Saints Defense maintained a Bounty Program

[Villain]

My favorite thing about this whole bounty scandal is that Goodell is absolutely shitting fire. He probably chews out everyone he talks to.

 

[Senser81]

You're completely missing the point. I don't have the expectation of the NFL legislating attitude, my entire point is the contrary, actually.

These punishments do nothing to change the way certain people play the game. This thread is way too fucking long and EsPn had spent way too much talking about it. This isn't the first time guys are getting in trouble for this and it won't be the last.

Why this seems to be getting so much more attention than anything else in the history of sports is beyond me.

So much wrong in this post, too.

What is your point, that bounties aren't subject to punishment because we can't legislate "attitude "??????

Since refs flag pass interference, yet it still happens later in the game, should they just stop throwing flags and allow pass interference?

I can't recall too many times when NFL coaches were caught paying out bounties. You snd zoneblitz make it seem as if its a weekly occurrence, yet supply no evidence (as is your wont).

Its amazing: on one hand you and zoneblitz claim to have inside info of bounties being commonplace in the NFL, yet on the other hand zoneblitz says its impossible to intentionally hurt someone with a legal hit.

You are both so retarded you cant even keep your retardation straight. Ghastly.

"Nothing to see here. Just your usual bounty authorized by the coach and paid for by his loan shark friend. Doesn't Espn have some real news to report, like Stuart Scott giving a commencement speech?"

I weep for the future of VSN

 

[Tailback U]

So much wrong in this post, too.

What is your point, that bounties aren't subject to punishment because we can't legislate "attitude "??????

NO. My point is that this doesn't change anything. That's all. It's simple really.

Everything else you said is pointless because you're just repeating yourself. Whether it is coaches, boosters, or fans that supply the bounties really doesn't change the concept of paying someone to injure other people. The concept is the same at a very fundamental level.

Nobody said that it doesn't need to be enforced and that punishments are unnecessary yet you fucking idiots keep repeating yourselves and over again for no apparent reason.

It's like you dumb asses don't understand english. You keep reaching and trying to assume I'm saying something that I haven't once said.

This is all politics for the NFL. That's why it's being so overblown. It's similar to a politician talking about how he's going to clean up the streets and crack down on drags to garner more public praise when in the end he isn't going to change anything. It has to be done, they have to try, you can't let crime go unpunished and you have to constantly strive to make a difference but the reality of the situation is that very little will change, if anything.

That's my point. That's all. If you want to argue with me, then argue that this is going to change the culture of the NFL and hit lists and bounties will no longer be in the sport. If you're not arguing that, then you're wasting your time because I'm not arguing anything else.

 

[Senser81]

NO. My point is that this doesn't change anything. That's all. It's simple really.

Everything else you said is pointless because
e you're just repeating yourself. Whether it is coaches, boosters, or fans that supply the bounties really doesn't change the concept of paying someone to injure other people. The concept is the same at a very fundamental lvel.

Nobody said that it doesn't need to be enforced and that punishments are unnecessary yet you fucking idiots keep repeating yourselves and over again for no apparent reason.

It's like you dumb asses don't understand english. You keep reaching and trying to assume I'm saying something that I haven't once said.

I would assume that if the NFL takes action, then at the very least it would change the New Orleans Saints internal bounty structure, no?

Again, what is your point? Do you have one?

If a convicted felon makes parole and immediately commits another crime, is it logical to say "well, jailtime didn't change anything, so lets not bother putting him back in jail"?

 

[Tailback U]

Read my last post again. If you can't figure it out, then I can't help you.

You really are getting dumber every year. I weep for your future.

 

[Senser81]

Read my last post again. If you can't figure it out, then I can't help you.

You really are getting dumber every year. I weep for your future.

I'm sorry. I didn't think all punishment must result in the stoppage of all bounties from this day forward until the end of Eternity. My bad.

As such, I was going to give you a temporary ban for "insubordination", but I am unsure if this punishment would stop all future occurrences of insubordination for the duration of Eternity, so I decided against it.

 

[Tailback U]

I'm sorry. I didn't think all punishment must result in the stoppage of all bounties from this day forward until the end of Eternity. My bad.

Nobody said they should or would. What's your point? Do you even have one?

