NFL: Saints Bounty Thread

[pauliwood]

Another arbitrator shoots down Saints
June, 8, 2012
Jun 8
4:45
PM ET
By Pat Yasinskas | ESPN.com



Unless the NFL Players Association has some sort of Hail-Mary pass hidden deep in its playbook, it’s starting to look like New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma will have to serve his season-long suspension and defensive end Will Smith will have to sit out the first four games.

A second arbitrator has ruled against a grievance by the NFLPA on behalf of Vilma, Smith and former Saints Anthony Hargrove and Scott Fujita. In the latest ruling, arbitrator Shyan Das ruled in favor of the NFL. The grievance said that the collective bargaining agreement signed last summer, prohibits commissioner Roger Goodell from punishing players for contact before the agreement was signed. But Das said Goodell had that authority.

That leaves only a few more ways for Smith and Vilma to avoid their suspensions, or have them reduced. Their appeals directly to Goodell are scheduled to be heard later in June. But, since Goodell is the one who issue the punishment, I doubt he’ll reverse himself. He upheld his rulings when Saints coaches and administrators appealed suspensions against the team.

The other wild card in this is Vilma’s defamation lawsuit against Goodell. Some legal experts have said they expect that case to be dismissed before ever reaching trial. But Vilma’s lawyer was involved in the StarCaps litigation that hung up suspensions for Smith and former New Orleans player Charles Grant and several former Minnesota players. The players eventually were suspended last season, but their case, which began in 2008, was stalled in the legal system for a long time as the NFL waited for final resolution.




linkey

[JDaveG]

(06-08-2012 04:52 PM)Drathdon Wrote:  These two quotes cannot both be correct. Some journalist needs an editor.

Wow -- I didn't even catch that! Solid editing there, folks!

(06-08-2012 05:01 PM)pauliwood Wrote:  yeah, don't let Guido see this misprint, he will run with it. The arbitrator ruled for the NFL

Proxy for Guido:

"Even the paper that reported it had their facts mixed up. But what the article clearly said was the arbitrator sided with the Saints. That's the important point here."

[pauliwood]

(05-09-2012 04:03 PM)AsylumGuido Wrote:  Many of us are just demanding the truth in the form of proof.

[AsylumGuido]

(06-08-2012 05:31 PM)JDaveG Wrote:  Wow -- I didn't even catch that! Solid editing there, folks!


Proxy for Guido:

"Even the paper that reported it had their facts mixed up. But what the article clearly said was the arbitrator sided with the Saints. That's the important point here."

No chance either of those grievances would fly. I'm just hoping that more of this watered down "evidence" keeps surfacing showing that the Saints players were not the villains as they had been originally been portrayed. Yes, they were guilty of a pay for performance program, but they did not have bounties on opposing players as was plastered all over the media for weeks.

They weren't playing the game on the field any differently than any other team attempts to play.

[AsylumGuido]

(06-08-2012 06:31 PM)pauliwood Wrote:  

Yup. Still waiting. We still haven't seen squat showing that the Saints had a bounty going on putting a target to take out players as has been portrayed. That is exactly what Vilma has been "convicted" of doing.

[pauliwood]

Saints get slapped down AGAIN, and dude thinks its a good thing, unbelievable.

[AsylumGuido]

(06-08-2012 06:39 PM)pauliwood Wrote:  Saints get slapped down AGAIN, and dude thinks its a good thing, unbelievable.

No, the NFLPA gets slapped down. They were just using the Saints' situation to try to weaken Goodell's power.

[JDaveG]

I'll say it again -- if Goodell had the authority as commissioner to issue the punishments he did, and those punishments were proper under the collective bargaining agreement, Vilma's lawsuit is climbing straight uphill. The claim that the suit against Goodell personally is proper depends entirely on proving Goodell's actions were outside the CBA. If they aren't, the arbitration clause controls.

I'll say it again -- ask me how I know there's an arbitration clause?

[AsylumGuido]

(06-08-2012 06:44 PM)JDaveG Wrote:  I'll say it again -- if Goodell had the authority as commissioner to issue the punishments he did, and those punishments were proper under the collective bargaining agreement, Vilma's lawsuit is climbing straight uphill. The claim that the suit against Goodell personally is proper depends entirely on proving Goodell's actions were outside the CBA. If they aren't, the arbitration clause controls.

I'll say it again -- ask me how I know there's an arbitration clause?

True, but it has prompted Goodell to "leak" so called evidence that continues to weaken the public's original, and meticulously crafted via league guidance, opinion that the Saints had a program in place to target opposing players for intentional injury.

This is all I want out of all of this. There is no way to overturn any punishment, no matter how unwarranted, but at least the public can be made aware of the dramatic overstatement of the team's violations.

Can any of you tell me right now that your opinion of what probably went on, knowing what you know now, is as sinister as what you believed from the start?

I doubt it if you are honest with yourself.

[JDaveG]

(06-08-2012 07:00 PM)AsylumGuido Wrote:  True, but it has prompted Goodell to "leak" so called evidence that continues to weaken the public's original, and meticulously crafted via league guidance, opinion that the Saints had a program in place to target opposing players for intentional injury.

This is all I want out of all of this. There is no way to overturn any punishment, no matter how unwarranted, but at least the public can be made aware of the dramatic overstatement of the team's violations.

Can any of you tell me right now that your opinion of what probably went on, knowing what you know now, is as sinister as what you believed from the start?

I doubt it if you are honest with yourself.

"Sinister?" Depends on what you mean by that.

I think the Saints organization is run by a bunch of first class assholes who think the rules don't apply to them and kept running a pay for performance program that included specific payments for injuring opposing players even after they were asked by the league to stop. So that hasn't changed. But I don't know what you think I thought before, so it's hard to comment on the version of "what I believed from the start" that you think existed.