I thought the penalty for Peyton was harsh too, but hearing about everything, I think the year can be broken down as:
4 games for the bounty system
6 games for lying to the league
6 games for continuing (or at least lack of control/oversight) the bounties once the investigation had been started.
Small point of order, as it’s come up quite a few times in this thread:
Payton is the currently-suspended head coach of the New Orleans Saints.
Peyton is the recently-acquired quarterback of the Denver Broncos.
Responding again to point out that I called him a dupe in context of an answer to your hypothetical. Assuming Bowen was being truthful, his answer indicates he doesn’t understand what the issue is or how management works. The issue is not that Gregg Williams explicitly told his defense to hurt people by playing dirty. I have heard absolutely no one describe the situation that way. What he did do is give his players rewards for hurting people irrespective of how they accomplished that job. No distinction was made, and that is in itself an encouragement to play dirty (especially since it also counteracts the NFL fines, at least in part).
And in case you have not seen this point in the context of political or criminal discussions, I’ll raise it here: if you are in a leadership position and handle your subordinates in the right way, you do not have to tell them to break the rules to please you. You give them a task and let them figure it out. That gives you plausible deniability if you ever get caught. ‘Sure, those guys working for me broke into a bank when I said I was desperate for money, but I never told them to do it - I just said I needed money! I had no idea they might steal it.’ It can be pretty effective as a defense. So if Bowen does not understand that, then yes, he’s kind of clueless or just hasn’t thought about how this stuff works.
Will no one rid me of this turbulent quarterback?
The problem is that you were not addressing the substance of my argument, you were just being willfully obtuse in a pathetic attempt to score points. I said players want to hurt their opponents because several of them have explicitly said those things. That is not an argument as it is relaying things that were actually said by several players. If you think I was saying that they want to hurt people without any regard to context, play, or fairness, then maybe you need to get checked out.
You don’t know that. It’s very possible they did given what several players who were there have relayed about Williams as a person and a coach.
Cite? And regardless, a flag doesn’t necessarily indicate a dirty play, which is what are talking about.
But they were not asked to actively hurt other players. Regardless of how you want to interpret things, players who were there, who participated in the bounty program, did not see it that way. They specifically said, Williams did ask or encourage us to hurt players. Now who do you think is in a better position to judge, a guy who is there or some dude on the internet who read an article?
If that were the case, they would have used “whatever rule” instead of the one they cited. So if you think they could have just made a big deal out of it of the moral repugnance of the program, why did they punish them for completely different reasons.
Exactly, which is why it annoys me to no end to see Goodell on TV acting as though he actually cares about player safety.
It’s a decent example because of that. I don’t know why you would try any harder during that frame than any other, but I don’t think the average person would. Particularly if a less than stellar frame at any point meant your game could be cancelled immediately.
But it would cost you a lot to try to deliberately injure anyone in an obvious way. Any guy with a chance to hurt the QB is in the game enough that an lineman would have ample opportunity to return the favor. So you are putting yourself at risk as well. That’s not to mention the reputation cost that comes with being known as a dirty player. Lastly, you would get fined far more than you would ever collect as a bounty. Guys like James Harrison are fined and suspended, which results in a huge lose of money. Thinking a small bounty is gonna change behavior doesn’t make any sense given all the other disincentives for doing so.
Are these folks who got suspended still being paid while on suspension?
Unlike you, the professional management consultant to the NFL? :dubious: Seriously, how arrogant can you be that you think that based solely on reading articles, often written based on other articles, you think you are in a better positions to judge the effects of a clandestine program better than multiple people who either play in the NFL, or were actually there. Oh, that’s right, I forgot you have some magical insight that can only be gleaned from watching ESPN from your couch while eating donuts. Multiple people who were actually there just “don’t understand the issue or how management works”. All these players, who overwhelmingly disagree with your stance just don’t understand. Even thought they are the only ones who are directly affected by such things, they don’t GET IT like you do, the armchair QB who consistently demonstrates an profound ignorance on all things sports related. But you must be right, I mean you did probably read like half a dozen articles about it.
First, you don’t know that it was irrespective of how they accomplished the job. Commonsense would lead one to believe there had to be some boundaries. Do you really think a guy who ran across the field, and punched Farve in the face would be rewarded?
Even if you assume it was a wink-wink, nod-nod situation despite the several first hand accounts to the contrary, you then have to further assume that the money or rewards involved were significant enough to actually induce such behavior. Again, basic commonsense would lead most to believe that would not be the case. It also seems that in-depth analysis of the record seems to point to the fact that there were little deviation in the frequency of penalties and dirty plays.