As such, I was going to give you a temporary ban for "insubordination", but I am unsure if this punishment would stop all future occurrences of insubordination for the duration of Eternity, so I decided against it.

Insubordination? I have done nothing of the sort. Thankfully, you are powerless here. I am the golden god and you one of my minions. Carry on using words you don't know how to properly use.

 

[ZoneBlitz]

If you ask me "well, how are YOU judging intent?", my response would be that players get injured all the time on 'legal' hits that are highly questionable. Remember Warren Sapp dislocating Chad Clifton's hip?

So what? That doesnt mean Sapp intentionally tried to injure Clifton.

Anyways, as usual, all logic and all evidence proves you wrong. Players get injured on legal hits.

No shit, ive never said otherwise.

Through the years, the NFL has legislated against hits that are delivered with intent to injure. Night Train Lane's clothesline, Deacon Jones' headslap, Kimo von Oelhoffen diving into Carson Palmer's knee, Roy Williams' horse collar, etc.

WTF makes you think those hits were delivered "with intent to injure"?? Thats a ridiculous assumption on your part.

LOL @ a headslap being delivered with intent to injure.

Also, if players can't intentionally injure on legal hits, then how do we have 'dirty' players? Andre Waters was known to always blow out knees. Legal, yes. Dirty, yes. Conrad Dobler was the master of the blindside chop block. Legal, yes. Dirty, yes. Did James Harrison all of the sudden become a dirty player because his head shots were deemed "illegal"? Does that make his previous legal headshots 'clean'?

You dont know that any of those players were intentionally trying to injure. Again, another stupid assumption on your part.

 

[ZoneBlitz]

I can't recall too many times when NFL coaches were caught paying out bounties. You snd zoneblitz make it seem as if its a weekly occurrence, yet supply no evidence (as is your wont).

Stop being a retard, i never said coaches being involved was a regular thing.

 

[RosettaStoned]

LOL @ a headslap being delivered with intent to injure.

Not sure if srs?? I remember seeing an interview with Deacon saying he was trying to blow out people's ear drums.

 

[DSpydr84]

Tried to sift through the BS in this thread...its terrible.

The NFL has always taken a tough stance against bounties. Its too easy for one team to injure an opposing player if thats the intent. Jerry Glanville was notorious for this. When he was D-coordinator for the 1978 Falcons, he had LB Robert Pennywell slam Roger Staubach to the turf about 10 seconds after the play was over. Staubach was literally knocked out and did not return (Dallas still won, because Danny White came in). Glanville's Oilers teams were equally bad at cheap-shotting and maiming.

I remember when Charles Martin of the Packers body-slammed Jim McMahon on an incredibly dirty hit. Martin was suspended for the entire season, partly due to the fact that he had worn a "hit list" towel with McMahon's number on it. So, there wasn't even a "bounty", but there did appear to be intent to injure, so Martin was suspended for the year. I think that was the longest suspension for an "on-field" incident in NFL history. For those of you claiming this bounty stuff is no big deal, then you need to brush up on your history.

I hate to play the "did you ever play football??" card, but to those of you claiming that you can't have intent to injure while playing within the rules are insane. Hitting with the crown of your helmet, blindside blocks below the knees, etc. If you want to hurt someone "within the rules", its pretty easy. If you can't, then you are terrible at football. Example, in the Denver-Pittsburgh playoff Eric Decker caught a short pass. Instead of tackling Decker like a normal person, James Harrison took a cheap shot by throwing his body into Decker's knee. Decker blew out his knee.

Another example is the old Niners teams of the 80's. Their O-line was notorious for cut blocking. In the Super Bowl against Denver, Karl Mecklenburg took exception at getting cut blocked from behind as the play was on the other side of the field 30 yards away. Legal? Yes. Cheap shot? Yes. Intent to injure? Yes. Ironically, while Denver was pissed, a few years later they hired the coach responsible for the aggressive cut-blocking (mike shanahan), and then they were the team that everyone complained about.

Speaking to the bolded part and there-after, that was pretty much my point throughout this epilogue of a thread. The bounty stuff is a big deal, and there is the possibility of intent to injure within the framework of the current NFL game. Cut blocks, crack blocks, diving at knees; all mentioned and all relavant points.

