An explicit suggestion wouldn’t be necessary.
True, but that would generally apply to all teams in the league. I can see why people would be outraged, but assuming there were not playing dirty, I don’t see this as much more than bad PR.
Knocking an opponent out of the game has always been an unofficial, wink-and-a-nod badge of honour among players in contact sports, but officially sanctioning and encouraging it with monetary gain puts a whole new distasteful spin it.
All the ones where the coaches and players had a formalized system where players were financially rewarded for knocking opponents out of the game, yes.
Here’s one interesting statistic: from 2009-11, the Saints were third in the league in penalties like personal fouls, facemasks, and roughing the passer. As noted, the NFL started looking into this issue after hearing rumors that the Saints were deliberately trying to injure Brett Favre and Kurt Warner during playoff games. Those rumors date back to the actual games- it was something people noticed at the time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were posts about it on this board.
It is one thing to play a rough sport. It is another thing alltogether to intentionaly hit someone with the purpose of injuring them so severly that you knock them out of the game.
Part of the porblem that is developing from this is that there are probably more teams and more DCs out there who also have bounty systems in place. Beyond all of the Gregg Williams teams ('Skins, Bills, Saints), there are rumours that Buddy Ryan’s Eagles had a system like this in place. The Saints may not be more reckless, not becuse they are not any rougher then normal, but because ‘normal’ may include this.
Something Packers fans are very familiar with. 
I wonder if Williams will still be coaching in St. Louis when this is over. I’m guessing he won’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a perma-ban on Williams being involved with the League. Nobody is tuning in on Sundays to see Williams, after all, and I therefore expect the punishment given to front office people to be much more harsh than anything done to the players.
What’ll be interesting to me is what the punishment’s going to be for Payton and Loomis. As well as what draft picks will be yanked from the Saints. Add a perma-ban to the agent who was stupid enough to pony up his own money to the pool.
Hopefully, this will be scoured out with cleansing flame, and every other team that has something similar (and I’m guessing there’s more than one that has an informal version of the Saints’s system) will take internal measures to quickly eradicate anything similar. I wonder if the NFL will take a long, discerning look at just where the money for internal team “kittys” and “pools” goes and for what?
Not to mention that these penalties often have fines attached to them. 15 yards and a fine is nothing when the play knocks the opposing QB out of the game and the fine is all but reimbursed by the team.
It’s also worth noting that three of the top four teams in your statistic fall into the Jeff Fisher coaching tree.
I think it’s telling that there is a complete lack of outrage – even of *irritation *-- among players about this. Not counting kickers & punters (who, let’s face it, are coming from the other side of a clear distinction between themselves and all other football players), every single player-reaction quote I’ve seen has been some variation on “this stuff goes on everywhere/it’s football and hard hits are part of the game.”
(Some examples pulled from Google are here and here; I’d be happy to see counter-examples, though I’d be very surprised if the apparent consensus on this issue changes.)
Clearly, within the culture of professional football players & (probably) coaches, this behavior is generally not frowned upon, and is even *encouraged by a meaningful portion. This is hardly the only consideration for us spectators, but it must be a relevant factor when we’re affixing blame and making judgments about who is or is not a detestable human being. If you’re engaging in behavior that is condoned by your peer group, and which only has direct consequences within said peer group, then, well, it should be hard to work up more than a minimal level of moral umbrage, shouldn’t it?
Of course, this says nothing about how the league should or will respond. There’s little doubt that the NFL will go on a massive, mostly successful campaign to eliminate this behavior, nor is there much doubt that this is a good thing. The bounties will no longer be common, and we should all be happy about that. But I don’t think we should be jumping up and down on Gregg Williams or any players who took part.
- => Perhaps ironically, I think that once you start talking about upper management (e.g. Loomis) looking the other way, we *can *begin to make substantial moral judgments. They are not part of a culture that glorifies this sort of violence, and they have a responsibility to the game and the league.
