidence of a bounty program." The league, led by commissioner Roger Goodell, suspended 4 current or former Saints players, for terms of up to one year.

The league was required, per its Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), to provide the evidence upon which it intended to rely, as part of the players appeal process. Those exhibits are still retrievable from the NFLPA website. Although the league trumpeted those exhibits as "overwhelming," I found the exhibits to be, at best, amateurish attempts to dress up a bad case. Some pundits agreed, but I was in a distinct minority with them. Comments on discussion boards such as at espn.com decisively sided with the league; almost anyone who wasn't a Saints fan seemed overly eager to display their toughness by demanding the accused players to "man up" and accept their punishments. Not being a Saints fan, I had little company.

Since my initial post, it became apparent that nearly all of the league's evidence came from two former coaches. One of the coaches may have been carrying out a vendetta for having been fired by the Saints (that that coach was subsequently hired by Princeton University gives me some pause, when considering the judgment within the Ivy League); the other coach -- who did author some batshit crazy powerpoint decks -- was apparently threatened with a lifetime ban from the NFL if he did not "co-operate" (i.e., give up the names of "guilty" players). Both coaches, according to various reports, attempted to recant either partially or completely.

Commissioner Goodell had authority to rule on the appeals. "Policeman, prosecutor, judge, jury and appeals court, if you will," was how I put it in August. The players, nonetheless, demanded that Goodell recuse himself. One of the players had filed a defamation suit against Goodell in Federal Court and the judge had seemed sympathetic. Goodell turned the appeals over to his predecessor, former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

Over these past 4 months I also noticed something else in my blog space. My August post started getting hits. More hits than any of my personal posts, more hits than most of my music posts. It seems that a search on some combination of "Saints," "NFL," and "bounties" managed to find the page in some search engines. Recently, the hit rate picked up. Not many hits, but more than enough for me to notice. I'd like to think that more than a few others saw the case for what it was... or perhaps more accurately, what it wasn't.

Today, the case ended. Commissioner Tagliabue vacated the suspensions against the four players. Tagliabue issued a brief statement, that included this: ""My affirmation of Commissioner Goodell's findings could easily justify the issuance of fines." The word "affirmation" may seem to support Goodell, but the rest of the statement gives it away: This was never a bounty program. Commissioner Tagliabue's statement is consistent with how a competent Commissioner might approach a garden-variety pay-for-performance program, more commonly known as a "kitty."

Naturally, the very people who insisted that the players "man up" are now circling the wagons. Witness Sports Illustrated's Peter King. King was completely snookered by the NFL's sham evidence in June and wasn't exactly saying, "I was wrong" or "I was fooled by a PR campaign." But no one denies that Commissioner Goodell has lost this case -- and perhaps his grip on the job of NFL Commissioner.

The case against the players is over. I don't know if Jonathan Vilma will continue with his defamation case against Goodell. The Saints hardly "won"; their 2012 season has been a disaster, due no doubt in substantial part to their head coach and top assistant having been suspended as part of this case. Even the underlying issue of "pay to injure" has long since faded; in each of the past two weeks active players have died the day before a game, in horrific events. The league plainly has more important things to deal with than trumped up charges from things that may or may not have been said 3 years ago. For a day, though, I'll take a moment out and cheer a bit of justice, however rationalized, and however delayed.