NFL 2011-2012 Off-Season Pre-Draft Catch-All

Fedaykin98 wrote:

It's both worse and not as bad as Spygate. Not as bad in that it's not "cheating", at least not as one typically thinks of that word. Much worse in that it's about trying to seriously hurt other people.

What makes it serious is that it was apparently sanctioned and run by the coaching staff, which means the organization itself is going to be held responsible. Goodell is going to shove his foot knee-deep into Tom Benson's ass.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

It's both worse and not as bad as Spygate. Not as bad in that it's not "cheating", at least not as one typically thinks of that word. Much worse in that it's about trying to seriously hurt other people.

What makes it serious is that it was apparently sanctioned and run by the coaching staff, which means the organization itself is going to be held responsible. Goodell is going to shove his foot knee-deep into Tom Benson's ass.

Agreed. I think football players try seriously to hurt each other often, so that's not quite the aspect that bothers me here (at least, that aspect alone doesn't particularly bother me any more in this case than it normally would bother me for grown men to try to injure each other). But that it was carried out and rewarded in a sustained, top-down way really compounds the vice.

Lobo wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

It's both worse and not as bad as Spygate. Not as bad in that it's not "cheating", at least not as one typically thinks of that word. Much worse in that it's about trying to seriously hurt other people.

What makes it serious is that it was apparently sanctioned and run by the coaching staff, which means the organization itself is going to be held responsible. Goodell is going to shove his foot knee-deep into Tom Benson's ass.

Agreed. I think football players try seriously to hurt each other often, so that's not quite the aspect that bothers me here (at least, that aspect alone doesn't particularly bother me any more in this case than it normally would bother me for grown men to try to injure each other). But that it was carried out and rewarded in a sustained, top-down way really compounds the vice.

I actually think most players don't try to hurt each other, because, love of the game or no, it's a business, and they know if they take a cheap shot, they're getting one back. Add to that the transitory nature of free agency, and the guy you just cheap-shotted could be your teammate next year. While I'm just speculating, this seems considerably more organized and planned than what I would expect on a typical team; a "knock out that RB and I'll give you a grand" might be a game-day dare, but some kind of multi-season headhunting pool? Wow. I mean, Gregg Williams has already fessed up and that in and of itself is huge, but if Payton is involved at all, then you have an even bigger problem.

There's a report on PFT right now that Gregg Williams had a bounty system in place in Washington as well. If there's any meat to that story, I hope Rams fans aren't excited by Williams being their new defensive coordinator, because I suspect he'll be taking a very long vacation very soon.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
Lobo wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

It's both worse and not as bad as Spygate. Not as bad in that it's not "cheating", at least not as one typically thinks of that word. Much worse in that it's about trying to seriously hurt other people.

What makes it serious is that it was apparently sanctioned and run by the coaching staff, which means the organization itself is going to be held responsible. Goodell is going to shove his foot knee-deep into Tom Benson's ass.

Agreed. I think football players try seriously to hurt each other often, so that's not quite the aspect that bothers me here (at least, that aspect alone doesn't particularly bother me any more in this case than it normally would bother me for grown men to try to injure each other). But that it was carried out and rewarded in a sustained, top-down way really compounds the vice.

I actually think most players don't try to hurt each other, because, love of the game or no, it's a business, and they know if they take a cheap shot, they're getting one back. Add to that the transitory nature of free agency, and the guy you just cheap-shotted could be your teammate next year. While I'm just speculating, this seems considerably more organized and planned than what I would expect on a typical team; a "knock out that RB and I'll give you a grand" might be a game-day dare, but some kind of multi-season headhunting pool? Wow. I mean, Gregg Williams has already fessed up and that in and of itself is huge, but if Payton is involved at all, then you have an even bigger problem.

There's a report on PFT right now that Gregg Williams had a bounty system in place in Washington as well. If there's any meat to that story, I hope Rams fans aren't excited by Williams being their new defensive coordinator, because I suspect he'll be taking a very long vacation very soon.

