NFL: Saints Bounty Thread

[JDaveG]

(09-01-2012 04:14 PM)AsylumGuido Wrote:  First of all, I don't think that Goodell planned this. It dropped into his lap back in 2010 when Mike Cerullo came to him with the claim that the Saints had a bounty. The same Mike Cerullo that had just been fired for taking TWO emergency "vacations" during the 2009 season that were discovered to have been bogus. The league investigated his claims and found nothing.

Two full years later, with no interim investigations, the league came to the Saints again with claims of bounties. It turns out that they somehow now had a handwritten ledger. The same ledger that did not match up to any actual events in the games in had been claimed to represent. Rumors are that Cerullo also supplied this ledger, which also had erroneously indicated that Joe Vitt had contributed $5000 which Goodell admitted later was a mistake.

This was about the same time as the lawsuits started up against the league. It was January 2012. Goodell obviously saw an opportunity to show the league's commitment to safety by making an example of the Saints who just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time due to a disgruntled former employee. Individual that were interviewed during the investigation have reported that all questioning was based upon predetermined results. Fact that negated the claims were ignored. The whole investigation was a farce.

That is why Tom Benson hired the Freeh Agency to investigate all of the claims. I can't wait to see those results.

You see, the Saints were not "targeted" in this. They just happened to have a man with a vendetta and another with an agenda that converged upon them.

There is no conspiracy. This wasn't all planned. It just happened and it was totally misguided.

So if they weren't targeted, how are they a "sacrificial lamb?"

That's what you said -- that "the sacrificial lamb was CHOSEN -- the Saints" (emphasis mine). Why were they chosen?