Tagliabue vacates all Saints player's discipline

[pherein]

Pot. Kettle. Black. Nice glass house you have there. Hate to see you ruin it.

you really should read more about what people say. I think its pretty easy to figure out why you have the opinion you do by this comment . Its exactly that, nothing but a personal feeling with no research and pretty wrong.

I called to have Sean Payton and the rest of the coaches fired at the beginning of this ridiculously handled overblown bounty gate. We don't want that in NO.
I actually believed that moron Goodell, and that they did a thorough investigation. What a fool they made of me.

Over time my view changed based on Goodell clearly lying about evidence, quantity of evidence, and statements. Its been a constant broken record of things being proved completely false or over blow ,over and over again.
Much like the record you playing

How Goodell has belittled the Patriots wins by labeling them cheaters, and now trying the same with New Orleans, I don't agree with. Both are completely blown out of proportion, and both has clear explanations of what really happened , if people with listen.
If I am like you and believe everything he says, a puritan fanatic, then I have to also believe you cheated to win your SB's ,as Goodell basically proved in his own mind, and I wont do that.

 

[TyronePoole]

good article:

Paul Tagliabue, Saints bounty appeal: The NFL doesn't have a bounty problem, it has a Goodell problem. - Slate Magazine

Roger, Over and Out
Paul Tagliabue rules that the NFL doesn't have a bounty problem, it has a Goodell problem.

Consider the case of Scott Fujita. On May 2, the league announced that the former Saints and current Browns linebacker was suspended for three games because he “pledged a significant amount of money to the prohibited pay-for-performance/bounty pool during the 2009 NFL Playoffs. … The pool to which he pledged paid large cash rewards for ‘cart-offs’ and ‘knockouts,’ plays during which an opposing player was injured.” Five months later, Goodell reduced Fujita’s suspension to a single game, explaining that while “I have not found that you directly contributed to the bounty pool, there is no serious question that you were aware of the pool and its elements.”
Even as he walked back his initial claims, however, the commissioner mounted a smarm offensive. "I am surprised and disappointed by the fact that you, a former defensive captain and a passionate advocate for player safety, ignored such a program and permitted it to continue,” Goodell wrote to Fujita.

This has been the NFL’s consistent line of attack: If the evidence turns out to be flimsy, wag your finger all the more vigorously. The league suspended Hargrove, NFL general counsel Jeff Pash explained in June, in part because footage of the 2009 NFC Championship Game showed the defensive lineman saying “give me my money.” A month later, when it became clear it wasn’t Hargrove’s voice, Goodell claimed that the "identity of the player who made the statement … did not affect the level of discipline imposed on Mr. Hargrove.”

Tagliabue’s ruling, by contrast, comes from an alternate NFL universe in which the flaws in the case actually matter, and the arbiter’s self-calibrated disappointment level is not determinative of the outcome. Fujita’s actions, as the ex-commissioner explains, were neither surprising nor disappointing. Now that the league has admitted there’s no evidence the linebacker paid cash for “cart-offs,” his behavior is no different than that of other players who reward their teammates off the books. Tagliabue points to similar cases involving the Packers and Patriots in 2007 and 2008 in which the teams, not players, were punished (with small fines, not suspensions) for pay-for-performance pools. “Accordingly, the NFL's decision to suspend a player here for participating in a program for which the League typically fines a club certainly raises significant issues regarding inconsistent treatment,” Tagliabue writes, saying that Fujita’s “actions here were not conduct detrimental.”

Tagliabue also implies that Goodell’s self-righteousness trumped sanity with regard to Hargrove and Smith. The former was suspended eight games (later reduced to seven) for denying the existence of a bounty program—something his coaches urged him to do. But as Roger Goodell saw it, Hargrove was guilty of the worst crime of all: lying to Roger Goodell. Yes, Michael Vick was guilty of leading a dogfighting ring. But as a league source explained to Yahoo’s Jason Cole in 2007, "Where [Vick] is in the most trouble is that he lied to the commissioner.”

