ESPN NFL Conversation

Delifisek

How is everyone so convinced that a Bounty program existed from 2009 to 2011. The Saints have already admitted there was one during the 2009 playoffs. Do you remeber all the uproar about Gregg Williams and the "remember me" hits? If he was so concerned where was GODdell then? Its just seems that when GODdell speaks it becomes law that Saints players have been trying to intentionally injure players for the past 3 seasons, but I have yet to see any video evidence of any thing abnormal from any other NFL team on sunday... By the way all NFL games are on video every sunday... So why wouldnt there be obvious video evidence if Saint players were really trying to injure other players? As a matter of fact the Saints ranked 9th in fewest penalties in the NFL
7 Days ago

bzorn22

A one year suspension is over the top. Had I offered 10K for someone to hurt someone else. I am going to jail and for more than one year, whether it was carried out or not. Vilma needs to thank his lucky stars and keep his mouth shut. Maybe the New Orleans DA should look into this.
13 Days ago

fro661

Occupational Hazards/Employer Policies that put employees at risk; How about Coal miners safety? Sky Scraper constsruction? Bridges of all design? Truck drivers in unsafe rigs? Chemical plants? Explosive manufacturers? Oil drilling rigs? These are just a few, many workers are killed and injured every year in the US, many caused by negligence; where are those headlines, fines, suspensions and punishments? Why concentrate on football?
13 Days ago

schmolik1

It's one thing to be following orders, it's another to volunteer up your own money. If Vilma actually put up his own money and encouraged others to injure players, he is more responsible than Sean Peyton. Did Sean Peyton ever put money up or tell someone to injure players?
13 Days ago

cambodia_again

Being old enough to remember Watergate, this sounds like the excuse used by the so-called "Silent Majority" to defend Nixon's actions: "They all do it. The only mistake he made was getting caught." I expect these opinions will change if Drew B. goes down with a season-ending injury due to yet another highlight reel hit, a fate which shouldn't be wished on any player.
14 Days ago

Mookie121352

With or without bounties it's still a violent sport, intentionally or unintentionally players still gonna get hurt. If they wanna run bounties with there own personal money to take out players with clean physical legal hits, Welcome to football. If you don't think players intentionally try to hurt each other ( Cortland Finnegan, James Harrison, Ndamukong Suh ) Either your fulla s.hit or just a Saints hater.
14 Days ago

Greg_Manuel

When will people realize that the nfl leaders ( Goodell etc ) are saying the right things but behind the scenes doing the wrong things! The nfl will continue to lose fans if this kind of stuff continues.
14 Days ago

sgtsluggo

This article is nothing but worthless garbage. Thank you Kreidler.
14 Days ago

jimho228

Make it tag football and be done with it. Fumbling, is a part of foot ball. You get payed to play a contact sport. How do you make a person fumble a ball in the 1st place? Do you tickle him, and or ask for him to drop it politely? Well sir, you have to contact him on way or another. Will a pillow stuff with feathers be enough to knock it out? Every player will respond in the same manner... They will go after the ball (with the person carrying it) with 100% of what they can muster up and hit as hard as they can to make that sucker loose. Nuff said.
14 Days ago

rudwo

Considering the length of NFL players' careers, suspending Vilma for a year is the equivalent to preventing a normal person from working for 10 years. Roughly 10% of his career disappearing is just ridiculous. I do understand the need to send an incredible message that can't be ignored, but it is grossly unfair to Vilma.
14 Days ago

jimho228

zzz mine as well make it a tag football, u playing a contact game, that you get payed for. and if the commissioner was trying to help player injuries, why havent he done anything to help players that have been hurt and cant play anymore. Yes, we all know every team has bounties on everyone. What defensive doesnt want to sack a quarterback.
14 Days ago

wezall2002

Not as unfair as him offering 10k to injure other players. The man endangered his coworkers lives and their health now and in the future, all the NFL is doing is taking away a small fraction of his earnings.
14 Days ago

wezall2002

He's not a scapegoat, he's a proponent and contributor to a fund that violated NFL rules and further endangered his coworkers in an already dangerous profession. If this story came out in nearly any other profession the discussion would be about how many years he would be spending in prison. He's being punished for something that was clearly wrong, the fact that a purpose of punishments are to dissuade future rulebreaking does not make him a scapegoat. Any player that supports this as being normal should either start naming names or shut up.
14 Days ago

samd99

Enjoyed your article. Bounties are plentiful around the league and those who only want to act like the Saints were the only ones are only fooling themselves. The fact of the matter is that the Saints are the scapegoat, this has been severely blown out of proportion and this commissioner cannot allow his altered evidence out, it would mean his end.
15 Days ago

jimho228

lol, havinspw2007, i cant believe you actualy think no other team have bounties. Mine as well say they are no drug dealers, killers, and so on.
14 Days ago

wezall2002

Just because we can't stop all crime doesn't mean we should stop whatever crimes we know about.
14 Days ago

PdFresh

Somebody was going to be severely punished on the players side. Vilma, as the leader of that defense, was the obvious choice. Whether a suspension is right or wrong, Vilma was the right player for Goodell to target on the Saints, regardless of whether he actually put any money down or not.
15 Days ago

Elroy265

The idea that the Saints were the only team that had bounties, or that the Saints' players are the only ones who've hit an opponent, with bad intentions, is laughable. Suh and Harrison laugh at how the soft hitting Saints are the target of all this.
15 Days ago

juvserr

from grantland.com "When Generral manager Mickey Loomis (also suspended for eight games, making Loomis the first GM in league history to earn a suspension) told Payton in 2010 that the organization was being investigated for the bounty program, the report suggests that Payton went to Williams and Vitt before their interviews with the league's security and told them to " & make sure our ducks are in a row." ...(payton) denied all knowledge of the program in a 2012 interview with the league...they showed him an e-mail from 2011 in which Payton added a very expensive postscript: "PS Greg [sic] Williams put me down for $5000 on Rogers [sic]." The message refers to Aaron Rodgers, who the Saints were about to play in the NFL's opening game of the season. When presented with that evidence, Payton admitted he was referring to the Packers quarterback." ......In other words, PAYTON LIED to Goodell, and the commishioner took it out on the whole Saints organization - it's called sending a message.
15 Days ago

juvserr

uh, yeah because Payton put the WHOLE SAINTS organization under the bullseye when he lied to the league.
15 Days ago

Elroy265

Does any of this have anything to do with Vilma? NO!
15 Days ago