I was reading up on Bountygate...

[jah]

...and something really scary came up.

All four players appealed their suspensions. On September 7, 2012, the Burbank appeals panel vacated the suspensions imposed on the four, and the NFL confirmed that the ruling reinstated them in time for their first games of the 2012 season two days later.[73] Two days after the fifth game of the season, on October 9, 2012, the league re-issued the suspensions without any changes or reductions; the players' appeals continued.[74]

This is from Wikipedia. So, if Brady's suspension gets vacated, the NFL is allowed to just slap it right back on him? How the hell does that work?

Also, I've noticed a lot of people here saying that they wished they had heard the Saints out more when this was all happening, and I've got to ask you all: What should the punishment for Bountygate actually have been? Sure, the NFL massively screwed up, but Gregg Williams did seem to actually admit SOMETHING happened. Were the 2 2nd rounders valid? Were the coach suspensions valid? The player suspensions?

 

[PatsSox363804]

They literally suspended Payton an entire season because he "should have known" and "ignorance is no excuse." The whole thing was a joke and designed to look tough because of the ongoing concussion issues. Kraft should have woken up and stopped supporting Goodell right then and there but now after letting the Saints get hosed as well as the Redskins and Cowboys the other owners are laughing at him when his supposed friend screws him over.

 

[JMC00]

No. The appeals panel never vacated the suspensions outright, they just ruled that ****dell had no power to suspend them.

The panel ruled that Special Master Stephen Burbank, not Goodell, should discipline players for receiving money from a pool that paid for big plays. Goodell’s role, the panel said, should be limited to whether he can prove the players intended to injure opponents, which would fall in the category of conduct detrimental to the game

Also keep in mind that appeals panel wasn't federal court, it was just a CBA appeal panel, the judge in the federal court case had taken a wait and see approach which it never got back to her because the punishments got overturned and then when they re-punished them Tagliabue rescinded the punishments.

 

[PatsSox363804]

No. The appeals panel never vacated the suspensions outright, they just ruled that ****dell had no power to suspend them.

Also keep in mind that appeals panel wasn't federal court, it was just a CBA appeal panel, the judge in the federal court case had taken a wait and see approach which it never got back to her because the punishments got overturned and then Taglibue rescinded the punishments.

Tags rescinded the punishments and wrote a scathing decision calling out Goodell, so bad infact that crybaby Goodell stopped talking to him outright instead of, I dunno, learning something from his predecessor.

 

[pherein]

...and something really scary came up.



This is from Wikipedia. So, if Brady's suspension gets vacated, the NFL is allowed to just slap it right back on him? How the hell does that work?

Also, I've noticed a lot of people here saying that they wished they had heard the Saints out more when this was all happening, and I've got to ask you all: What should the punishment for Bountygate actually have been? Sure, the NFL massively screwed up, but Gregg Williams did seem to actually admit SOMETHING happened. Were the 2 2nd rounders valid? Were the coach suspensions valid? The player suspensions?

Nah is was a pretty unbelievable what they did to the team, but I respect other peoples view on the matter.
Attacking a teams ability to funtion is WAY over the top. IF they had evidence to support what RG said happend, and hadn't openly lied about the evidence, I would have agreed to GW being suspended for 2-4 games, SP was going to fire him anyways that year ,lol.
But what they did was destroy a good team and make it uncompedative to prove a point, that RG has a small........, because RG knew we were to small to fight back.
Look, this is football, EVERYONE is paid for performace, demarcus ware is paid more everytime he knocks out a few QB's dont fool yourself thinking this is a gentalmens game. I got more stickers on my helmet as a kid making sure I wasted the QB or a LB than lightly tapping him on the back and saying " oh excuse me but Im going to hit you lightly now, so your not injured". This is a mans game, and it brutal, and it should be.
Personally I think football players should be payed a flat fee of say $500,000 say for a reciver and $10,000 for each catch and $100,000 for a TD. They them compete for money on the field.
That way we know that when Brees made 20 million in a year he really earned it. Not 100% on this , but it might be a good model for pay.
Cuting SP for a year was completely uncalled for. By RG's description of "ignorance" well then BB and every coach should be suspended, and he did it because SP told him to go F himself when ask for his emails and phone. RG just makes it up as he goes.