Yeah, again, I think you're right: most players don't try to seriously hurt each other. I should have been clearer. I just think that such behavior is still common enough, even if it's in the minority, that it doesn't shock me to hear of more of it.

As for other bounty-hunting teams, these include apparently not just the Redskins but also the Titans, if Tony Dungy is to be believed (according to PFT). It's possible that the Titans' bounty-hunting was instigated by Williams in 2000-2002 when he was there, and that the tradition just carried on without him when he left. Damien Woody though, formerly of the Pats, Lions, and Jets, tweeted that in his time as a player such bounties were commonplace, so maybe Williams isn't the only maniac orchestrating these things.

What?!?! The team of Cortland Finnegan might be dirty?!?!!

Just for you...

IMAGE(http://losthatsportsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/dre-finnegan-fight.jpg)

This stuff has been going on for years...and yes it's nowhere near as bad as Spygate.

It appears it is more a Gregg Williams thing than a Saints thing.

Any idea what RG3's wonderlic was?

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
Lobo wrote:
MilkmanDanimal wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

It's both worse and not as bad as Spygate. Not as bad in that it's not "cheating", at least not as one typically thinks of that word. Much worse in that it's about trying to seriously hurt other people.

What makes it serious is that it was apparently sanctioned and run by the coaching staff, which means the organization itself is going to be held responsible. Goodell is going to shove his foot knee-deep into Tom Benson's ass.

Agreed. I think football players try seriously to hurt each other often, so that's not quite the aspect that bothers me here (at least, that aspect alone doesn't particularly bother me any more in this case than it normally would bother me for grown men to try to injure each other). But that it was carried out and rewarded in a sustained, top-down way really compounds the vice.

I actually think most players don't try to hurt each other, because, love of the game or no, it's a business, and they know if they take a cheap shot, they're getting one back. Add to that the transitory nature of free agency, and the guy you just cheap-shotted could be your teammate next year. While I'm just speculating, this seems considerably more organized and planned than what I would expect on a typical team; a "knock out that RB and I'll give you a grand" might be a game-day dare, but some kind of multi-season headhunting pool?

While I certainly can understand the need to protect the appearance of integrity by the NFL, I don't see what the big stink over this is. If you compare Saints games over the time period to other teams over the same, was there some abnormally large number of offensive players on the opposing team being put out of the game? I remember watching several games where the Saints defense was described more a a finesse team. Nothing like some of the more brutal defenses in the league.

Also, you put those 11 guys in a huddle, and could they not come up with the same mentality on their own? Hit Kurt Warner? Hit Brett Favre? Okay. The only way I see this being an issue is if the NFL came to their conclusion first because on data that the Saints defense put more offensive players out of the game than any other team in the NFL, statistically speaking. Otherwise, it was a stupid system implemented by the coaching staff to try to make their players more aggressive, with not very good results.

TheGameguru wrote:

This stuff has been going on for years...and yes it's nowhere near as bad as Spygate.

Which is why it continues to piss me off that former players are suing the NFL, maybe they should be suing each other.

What was the bounty to take Payton out on the sidelines... zinnngggggggggg

TheGameguru wrote:

This stuff has been going on for years...and yes it's nowhere near as bad as Spygate.

You're right. It's far worse than Spygate. IIRC, you're allowed to do taping from the end zone up high for coaching film purposes, and what the Pats did was put a camera on the sideline. Broke the rules. If you're dumb enough to use the same signals and play calls year after year (must . . . resist . . . Bill Callahan Super Bowl joke . . .), then yes, those filmed signals could give a competitive advantage. You could also use an intern with a polaroid camera and a really good ability to describe what they saw and get a crappy version of it.

"Spygate" is a ridiculously overblown scandal. This is far worse. You're talking about a defensive coordinator offering bounties for potentially career-ending injuries. I would not be surprised if Gregg Williams never coaches in the NFL again.

Paleocon wrote:

It appears it is more a Gregg Williams thing than a Saints thing.