The real issue here is that these types of things will not stop. There is no penalty, no course of action that the NFL can give that is harsh enough to stop some guys from trying to hurt other players. We can sit back and say hey, let's send Williams out of the league, suspend Payton, and all that... but this stuff is happening everywhere and will continue to happen everywhere unless the rules of playing football are different (and I mean drastically different).

The NFL can do all it wants, but the game is built around violence. Until that changes, bounties and intentionally hurting people will always happen (or at least be possible). I don't care either way what direction they decide, but they can't have their cake and eat it too. Either the game changes, or these things continue.

 

[RosettaStoned]

Speaking to the bolded part and there-after, that was pretty much my point throughout this epilogue of a thread. The bounty stuff is a big deal, and there is the possibility of intent to injure within the framework of the current NFL game. Cut blocks, crack blocks, diving at knees; all mentioned and all relavant points.

The real issue here is that these types of things will not stop. There is no penalty, no course of action that the NFL can give that is harsh enough to stop some guys from trying to hurt other players. We can sit back and say hey, let's send Williams out of the league, suspend Payton, and all that... but this stuff is happening everywhere and will continue to happen everywhere unless the rules of playing football are different (and I mean drastically different).

The NFL can do all it wants, but the game is built around violence. Until that changes, bounties and intentionally hurting people will always happen (or at least be possible). I don't care either way what direction they decide, but they can't have their cake and eat it too. Either the game changes, or these things continue.

They are obviously making changes to the game to make it safer.

You can put a stop to having coaches keeping criminals around putting bounties on players..

The concept isn't that hard.. I don't understand what the fuck the 3 of you are trying to say.

If you dish out harsh enough pentalties, the culture can and will change. This has been shown with the rule changes regarding player safety already.

If a coach has to choose between allowing bounties to be placed on players, or having a fucking job.. I bet you I know which he would choose. If a player has to choose between trying to pick up a $10,000 pot, or having a fucking job.. I bet I know which he would choose.. and if either make the dumb choice and they are gone.. eventually it will get to where anybody that dumb is gone regardless.

 

[DSpydr84]

They are obviously making changes to the game to make it safer.

You can put a stop to having coaches keeping criminals around putting bounties on players..

The concept isn't that hard.. I don't understand what the fuck the 3 of you are trying to say.

If you dish out harsh enough pentalties, the culture can and will change. This has been shown with the rule changes regarding player safety already.

If a coach has to choose between allowing bounties to be placed on players, or having a fucking job.. I bet you I know which he would choose. If a player has to choose between trying to pick up a $10,000 pot, or having a fucking job.. I bet I know which he would choose.. and if either make the dumb choice and they are gone.. eventually it will get to where anybody that dumb is gone regardless.

Obviously. I'm speaking more towards players going out with the intention of hurting another player, or coaches trying to set up an opposing player to get hurt. That part will never change, whether the money does or not I couldn't care less.

You can even see in Senser's posts, these things have gone on forever, and the NFL took it seriously in the past, and they're taking it seriously now. But the part they're missing is that their game promotes this stuff.

 

[Warner2BruceTD]

When it comes to Tailback, DSpyder, bucky, and zoneblitz...

-I think they are severely underestimating the extent of the Saints bounty program, and the level of vitriol behind it. Sorry, but you can not brush this off as a relatively harmless "pay for performance" incentive when there is an 18,000 page NFL investigation documenting things such as $10,000 on the table for injuring Brett Favre, and a convicted felon essentially being on staff with no other role other than providing cash for bounties and hooking up players with 'gifts'. This is like "The U" without Luther Campbell, except it involves presumably grown men and a coaching staff that not only overlooked it, but constructed and supported it.

-I think they are severely overestimating the extent of the bounty programs going on in the rest of the league. While i'm sure other bounty programs exist, i'm also willing to bet that this is not happening in every locker room, and in the places where it is, not nearly to the extent of what the Saints were doing.