 

[patfanken]

Nah is was a pretty unbelievable what they did to the team, but I respect other peoples view on the matter.
Attacking a teams ability to funtion is WAY over the top. IF they had evidence to support what RG said happend, and hadn't openly lied about the evidence, I would have agreed to GW being suspended for 2-4 games, SP was going to fire him anyways that year ,lol.
But what they did was destroy a good team and make it uncompedative to prove a point, that RG has a small........, because RG knew we were to small to fight back.
Look, this is football, EVERYONE is paid for performace, demarcus ware is paid more everytime he knocks out a few QB's dont fool yourself thinking this is a gentalmens game. I got more stickers on my helmet as a kid making sure I wasted the QB or a LB than lightly tapping him on the back and saying " oh excuse me but Im going to hit you lightly now, so your not injured". This is a mans game, and it brutal, and it should be.
Personally I think football players should be payed a flat fee of say $500,000 say for a reciver and $10,000 for each catch and $100,000 for a TD. They them compete for money on the field.
That way we know that when Brees made 20 million in a year he really earned it. Not 100% on this , but it might be a good model for pay.
Cuting SP for a year was completely uncalled for. By RG's description of "ignorance" well then BB and every coach should be suspended, and he did it because SP told him to go F himself when ask for his emails and phone. RG just makes it up as he goes.

You make a lot of good points, pheriein, but I will point out 2 that might piss you off....just a bit.

1. Roger Goodell far over stepped the bounds of good sense with the "bountygate" punishments, just as he did with "cameraplacementgate". But at LEAST in those 2 cases the initial crime actually occurred. The Saints DID set up a bounty program and the staff (Williams) was in on it. Same with the Pats, they actually DID film other team;s hand signals, (which was legal BTW), just not from where they set up their camera.

Think about how frustrating it is for Pats fans knowing with 100% certainty, that the balls were NOT purposely deflated to gain an unfair advantage. In other words NOTHING HAPPENED during the AFCCG except a failed attempt to sting the Pats by elements within the NFL front office with personal agendas. There ISN'T an underlying crime. It's like Brady being tried for murder, while the person he supposedly killed is alive and well....... and no one seems to be paying attention to that "small detail", so the prosecution of Brady is allowed to continue..

2. No doubt the Saints were hurt by the entire "bountygate" saga, especially the loss of your HC for a year. HOWEVER, I think it's a little disingenuous to blame all the bad things that has happened to the Saints at the feet of Roger Goodell. A LOT of the Saints' recent problems are due to more than that. Things like a horrible management of your cap that has led to the need to lose key players. Things like failure of several of your recent high priced FA signings (mostly due to injuries). Lastly (and I bet you will agree with me), the Saints will have problems in the playoffs as long as they play in that dome. It's great when you have that homefield advantage, but if you have to play a road game, ANY dome team faces an uphill battle when they leave the cozy confines.

 

[VectorPrime]

Rob Ryan also helped drive the defense into the ground.

 

[pherein]

You make a lot of good points, pheriein, but I will point out 2 that might piss you off....just a bit.

1. Roger Goodell far over stepped the bounds of good sense with the "bountygate" punishments, just as he did with "cameraplacementgate". But at LEAST in those 2 cases the initial crime actually occurred. The Saints DID set up a bounty program and the staff (Williams) was in on it. Same with the Pats, they actually DID film other team;s hand signals, (which was legal BTW), just not from where they set up their camera.

Think about how frustrating it is for Pats fans knowing with 100% certainty, that the balls were NOT purposely deflated to gain an unfair advantage. In other words NOTHING HAPPENED during the AFCCG except a failed attempt to sting the Pats by elements within the NFL front office with personal agendas. There ISN'T an underlying crime. It's like Brady being tried for murder, while the person he supposedly killed is alive and well....... and no one seems to be paying attention to that "small detail", so the prosecution of Brady is allowed to continue..