An interesting comment by one "marcinhouston" on the PFT boards asserts that at root, it's a Buddy Ryan thing:

Except it seems everyone from the Buddy Ryan coaching tree had the bounty system on defense. Williams did it in Washington. Fischer and Williams did in Tennessee. Rex Ryan and Baltimore are associated with it as Suggs talked in 2008 about bounties on Hines Ward etc and Bart Scott bragged about putting a little hot sauce on Reggie Bush (twisting his ankle purposefully). Williams has coached for the Eagles, Titans, Bills, Redskins, Jaguars, and Saints. Fischer was coach of the Titans for a decade. Rex Ryan did this with the Ravens and probably with the Jets. It would seem unlikely that Rob Ryan didn’t do it, which brings in the Raiders and Cowboys. All of this traces back to the NFL letting Buddy Ryan do it, and presumably he started with the Bears before the Eagles and continued it in Arizona, etc.

MilkmanDan gets it.

Matt Bowen writes about his participation in the Redskins' bounty program under Gregg Williams.

He says this is all just a consequence of the high-stakes, win-or-else pro-football lifestyle.

He claims not to be making excuses for the behavior on ethical grounds. But if his defense of Williams ("I don't regret any part of it... I believed in him. I still do. That will never change.") isn't, by his own admission, an ethically-motivated defense, then what does motivate it? Apparently money.

I'm not saying it's right. Or ethical. But the NFL isn't little league football with neighborhood dads playing head coach. This is the business of winning. If that means stepping over some line, you do it.

Since the NFL is a business, and not a little-league game, then in his view it's to be expected that players should disregard ethical norms in pursuit of money.

I wonder if he realizes the implications of his view, if we were to accept it. It would imply, not only that the entire NFL is utterly morally depraved, but also that we as fans should be willing to accept complete moral depravity on the part of players, coaches, and teams. It's one thing to accuse the whole NFL of moral depravity (might be true!), but quite another to suggest that any objection to said depravity must rest on a confusion between a professional sports league and a little-league game.

If this is true and it certainly looks like it is, I am done with the Saints. And that is no small thing. I have been a loyal Saints fan ever since we moved to the area when I was very young back in 1968, only their second year in existence.

But this because it goes from the GM to the head coach to the DC and on to the players makes it extra heinous. I get football is a violent sport, but to intentionally injure another human being means I think the local police should start making arrests. As far as I know, the laws of the land don't stop at the sidelines of a football field. This is an organization that no longer deserves my support.

I will be getting rid of all my Saints stuff except my football signed by all the members of the Super Bowl winning team because that is worth several thousand dollars.

But I swear, between Drew Brees turning down a deal that would make him the highest paid player in the NFL and now this, it makes me want to stop watching pro sports altogether!

Lobo wrote:

stuff

You could always become a Tampa Bay fan.

Paleocon wrote:
Lobo wrote:

stuff

You could always become a Tampa Bay fan. ;)

Yeah... and never get to see any games on TV. It's fun.

Coolbeans wrote:

If this is true and it certainly looks like it is, I am done with the Saints. And that is no small thing. I have been a loyal Saints fan ever since we moved to the area when I was very young back in 1968, only their second year in existence.

My Saints fandom has always had less to do with love of the organization itself, and more to do with love of New Orleans, its people and culture. The Saints are a kind of proxy or stand-in for other things I care much more about. Now that I live out of state they also provide a link back to my hometown. I think I can continue to enjoy them on that same basis.

I've never really regarded football players as idols or role models, so it's admittedly hard for them to disappoint me except by poor play.

Coolbeans wrote:

But this because it goes from the GM to the head coach to the DC and on to the players makes it extra heinous. I get football is a violent sport, but to intentionally injure another human being means I think the local police should start making arrests. As far as I know, the laws of the land don't stop at the sidelines of a football field.

I don't at all agree that this scandal warrants criminal prosecution, and certainly not, as you intone, for deliberate attempt to injure. For one, such action is impractical; there's just no good way for a prosecutor to show whether a violent hit was made as a result of the normal course of play, or whether it was done to secure a bounty. Nor can a prosecutor point to any striking on-field pattern of violence by the Saints in excess of what we find on other teams.