-Saying players are not motivated by "small" sums of money like $1,000 or $10,000 is not only patently ridiculous, but also incredibly naive and missing the point of collecting on a "bounty". You are dealing with immature men in their 20's, many of which live above their means and are broke 6 months after their 4 year NFL career is over. A good portion of these guys would be bagging groceries or handing you french fries if they were not playing in the NFL. We are not dealing with the best and the brightest here.

-I've been trying to explain to these guys that, A.) NFL players are not actively trying to injure each other at all times (ridiculous), and B.) it is entirely possible to attempt to injure an opposing player with "a good, clean, legal hit" (trademark bucky). Senser was far more articulate and did a much better job explaining this, and THAT'S WHY THE LEGALITY OF THE HITS ARE IRRELEVANT WHEN YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT BOUNTIES. Saying "show me the dirty hits, show me the penalties" is an instant credibility killer in a debate like this, and shows me that you have no fucking clue about what is happening here. Ironically, in the case of high school football hero Tailback, it also shows he has very little concept of what happens on a football field, despite his tired lectures to the rest of us.

-And finally, the "eh, you can never stop it, so who cares!" argument is perhaps the most foolish and ridiculous point of view in a thread full of foolish and ridiculous points of view. We'll never stop murder either, so let's throw our hands and stop talking about people being brutally killed, because it's a non-story. bucky and his "functional part of the discussion" and suggesting harsher penalties and fines is completely worthless and added nothing to the conversation. Go away, please. Stop infecting threads with your obvious statements and general goober behavior. Tailback & zoneblitz asserting that you will never stop bounties is bullshit, too. The Saints won't be placing bounties anymore. I'll bet a bunch of other teams where this is going on will abruptly stop after seeing what has happened the last week.

 

[Senser81]

Here is the cliffnotes version of this thread:

Zoneblitz: No player in NFL history has ever tried to injure another player. I've personally spoken with several ex-NFL players, and they've all corroborated the private thoughts and intentions of the other players they played with. Besides, its impossible to intentionally injure someone anyways.

Tailback U: You can't stop people from having bounties, so why bother punishing the offenders? In fact, why are we even talking about this? Its a non-issue. My point is that no one other than myself should even be discussing this.

DSpyder84: Come see the violence inherent in the system!! Come see the violence inherent in the system!!

 

[FedEx227]

The Real Outrage of the Saints Bounty Scandal
http://www.slate.com/articles/sport...t_does_it_matter_why_everyone_gets_hurt_.html
Nate Jackson - Slate

Great article talking about the money involved and reward system in football (all levels).

Lost in all the outrage over the New Orleans Saints’ bounty program is a conversation about money and what it means to professional athletes. The sums that we’ve been hearing about—anywhere in the range of $1,000 to $10,000 to knock out opposing players—sound substantial to the typical American. But the average NFL player makes just short of $2 million, while the median salary is around $800,000. Players are paid only during the season, which means they earn 1/17th of their salary every week. For a player making the average salary that’s around $120,000 a week. For someone making the median, it’s close to $50,000.

Roman Harper, the Saints safety who’s been known to dish out kill shots, was in the last year of his rookie deal in 2009. That was a four-year, $2.5 million contract, well under the average NFL salary. But after the 2010 season, Harper signed a new four-year deal for $16 million guaranteed. This is money to NFL players. And it’s this kind of cash that will motivate a defensive player to decapitate a quarterback, not a few grand under the table.

Non-contract bonuses are common in the locker room. Not every reward is based on aggression. Some have to do with composure. If you get cheap-shotted and you don’t retaliate, you get a handful of cash. If you cause a fumble in practice, you get paid. (And if you’re the fumbler, you pay up.) If you make a tackle inside the 20-yard line on a kickoff, you get paid. If you’re the first one on the kickoff coverage team to cross the opposite goal line, you get paid. The money breaks up the monotony of a drab work week by rewarding a player for making a play he was trying to make anyway, because it’s his job.

This is life inside the NFL bubble, a world where extreme violence is rewarded with a paycheck. Before you got money to play the game, this violence was rewarded with pats on the back, special treatment, undeserved grades, scholarships, women, and status. There has always been a reward system in place for playing the game viciously. In the NFL, above all else, that reward is keeping your job.