2. No doubt the Saints were hurt by the entire "bountygate" saga, especially the loss of your HC for a year. HOWEVER, I think it's a little disingenuous to blame all the bad things that has happened to the Saints at the feet of Roger Goodell. A LOT of the Saints' recent problems are due to more than that. Things like a horrible management of your cap that has led to the need to lose key players. Things like failure of several of your recent high priced FA signings (mostly due to injuries). Lastly (and I bet you will agree with me), the Saints will have problems in the playoffs as long as they play in that dome. It's great when you have that homefield advantage, but if you have to play a road game, ANY dome team faces an uphill battle when they leave the cozy confines.

lol, I was pissed when it happend and pissed when no would listen, Im pretty over it.
I would say there was no ... crime.. or intential media RG created name "Bounty". It was a pay for performance and even NE was doing that, along with 32 other teams.
Saints have had great GM management and drafts, like colston, Moore, PT, etc that created the team , not counting the great OL drafts, getting Brees. SP is a pretty good coach. The defensive coaching has been less than perfect I agree, and ryan is not good.
But the "Bounty" made up , saints are paid to physically hurt players for money is ridiculous.
The repercussions of the RG imposed draft and penalties created the CAP problems. We had to buy what we could not draft, and we lost 1-2 round drafts, coaches , which insured failure to compete, wasted the team.
What happening to NE is pretty awful, but I would not compare the two. Only similarity is its done by the same jerk.

 

[adam941]

Don't forget, the league promised to return one of the draft picks in exchange for the team's cooperation. I don't think there was any question that the team cooperated fully, yet the draft pick was never returned. The promise just seems to have been forgotten - integrity my azz.

 

[Roboturner913]

Gregg Williams only "admitted" because Goodell was holding it over on him if he ever wanted to get back into the league. Don't believe me, look at the facts: Sean Payton was suspended one year, Gregg Williams got an indefinite suspension that was to last one year at the very least. Guess which coach was reinstated first? It was Gregg Williams, who supposedly ran the thing. Not Sean Payton, who even the commissioner admitted was guilty of nothing more than lack of institutional control (the now-famous "ignorance is no excuse" line) and despite the fact that he complied with every single thing they demanded of him - and they never got the 2nd round pick back that they were supposed to have gotten for said compliance. That is Roger Goodell, in a nutshell.

The whole thing was cooked up nonsense from the start. Their "ledgers" didn't add up to crap (5 defensive backs and a right tackle in 3 years, puleeeeze), Hargrove's voiceprint analysis didn't match the video clip of him supposedly saying "give me my money," there was no proof that Vilma or anybody else offered 10,000 for a hit on Favre, both of their "star witnesses" were people who had been fired from the Saints previously (look up the name Mike Cerullo, you'll have a field day with that mess) and the most obvious of all, Saints opponents had the second-least amount of injuries in the entire league over the 3-year-span when the bounties were supposedly happening.

As for the effect it's had on the current team, more psychological than anything. Don't get me wrong. Losing the draft picks hurt, losing Payton for the year really hurt (the big extension for Galette was made by the GM at a point when he was still not allowed to communicate with SP, SP has since said that he would not have approved of it and that Galette was a problem in the locker room long before then. That's just one example. Never mind that it sabotaged the 2012 season entirely, and it's not crazy to think that could've been one of the best teams in franchise history coming off a 13-3 2011 season. Then when SP does come back he's not aware of some of the issues going on with the young players in the locker room, but they have a pretty good season going 11-5 and a playoff win, so those issues are camouflaged. Then 2014 happens and its a disaster and he has to clean house in the offseason of all the toxic personalities. And overall I don't think SP is the same coach he used to be. Doesn't have the same confidence or style. He looks like he's more afraid to lose than he is trying to win.

Then somehow you have poor Scott Fujita wrapped up in the whole thing, there's a guy who has been a player rep and one of the foremost advocates of player safety but Goodell calls him down for absolutely no reason and destroys his reputation (leading Fujita to the also now-famous "What the hell are you doing, Roger?") comment, and even though Tagliabue completely exonerated Fujita most people still associate him with the whole mess. And then Hargrove, whose career was pretty much ruined by his suspension, and the only reason he was involved was because Goodell's investigator picked him as the weak spot and a guy who he could hold over a barrell being he was on his last chance with the league already.