Second, this isn't legally analogous to the infamous hit on Nancy Kerrigan. The context matters. As you say, football is a violent sport, and it's hard to conceive of a way in which football could both be violent, but also fail to involve players trying to injure one another. That's the difference between a violent sport, like football or hockey or boxing, and a merely injurious sport like surfboarding or skiing. I can't make sense of someone saying, "I'm going to hit you as hard as I can, lay you out and revel in the adulation of my fans and team over my physical dominance of you—but not with intent to injure."

Moreover, we'd be fooling ourselves to think that the violence in football is merely incidental to the playing of the game (as perhaps it is incidental to say, baseball—though then again, we tend to consider deliberate beaning and even the occasional bench-clearer in a special legal context, too). Fans, announcers, coaches, and players all celebrate and encourage "big hits," which is just a euphemism for a certain deliberate excess of violence. They celebrate and encourage it not out of a direct impulse for bloodlust (at least, I hope, not mostly), but because they understand that to be a good football player often requires that one engage skillfully in a structured, deliberate kind of violence. The NFL itself, in its recent video designed to teach players not to engage in illegal helmet-to-helmet hits, attempts to placate them by assuring them that they can still demolish each other's bodies in plenty of other legitimate ways. And the law has long recognized that within the context of professional sport, it's okay for people to try to injure each other, even pre-meditatively. In most public contexts you can be arrested for assault just for laying hands on someone, but within sporting contexts athletes can engage in all-out brawls and the police are content to let the men in stripes handle it.

So no, I don't agree that we should put football players in jail for trying to injure each other—not while we're still prepared to allow the sport of football to persist. However, it's perfectly reasonable to expect them to try to injure each other without engaging in a secret, coach-directed, league-prohibited system of cash reward. That's the distinction that deserves attention. If we stop short, and merely level our outrage at the notion that the Saints defense were deliberately trying to harm other players, but without noting the other behavior that accompanied that effort, then I think we would miss what is unique and troubling about this case, and by extension implicate the wider sport of football.

I could definitely see the case for a variety of civil suits, though. Except that the contractual legalese probably prevents the NFL from suing the Saints (instead it will assess fines and other penalties in accordance with its rules and contract), or the Saints from suing their own staff (and ex-staff), or what have you.

Edit: Though PFT makes the point that since the bounties comprise undeclared income, we could be looking at cases of criminal tax evasion. So maybe we will see some criminal prosecutions, but they'll involve crimes off the field, not on it.

Stele wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Lobo wrote:

stuff

You could always become a Tampa Bay fan. ;)

Yeah... and never get to see any games on TV. It's fun. :lol:

With my beloved girlfriend as example, I fear I'd never see any games at all through the haze of my own tears.

Lobo wrote:
Stele wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Lobo wrote:

stuff

You could always become a Tampa Bay fan. ;)

Yeah... and never get to see any games on TV. It's fun. :lol:

With my beloved girlfriend as example, I fear I'd never see any games at all through the haze of my own tears.

The image of your telling one of your students that an opinion can be wrong and, by example, the opinion that the Tampa Bay Bucs are the best team in football is demonstrably wrong is forever burned in my brain.

Paleocon wrote:
Lobo wrote:
Stele wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Lobo wrote:

stuff

You could always become a Tampa Bay fan. ;)

Yeah... and never get to see any games on TV. It's fun. :lol:

With my beloved girlfriend as example, I fear I'd never see any games at all through the haze of my own tears.

The image of your telling one of your students that an opinion can be wrong and, by example, the opinion that the Tampa Bay Bucs are the best team in football is demonstrably wrong is forever burned in my brain.

Seahawks resign Marshawn Lynch. 4 years, $18 million guaranteed.

I'm ambivalent about this - on one hand, Lynch is great at what he does and is able to grind out tough yards behind makeshift lines. He's still young. If any player could be said to have earned a contract, Lynch is one of them. Not paying him may undermine Carrol's stance on earning your pay with the locker room.

