NFL: Saints Bounty Thread

[AsylumGuido]

(12-13-2012 03:16 PM)ATLBound Wrote:  I disagree. They knew what the heck he was talking about. His full understanding of what was going may have been fabricated when he came to them in 2009, but there's no reason for Vitt to say what Williams transcripts says he says or for anybody to tell Hargrove to deny anything.

This is in response to both your and RnB's posts.

Let's wait to see what Vitt says himself in the transcripts instead of what Williams said he said. But, in February 2010 when the league first came to the Saints the whole entire issue was a claim of a bounty on Brett Favre lodged by Brad Childress. It had nothing to do with any performance pool. At that time performance pools were extremely common place in the NFL and just the two prior years the Packers (2007) and the Patriots (2008) were hit with $25,000 fines, and no more, for running one. The Saints were not placing bounties on opposing players. Payton knew nothing about any bounties on opposing players because there were none.

The whole case was closed by the league until November of 2011 when Cerullo, frustrated with not being able to get a job in the NFL, fabricated the story of bounties on players during 2009 and brought it to the league. During the resulting investigation Goodell saw the existence of a performance pool, which was readily admitted to by both Vitt and Williams, and put two and two together and came up with seven and claimed it was the bounties reported by Cerullo. He was pissed off because he felt he was lied to.

It had nothing to do with protecting the shield. It had everything to do with an egotistical maniac feeling slighted. Goodell ignored very clear evidence that there were no real bounties and he levied punishments that were many, many times more severe than any ever in the history of the league. This wasn't about the NFL or player safety. This was all about Goodell having to prove that he was omnipotent and no one would ever defy him.

What he did was not right. Tagliabue admonished him in his statement saying Goodell delivered punishments that in no way fit the crime.