The NFL is claiming today that Tagliabue’s decision “underscores the due process afforded players in NFL disciplinary matters.” That’s a funny gloss on a process that U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan, in hearing Vilma’s defamation suit against Goodell, described as unfair, saying she “believed that the commissioner overstepped his bounds.” To the extent that Vilma, Smith, Fujita, and Hargrove did receive due process, it was in some measure because the league felt threatened by the possibility of having the case heard in a real court rather than its own kangaroo version, one in which real evidentiary rules apply and the judge doesn’t also happen to be the jury and the executioner.

 

[pherein]

The NFL is claiming today that Tagliabue’s decision “underscores the due process afforded players in NFL disciplinary matters.” That’s a funny gloss on a process that U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan, in hearing Vilma’s defamation suit against Goodell, described as unfair, saying she “believed that the commissioner overstepped his bounds.” To the extent that Vilma, Smith, Fujita, and Hargrove did receive due process, it was in some measure because the league felt threatened by the possibility of having the case heard in a real court rather than its own kangaroo version, one in which real evidentiary rules apply and the judge doesn’t also happen to be the jury and the executioner.

and just for clarification, Judge Berrigan is a federal judge who is NOT elected to office, so it's no "homer" ruling - it's federal court - this isn't My Cousin Vinny

 

[pherein]

The brilliant flame that started it. Why did he not stop it if true ? hmm

On Thursday afternoon, Saints interim head coach Joe Vitt said that the leak of former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams’ testimony to the media amounted to a “scud,” presumably launched by the league office. Vitt predicted that another “scud” would be coming Thursday night.

Coincidentally (or not), a letter from former Saints assistant Mike Cerullo to former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has been leaked to John Barr of ESPN.

“Since it became public that I told league officials about the (bounty) program, I have been vilified and subjected to slanderous lies,” Cerullo wrote.

“It has been said . . . that I ‘pledged vengeance on the Saints,’ and that I retracted my claims after first making them. As you know, none of that is true. Having people tell vicious lies about me has not been easy for me and my family.”

Cerullo, whom Vitt called an “idiot” while testifying at the recent bounty appeal hearing, allegedly was fired after multiple unexplained absences from work during the 2009 season, according both to Vitt’s testimony and a lawsuit previously filed by Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma. ”It has been said that I ‘disappeared’ from work during the 2009-2010 season, that my performance ratings were poor,” Cerullo wrote to Tagliabue. “I never missed work, always received high performance ratings.”

Cerullo also took aim at those who criticized him for blowing the whistle on the bounty program; most recently, Saints quarterback Drew Brees described Cerullo and Williams as “two guys who were fired from here because they didn’t fit the mold.” Brees also questioned where they are “mentally.”

“I regret that some of the players facing discipline chose to attack me and coach Williams for coming forward,” Cerullo wrote to Tagliabue. “But what is worse is that others, including lawyers, knowingly spoke lies and continue to do so. You searched for and found the truth; they have never thought that truth matters.”

Since Cerullo is interested in the truth, he should consider the whole truth. While employed by the Saints, Cerullo knowingly participated in the activities about which he now complains; he could have taken a stand at the time the events were unfolding, or he could have blown the whistle not long after he was fired.

Instead, he sent an email more than a year after the fact to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, only a couple of months before the annual hiring season began for head coaches and assistant coaches. And Cerullo made no bones about his desire to get back to the league.

“So I have info on Saints Joe Vitt Lying to your NFL Investigators on Bounties from 2010, along with proof!!! I was there, in the cover up meetings, with players and Joe, I love the NFL and want to work there again, but I am afraid if I tell thge [sic] truth I will never coach again in NFL, But I was fired for a situation that the Saints encourage,” Cerullo wrote in November 2011. “All I want is a Job back in the NFL as a QC Coach anywhere, so If talking to you jepodizes [sic] that I will have to get back to you, but The Saints are a Dirty Organization. Contact me.”

Cerullo wanted back in, and he possibly believed that helping the league crack the ice-cold bounty case would help. And his decision to call the Saints a “Dirty Organization” suggests that he indeed harbors ill will for the organization that fired him. And now he has decided to write a letter to Paul Tagliabue complaining about the fact that his motives have been questioned.

Regardless of whether he has the skills and abilities to return to the NFL, he could have used a better strategy for gettin

Second scud? Cerullo letter to Tagliabue is leaked | ProFootballTalk