On the other hand, RBs are relatively fungible and paying one with Lynch's punishing running style that much money may turn out to be a horrible mistake if he starts getting hurt all the time. I guess we'll see how it goes.

I actually don't think "Bounty-gate" is particularly about the injurious potential. I've seen that hit on Kurt Warner bandied about, and he's going to get knocked to Tahiti on that play, bounty or no bounty. It's a chance for a defender to take a clean shot at a QB. He was a target the moment he started running.

I think the NFL's concern is gambling, primarily. Clearly, this is not organized gambling on games, at least, not in the way most fans perceive it (i.e. Pete Rose, Tim Donaghy, et cetera), but i'm sure the NFL wants to take a hugely aggressive, absolutely zero-tolerance policy on any monetary transactions or wagers for on-field performance that are not directly stipulated or covered in a player's contract.

Minase wrote:

Seahawks resign Marshawn Lynch. 4 years, $18 million guaranteed.

I'm ambivalent about this - on one hand, Lynch is great at what he does and is able to grind out tough yards behind makeshift lines. He's still young. If any player could be said to have earned a contract, Lynch is one of them. Not paying him may undermine Carrol's stance on earning your pay with the locker room.

On the other hand, RBs are relatively fungible and paying one with Lynch's punishing running style that much money may turn out to be a horrible mistake if he starts getting hurt all the time. I guess we'll see how it goes.

Yes, but what other running back in the NFL can eat skittles to unlock BEAST MODE?!?!

Taste the rainbow.

Seahawks resign Marshawn Lynch. 4 years, $18 million guaranteed.

That is quite a feat. I didn't know NFL players qualified for unemployment, let alone over $4 million a year in unemployment benefits.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

This stuff has been going on for years...and yes it's nowhere near as bad as Spygate.

You're right. It's far worse than Spygate. IIRC, you're allowed to do taping from the end zone up high for coaching film purposes, and what the Pats did was put a camera on the sideline. Broke the rules. If you're dumb enough to use the same signals and play calls year after year (must . . . resist . . . Bill Callahan Super Bowl joke . . .), then yes, those filmed signals could give a competitive advantage. You could also use an intern with a polaroid camera and a really good ability to describe what they saw and get a crappy version of it.

"Spygate" is a ridiculously overblown scandal. This is far worse. You're talking about a defensive coordinator offering bounties for potentially career-ending injuries. I would not be surprised if Gregg Williams never coaches in the NFL again.

Speaking from direct experience as we owned the company that supplied the technology to every single NFL team... you have vastly over-simplified Spygate. I cannot reveal everything but short to say its not as simple as team using the same signals and play calls year after year (that is a fan perspective and over-simplification). In short using the technology provided teams could rapidly break down and coordinate signals, formations, and plays etc.. with the activity on the sideline and by halftime (especially at halftime with 15 minutes of extra time) using the machine technology break down what normally would not be possible in normal game situations using the "coach" camera.

Additionally there are restrictions on what you can do on the sideline around video and providing that to the players and coaches. So no.. placing bounties which have existed in the NFL for YEARS isn't anything close to a coordinated effort to cheat. Bounties aren't cheating.. that's just rewarding the already in place violent nature of football. (yes you are supposed to hit the other teams players and take them out of the game.. that has existed for years and years).

Not saying its right.. frankly I think its laughable that this is a big deal all of a sudden in todays modern NFL.. but whatever.

What you have is something that everyone knew was happening all along for decades, but now there is public 'proof' so people are forced to react to it instead of just a wink wink and move past it like the old days.

*Legion* wrote:

Now, of course, the act of paying players like this is not legal, so, OK, the coaching staff deserves a punishment for that. But it's a violation of conduct, not a competitive issue and certainly not something worthy of so much scandal.

I forget, is this really a team paying players? Some of the early reports I saw were players paying players, which I don't see how you get in the middle of, what they do with their money is their business.