That only works if the “crime” is what you are trying to deny knowledge of. Targeting players is not against the rules. Telling a guy to hurt another guy is not against the rules. Saying you want to hurt your opponents is not against the rules. If it were, damn near every pass rusher would be suspended.
Paying people non-contract bonuses is against the rules. So if there was any attempt to have plausible deniability, the smart way would have been to cover the money trail, not to avoid talk of injury. But thanks for the management 101 lesson. Let’s hope you never have to follow your own advice as you will likely make your situation worse.
Yeah, Bowen doesn’t get it. Maybe someone like you should explain to him, and the overwhelming majority of other NFL players who are indifferent to the whole thing.
No. The suspension will cost Payton around $7 million.
So, no one ever steals $100 bill from a another persons wallet because the fines for getting caught (if they did) would be several hundred to several thousand dollars?
Again, why offer the bounty if it wasn’t necessary to change on-field behavior?
Certainly I’m no moderator, but if I’m expected to follow the rules, I demand the same of others.
I don’t think the coaches will be paid, but their contracts will be extended an extra year. So Payton, who I believe has 3 years left on his contract, will still have 3 years left next year when/if he comes back. For him, the lost in salary is ~7.5 MM.
Also though it was worth mentioning what Farve, the alleged target of a bounty said about all of this:
Granted, Favre doesn’t understand management like Marley23, but it’s pretty telling that the guy whose career they supposedly tried to end doesn’t seem to be too nonplussed about it.
Dude, are you following this at all? If I offered you $.25 to mug some guy, would you do it? You might if you were in the habit of mugging people already, but it likely would not be enough of an incentive to break the law if you were normally law abiding. Just addressing the cost-benefit analysis aspect of this bounty thing, arguing such a small amount of money was an inducement to break the rules, or try any harder given the various incentives and disincentives for doing so.
Because it was about instilling team camaraderie and chemistry. It’s the same reason they give out championship trophies. The existence of a trophy isn’t what makes people want to win, it’s just a nice recognition for hard work. If the Superbowl trophy was lost this year, do you think Brady stops wanting to win the Superbowl?
What rules have I broken?
Brickbacon, let’s stop with the thinly-veiled insults, thanks. Remember what forum you’re in and dial it back a notch, take a deep breath, etc.
No warning, just a note.
Further point of order, Peyton (the quarterback) was not “recently-acquired” in the traditional use of that term. He was signed. The Broncos owe the Colts nothing and the Broncos were not committed to honor the terms of Peyton’s old contract. It was a brand-new deal between a franchise and an unemployed player.
My use of the term and the traditional use of the term are, as far as i can tell, about the same. To acquire something is to come into possession or control or ownership of that thing. As far as i can tell, that’s a pretty accurate description of Denver’s relationship with Manning.
Then it was pretty silly for the Saints’ coaching staff to pay for something twice, if the players were already playing the desired way and all, and it was equally silly for the players to accept the payments.
The thrust of my argument isn’t that it was necessarily the trivial amount of money that motivated the players. If it was the money or some macho abstaction like commaraderie and chemistry, the players took the money. Why? To continue playing the way they always play? I don’t think so.
delete
It’s certainly possible that I’m in the wrong here, but my understanding is that, in professional franchise sports, the term ‘acquired’ is generally used to indicate a team that has obtained the rights to a given player from another entity (either another team or the draft). When players join a team from free-agency they are usually said to be ‘signed’. Could be just me though. Really not worth a long argument either way - especially since I shared your…concern…over the Peyton/Payton thing.
I’m beginning to regret starting this thread.
First we’ve got a really ridiculous (and godawful persistent, lengthy, and disjointed) argument based on player’s opinions of a bounty system–as if that matters. I’m sure the NFL couldn’t care less about player’s opinions before they slammed their shoe on the cockroaches. Its the NFL that runs things, not the players.
Now we’re into a tangent about the meaning of “acquired”.
Can we start testing SDMB members for post-concussion syndrome?
If there’s no internet message board law to describe the tendency of arguments in a thread to become ridiculously absurd the longer the thread is active, I’m inventing one. Something like:
Mince’s Law states that the Quality of a thread’s discourse is inversely proportional to time.
Q(sub)a=1/T
where Q(sub)a is the Quality of Argument and T is time.
What did you expect? (Not about the tangent on acquired, mea culpa there) I mean, yes, the NFL pounded the Saints. That’s not something subject to much discussion ‘cause it actually happened and is factual at this point. The discussion has to center around why so much and whether deserved - at which point the players’ opinions become as relevant as anybody’s. Right?