Did Gregg Williams, by allegedly offering up cash for violent hits, make the game more dangerous? Not any more than the Pop Warner coach who grabs a kid by his facemask and tells him he hits like a sissy. Not any more than an ESPN correspondent who speculates about Michael Vick’s readiness to return to action following a concussion. And certainly not any more than Roger Goodell, who regularly implies that he can make the game safe by changing the rules.

Still, it is a coach’s league. A player only steps on the field if his coach allows it. And there are certainly plenty of tough-guy coaches like Gregg Williams who beat their chests and think of little mind games to get their players foaming at the mouth to go hit someone. But once you step on the field, everything else fades away, including the pre-game speech of your overzealous coach. When you make the choice to put on your helmet, there’s going to be a bounty of one kind or another on your head. No locker room speech can change that.

I find it unlikely that a player would focus on injuring an opponent in defiance of the referees on the field, the league office that reviews every hit, and his peers to whom he must answer every day and who don’t take kindly to cheap shots. No matter what cash they dispensed, the Saints didn’t play the game differently than any other team once they hit the field. These peripheral reward systems are pebbles around a boulder, and that boulder is rolling downhill.

Besides, in a game where 100 percent of the players get injured, why does it matter to us how they’re injured? The real outrage here isn't the bounties and the cart-off hits and knockout blows; it's the league office's need to sanctify all the bloodshed and ugliness with well-drawn rules and regulations. But bounties or no bounties, the game maims the men who play it. Yet the NFL stays busy selling the myth that football would be safe so long as the guys on the field played with a little integrity. Now where is the integrity in that? [Update, 1:20 p.m.: Due to an editing error, the wording at the end of this paragraph was originally taken from an earlier draft. The piece has been updated.]

 

[FirstTimer]

Why is this aspect of the story so under covered? You had a gambler who hung around the players and team and was seen in photos wearing Saints gear on their sideline putting money in the pot for bounties.

If this happened in baseball... you know gamblers affecting the way the game is played (aka the first 50 years of organized baseball), it'd be a bigger national story, no?

I mean let's separate the issue that NFL fans can't fathom the legalities of being given monetary benefits to intentionally hurt someone (whether it's "part of the game" or not - hint - it's not), but we have a gambler running around with a team in a sport that despite it's best attempt is so obviously tied to gambling. I just find it funny how little it's being talked about.

There are soruces now saying he wasn't funding it FWIW.

(Hub Arkush on WSCR yesterday)

Here is the cliffnotes version of this thread:

Your cliffnotes cliffnotes:

Zoneblitz: Derpa derpa herpa derp.

Tailback U: Derpadidoda

DSpyder84: Derpa Derp!

 

[ZoneBlitz]

Zoneblitz: No player in NFL history has ever tried to injure another player. I've personally spoken with several ex-NFL players, and they've all corroborated the private thoughts and intentions of the other players they played with. Besides, its impossible to intentionally injure someone anyways.

Way to completely butcher my point in order to make your lame jokes.

My point is that its difficult to intentionally injure someone within the rules.

You gave countless examples of injuries on legal hits, but they are all bullshit, because you dont know that there was intent to injure on those hits.

Then you gave examples of non-legal hits, but they are also bullshit, because it wasnt within the rules.

So the cliffnotes version of your posts in this thread is you failed to disprove anything ive said. You're welcome to keep trying.

 

[Senser81]

Way to completely butcher my point in order to make your lame jokes.

My point is that its difficult to intentionally injure someone within the rules.

You gave countless examples of injuries on legal hits, but they are all bullshit, because you dont know that there was intent to injure on those hits.

Then you gave examples of non-legal hits, but they are also bullshit, because it wasnt within the rules.

So the cliffnotes version of your posts in this thread is you failed to disprove anything ive said. You're welcome to keep trying.

I feel like Tom Cruise arguing with Col. Jessup in A Few Good Men...

"If you ordered Santiago not to be touched, and your orders are always followed, why the need to transfer Santiago?"

"If players never intentionally injure each other, and its impossible to injure someone within the framework of the rules, how could bounties exist in the first place? If players never have intent to injure, how could the concept of 'dirty players' even exist?"

Your posting has transformed into something beyond terrible. Take a break.

 

[DSpydr84]

When it comes to Tailback, DSpyder, bucky, and zoneblitz...