This is why you are one of my favorite Dopers on sports matters. Not a lot of other posters here would be willing to see heads roll when it involves their favorite teams.
An enterprising prosecutor could bring indictments in the DC area. A jury around here would happily send the recent Redskins coaching staffs to jail, no matter what the charge.
I think this is very, very true. By all accounts, things like biting and gouging happen in damn near every pileup, and fans never see that. This is not about changing some kind of shocking and way-out-of-the-ordinary misbehavior; it’s about
-
publically punishing a coach that was stupid and out-of-control and made a tacitly tolerated practice front-page news and embarrassing the league
-
laying a down a marker for the lawsuits the NFL is going to be facing in upcoming years. Duerson’s suit is only the first, and the NFL knows it.
It’s also about making sure this behavior becomes less ordinary. Players are going to get punished, too.
I disagree. It’s pretty clear coaches would prefer their opposing players were knocked out of the game. They don’t need to make it explicit, or even hint at it because all the everyone know this.
These are good points. Definitely worth investigating.
Well, I am not sure that is what was being encouraged. That said, such play has it’s own built-in disincentives. Even if you accept the bounty incentivized players to hurt others, the likelihood that that player will receive some retribution himself is pretty high. Dirty players must be prepared to take as much as they dish out, which should limit really dirty play to a large extent.
Fair point, but one I suspect did not need to be made apparent to most football fans. Honestly, people die every year playing football. There are few people who play in the NFL for years that don’t have lifelong ailments and disabilities as a result. This story doesn’t change much for me.
Very well said.
A preference is not the same as an explicit system of encouragement and financial reward involving players and coaches. Everybody hits hard, but I don’t know that everybody goes out of their way to this degree. And while I said the money was mostly about pride, President Johnny Gentle is right that it also takes on another dimension when the fines for illegal hits are partly or entirely covered by the bounty pool. That removes a chunk of the disincentive against illegal hits.
Kurt Warner had a history of concussions and may have sustained one on a questionable hit from the Saints during a playoff game. As Hamlet already explained, the defensive captain of the Saints personally pledged $10,000 by himself to any player who could knock Favre out. The Saints were fined $25,000 for three hits on Favre in that game. One of those hits injured Favre’s ankle to the point that he later needed surgery- something the Saints later gloated about. Another one of those hits forced an interception and Favre missed some plays during the game.
Interesting that several of these hits were made by one player, Bobby McCray. Favre even wondered what was going on during the game.
I’m seeing plenty of irritation… from offensive players. Defensive players are saying it happens everywhere, it’s part of the game, etc. The difference is striking.
I also noticed that Saints fans on league-wide sites like this one and reddit, are expressing general disgust. But on Saints-only sites, there are many more fans defending the practice and howling about the Saints only got caught and everybody does it.
Of course, it looks like the Saints aren’t the only ones who got caught. They’re the first domino to fall, but there are already reports that several other teams did it and I’d expect more inquiries.
My personal feelings that the teams should forfeit draft choices, pay fines, and there should be suspensions and bans associated. The Patriots scandal was worth a first round choice. Also, a different sport, but when the Timberwolves were found to be circumventing the NBA salary cap, the league took 5 first rounders from them (reduced on appeal). This scandal has salary cap implications in addition to the on-field situation. I think a punishment substantially more harsh than the Patriots is in order.
I’ll stand by this, even if the Vikings are eventually implicated.
A question though: how far back should the investigation go? For example, it wouldn’t be a shock to see Buddy Ryan coached teams besides the Eagles thrown into the discussion. Should punishments be levied for these teams?
An interesting aside: I saw reports indicating the NFL has amassed 50,000 pages of evidence against the Saints. That’s absolutely incredible.
I don’t think the salary cap angle is very important, but the player safety and sportsmanship issues are a big deal. It’s a bigger deal than Spygate was. Players and coaches should be suspended and fined extensively, and this can’t end with the Saints.