TL;DR I know, but the whole thing reeked and I wish more people had been willing to question all the NFL's shady dealings at the time because it really did damage the Saints organization and the psyche of the fanbase, and as few disagree none of it was justified except to sate Roger's ginormous ego. /rant over

 

[Ring 6]

Rob Ryan also helped drive the defense into the ground.

Thats what Ryan's do

 

[Roboturner913]

It's neither here nor there but Ryan's first year in NO the defense was ranked #4 in both yardage and scoring against and that was not a fluke defense either, they were legitimately good with a top 5 secondary and the most sacks in the league I believe.

Don't know what happened to him after that, but last year's defense was a disaster and this one isn't looking so great either. It's very strange.

 

[PatsSox363804]

Gregg Williams only "admitted" because Goodell was holding it over on him if he ever wanted to get back into the league. Don't believe me, look at the facts: Sean Payton was suspended one year, Gregg Williams got an indefinite suspension that was to last one year at the very least. Guess which coach was reinstated first? It was Gregg Williams, who supposedly ran the thing. Not Sean Payton, who even the commissioner admitted was guilty of nothing more than lack of institutional control (the now-famous "ignorance is no excuse" line) and despite the fact that he complied with every single thing they demanded of him - and they never got the 2nd round pick back that they were supposed to have gotten for said compliance. That is Roger Goodell, in a nutshell.

The whole thing was cooked up nonsense from the start. Their "ledgers" didn't add up to crap (5 defensive backs and a right tackle in 3 years, puleeeeze), Hargrove's voiceprint analysis didn't match the video clip of him supposedly saying "give me my money," there was no proof that Vilma or anybody else offered 10,000 for a hit on Favre, both of their "star witnesses" were people who had been fired from the Saints previously (look up the name Mike Cerullo, you'll have a field day with that mess) and the most obvious of all, Saints opponents had the second-least amount of injuries in the entire league over the 3-year-span when the bounties were supposedly happening.

As for the effect it's had on the current team, more psychological than anything. Don't get me wrong. Losing the draft picks hurt, losing Payton for the year really hurt (the big extension for Galette was made by the GM at a point when he was still not allowed to communicate with SP, SP has since said that he would not have approved of it and that Galette was a problem in the locker room long before then. That's just one example. Never mind that it sabotaged the 2012 season entirely, and it's not crazy to think that could've been one of the best teams in franchise history coming off a 13-3 2011 season. Then when SP does come back he's not aware of some of the issues going on with the young players in the locker room, but they have a pretty good season going 11-5 and a playoff win, so those issues are camouflaged. Then 2014 happens and its a disaster and he has to clean house in the offseason of all the toxic personalities. And overall I don't think SP is the same coach he used to be. Doesn't have the same confidence or style. He looks like he's more afraid to lose than he is trying to win.

Then somehow you have poor Scott Fujita wrapped up in the whole thing, there's a guy who has been a player rep and one of the foremost advocates of player safety but Goodell calls him down for absolutely no reason and destroys his reputation (leading Fujita to the also now-famous "What the hell are you doing, Roger?") comment, and even though Tagliabue completely exonerated Fujita most people still associate him with the whole mess. And then Hargrove, whose career was pretty much ruined by his suspension, and the only reason he was involved was because Goodell's investigator picked him as the weak spot and a guy who he could hold over a barrell being he was on his last chance with the league already.

TL;DR I know, but the whole thing reeked and I wish more people had been willing to question all the NFL's shady dealings at the time because it really did damage the Saints organization and the psyche of the fanbase, and as few disagree none of it was justified except to sate Roger's ginormous ego. /rant over

That combined with the Ray Rice BS and the Cowboys and Redskins getting absolutely screwed with the cap "violation" are why none of the owners feel bad for Kraft, nor should they. He had every opportunity to give Goodell the heave ho during the Rice debacle and he was his most outspoken supporter. So they must look at him like the biggest ass on the planet right now.

 

[jah]

That combined with the Ray Rice BS and the Cowboys and Redskins getting absolutely screwed with the cap "violation" are why none of the owners feel bad for Kraft, nor should they. He had every opportunity to give Goodell the heave ho during the Rice debacle and he was his most outspoken supporter. So they must look at him like the biggest ass on the planet right now.

This is all such an entangled mess...