-I think they are severely underestimating the extent of the Saints bounty program, and the level of vitriol behind it. Sorry, but you can not brush this off as a relatively harmless "pay for performance" incentive when there is an 18,000 page NFL investigation documenting things such as $10,000 on the table for injuring Brett Favre, and a convicted felon essentially being on staff with no other role other than providing cash for bounties and hooking up players with 'gifts'. This is like "The U" without Luther Campbell, except it involves presumably grown men and a coaching staff that not only overlooked it, but constructed and supported it.

-I think they are severely overestimating the extent of the bounty programs going on in the rest of the league. While i'm sure other bounty programs exist, i'm also willing to bet that this is not happening in every locker room, and in the places where it is, not nearly to the extent of what the Saints were doing.

-Saying players are not motivated by "small" sums of money like $1,000 or $10,000 is not only patently ridiculous, but also incredibly naive and missing the point of collecting on a "bounty". You are dealing with immature men in their 20's, many of which live above their means and are broke 6 months after their 4 year NFL career is over. A good portion of these guys would be bagging groceries or handing you french fries if they were not playing in the NFL. We are not dealing with the best and the brightest here.

-I've been trying to explain to these guys that, A.) NFL players are not actively trying to injure each other at all times (ridiculous), and B.) it is entirely possible to attempt to injure an opposing player with "a good, clean, legal hit" (trademark bucky). Senser was far more articulate and did a much better job explaining this, and THAT'S WHY THE LEGALITY OF THE HITS ARE IRRELEVANT WHEN YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT BOUNTIES. Saying "show me the dirty hits, show me the penalties" is an instant credibility killer in a debate like this, and shows me that you have no fucking clue about what is happening here. Ironically, in the case of high school football hero Tailback, it also shows he has very little concept of what happens on a football field, despite his tired lectures to the rest of us.

-And finally, the "eh, you can never stop it, so who cares!" argument is perhaps the most foolish and ridiculous point of view in a thread full of foolish and ridiculous points of view. We'll never stop murder either, so let's throw our hands and stop talking about people being brutally killed, because it's a non-story. bucky and his "functional part of the discussion" and suggesting harsher penalties and fines is completely worthless and added nothing to the conversation. Go away, please. Stop infecting threads with your obvious statements and general goober behavior. Tailback & zoneblitz asserting that you will never stop bounties is bullshit, too. The Saints won't be placing bounties anymore. I'll bet a bunch of other teams where this is going on will abruptly stop after seeing what has happened the last week.

Thanked this for your first two points, which is probably true in some ways.

Here is the cliffnotes version of this thread:

Zoneblitz: No player in NFL history has ever tried to injure another player. I've personally spoken with several ex-NFL players, and they've all corroborated the private thoughts and intentions of the other players they played with. Besides, its impossible to intentionally injure someone anyways.

Tailback U: You can't stop people from having bounties, so why bother punishing the offenders? In fact, why are we even talking about this? Its a non-issue. My point is that no one other than myself should even be discussing this.

DSpyder84: Come see the violence inherent in the system!! Come see the violence inherent in the system!!

So you don't think the game in inherently violent?

Again, I'm not saying it's acceptable. That's one of the reasons I like it, but it doesn't make it right. But you even said yourself that these things happened in the past and their happening again today. AGAIN, I AM NOT THROWING MY HANDS IN THE AIR SAYING "LET IT GO". What I'm saying is if they want these things to change, the game needs to be played in a different manner. That's it. And it doesn't bother me which way they choose to go, but if they think they can put a stop to CERTAIN PLAYERS (NOT EVERYONE IN THE LEAGUE) trying to hurt other players and/or betting on performances, I don't think they can under the current framework of the game. Every article being posted says this happens everywhere (although W2B is probably correct saying it wasn't nearly to the level of New Orleans). The culture of the game promotes it. Either that changes, or this stuff keeps happening.

To me, I couldn't care less if they kept the game how it is and "bounties" (of some sort) continued. It really doesn't affect me, I don't know these guys, I just watch the game. Their long-term health isn't my concern, sorry if that sounds cold. But the NFL is foolish if they think anything that happens here will stop it forever, unless the rules of the game are different.