Exaggerate much? Maybe it was 99.9% of the people who came here to pile on that you're thinking of. In which case you could probably list them by name. Then in the post you talk about the wiretapping allegation as if it were a proven fact. Practice what you preach buddy.
I didn't pay a whole lot of attention the whole Spygate affair. It didn't seem like a big deal to me. When I hear people who still refer to it I write it off as envy for your success. What I was totally unprepared for was the venom and vindictiveness directed toward Payton and Loomis by so called journalists. I expect that from fans of other teams but seeing the outright hate and disinformation from sites like CBS.com and Foxsports was a real eye opener.
Just to be clear I am a hardcore Saints fan since 1967. I didn't really have a problem with the League make an example of us but feel the penalties were ridiculously excessive, particularly the suspension of Payton for an entire season. It strikes me as vindictive on Goodell's part. And still have yet to see any evidence whatsoever from the League to support the suspensions of the players.
Personally I think there are really two things to understand about the league and Goodell, and how they currently hand out punishments. And I don't think vindictiveness has anything to do with it.
- Number 1, they're a multi-billion dollar business, so their overriding priority is to protect their brand. There's particularly nothing noteworthy or sinister about this--large businesses will act to protect themselves--but it goes a long way towards explaining the seeming arbitrariness of their penalties. Simply put, Goodell and the league are less concerned with the underlying transgression, than the degree to which the NFL 'shield" has been tarnished...so in fact the actual violation matters less than the amount of negative attention and media coverage that violation focuses on the league.
- Number 2--and this is a corollary to number 1--the NFL is now dealing with the specter of waves of litigation from former players regarding safety issues. So violations that have any relationship to player safety are essentially opportunities for Goodell and the league to publicly and forcefully demonstrate its "commitment" to player safety, not so much to the given rules violator, as to potential future claimants in lawsuits against the league.
The various penalties assigned under Goodell's reign over the past few years start to make a lot more sense when viewed from this context. There's a reason the Saints' penalties were so severe, just like there was a reason why the fine and suspension structure abruptly exploded in 2010 for hits that have occurred since the dawn of the NFL. Penalties are now assigned for public posturing purposes as much as for actual "fairness". This probably sounds very cynical and negative but I honestly mean this descriptively (and actually not necessarily disparagingly): the NFL is a big business, and it acts like one. It has a dubious record on player safety over the years, and has a potentially very serious legal vulnerability in this area. So the league and Goodell are acting accordingly.
I'm sure there are well-meaning people (perhaps, Goodell among them) in the league that honestly care and want to improve player safety. But the sudden *severity* of the penalties has less to do with good intentions, and more to do with the league desperately trying to promote itself as safety-conscious in an uncertain climate. The NFL has spent several decades tolerating, celebrating, and frankly marketing/promoting the very violence it suddenly deems appalling. The penalties are draconian now because while they may or may not have truly cared about player safety over the decades, they certainly care about *lawsuits*.
Personally I wish that Goodell could just stand up without all the sanctimony and outrage (which is unfortunately all too easy for media hacks to parrot and pile on to), call a spade a spade, and just be honest about why he's become more of a sheriff than a commissioner. For example, he could say:
"Starting now, we're going to hand out massive penalties for crap we know has been going on forever in this league. This is partly because we care about player safety. But mostly it's because we have an endless parade of lawsuits from players staring us in the face, all related to our possibly negligent stance on safety over the years. We know it's not exactly consistent or fair. And we understand it's actually kind of hypocritical because we've looked the other way on these issues for a long time, and frankly have been beneficiaries--both in a promotional and an actual monetary sense--from a lot of this stuff. But we HAVE to do it, because these lawsuits represent a legitimate threat to the long-term viability of the NFL as we know it."
While this would never actually happen, it would certainly make some of NFL's recent actions a lot easier to understand.
