With
today's announcement of four players being suspended for their roles in
the three-year bounty scandal engulfing the New Orleans Saints, the
final score is on the board. Coaches, administrators and defenders who
play for, or played for the Saints have been issued suspensions without
pay totaling 77 games -- and the team fined $500,000 and docked two
second-round draft choices -- for their roles in a scandal that has
drawn the heaviest sanctions in league history.
The Patriots, in 2007,
got docked a total of $750,000 and a first-round draft pick -- but no
coach or team employee was suspended -- for videotaping the opposing
sidelines during games, ostensibly to gain a competitive advantage.
It's
startling in its comparison. And there's no question the NFL Players
Association will fight the player sanctions -- linebacker Jonathan Vilma
a full season, defensive tackle Anthony Hargrove (now with the Packers)
eight games, defensive end Will Smith four games and linebacker Scott
Fujita (now with the Browns) three games -- aggressively....
Read full article here: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...05/02/saints.players/index.html#ixzz1tjq05bT7
.....When the story first broke two months ago,
I reported in Sports Illustrated
that one Saints player was caught yelling during the NFC Championship
Game in January 2010, after Favre was helped off the field due to a
brutal high-low hit, "Pay me my money!'' The league's sanctions today
lend credence Hargrove being that money-seeking player.
If
Hargrove, as the league said in its release today, was suspended eight
games after being a whistleblower and doing the league the service of
signing a document confirming the existing of the bounty program, the
NFL must have something major on him.
Favre was hit so
hard and so repeatedly in the game that the league shortly thereafter
fined two Saints $25,000 for three separate illegal hits, the last
leaving Favre with a badly sprained ankle. That led to NFL Films
capturing Hargrove excitedly telling mates on the sidelines, while
slapping their hands, "Favre is out of the game! Favre is done! Favre is
done!''
Whatever the reasons, the Saints will have the
biggest us-against-the-world chip on their shoulders this season. And
the rabid New Orleans fans will never, ever think the sanctions fair.
But Goodell has drawn the line in the sand with this case.
And it's hard
to believe any player will ever attempt to injure another player in an
NFL game again.Click to expand...