Sean Payton suspended, Saints fined for bounty program

[villager]

Source: USA Today

New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton has been suspended for one year, the team will lose its second round pick in 2012 and '13 and pay $500,000 as a result of the NFL's bounty investigation, the league announced Wednesday.

Former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who orchestrated the program, has been suspended from the NFL indefinitely. Saints general manager Mickey Loomis faces an eight-game suspension and a $500,000 fine.

The NFL revealed in early March an investigation which found more than 20 defensive players for the Saints participated in a 'bounty' system from 2009 to '11 which rewarded individuals with cash for harming opposing players.

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Read more: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/thehuddle/post/2012/03/sean-peyton-suspended-saints-fined-for-bounty-program/1

[KamaAina]

1. What about all the other teams that employed Williams?

He apparently had the bounty system everywhere he went: at least five teams in the last decade, which tells me it wasn't working very well, anyway. Why pick on only the Saints?

So much for them being in the Dome for the Super Bowl.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

2. The Saints Super Bowl win should be vacated, too...

... they used the illegal bounty system to make ILLEGAL hits on opposing quarterbacks and in doing so totally torqued the results of the games.

[Roy Rolling]

4. Yeah, right

I thought illegal hits in games were penalized and players were fined if found guilty. So your solution is to retroactively change the outcome of games even though officials on the field judged differently.

I would think this is a cover-your-ass strategy by Goodell by making a scapegoat of the Saints to hide the fact that every NFL team is guilty of the same thing and he allowed it to go on.

The key evidence is that Goodell said that he would have acted differently if he hadn't been lied to. Translation: I am innocent of failing to make an issue of this and let it go on for years.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

6. You obviously are not familiar with the games of 2009...

... where illegal hits, cross hits and late hits were not called, all fed by the illegal bounty fever of the Saints defense. Such premeditated factors would have you headed for the electric chair/life in prison in some legal/criminal cases.

[Blue_Tires]

8. keep dreaming

that is a VERY long and slippery slope

[Iliyah]

3. Nope, their Superbowl win

should not be taken away. Hell no, fuck that.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

5. So blatant cheating is ok???

... by that logic, I am sure you feel GW and Cheney actually won in 2000.

Have a nice day!

[nolabear]

11. Oh please. Justice was rendered and they'll deal. I suggest you do too.

It sucks that they did it but believe me teams do it. It sucks that they have to pay this price but they did the crime and they'll do the time and hopefully wise up. There was nothing there that affected whether they won that game. They'd have been nailing one another bounty or no bounty and so would the Vikings.

[Blue_Tires]

12. Do you think Benson will take the NFL to court over this?

It's one thing to punish, but he is looking at MAJOR revenue losses this year...

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

13. So you admit their guilt...

... how else would you know what was implied? To the gallows!

[24601]

7. The NFL needs to take a lesson from the NCAA and ban teams from post-season play.

[Blue_Tires]

9. the punishment is not so much for the bounty program itself (those will continue to exist)

but for repeatedly ignoring a league mandate to cut it out...

but it's still too harsh, imo...The league is still going to suspend several players so the Saints have almost gotten the NCAA equivalent of the death penalty...This will wreck them for years to come...

[sakabatou]

10. So the bounty was to make sure certain players were injured and couldn't play anymore?

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

14. Yep...

... read up on the topic; it was all about knocking the other team's quarterback(s) out at any cost, or should we say, for a bonus! The Saints were told to curtail their bounty scheme, and didn't. So it falls on Peyton and Loomis for not heeding the NFL and Benson's orders to quit doing so. The players knew, also, and it gave them the idea that they could do whatever they wanted, and did. This gets into the area of premeditation.

Most of us know that the 2009 season was a pity party for New Orleans. They got away with it so New Orleans could bring in some much needed cashflow, not that that in itself is bad.

The New Orleans Saints, the 21st century version of the Chicago Black Socks.

[sakabatou]

15. Or Tonya Harding.

[Dont call me Shirley]

16. Good, Sean Payton always looked satanically creepy to me, gave me the heebie-jeebies.

Now when is the NFL going after the corrupt referees? Talk about fixed games!

[MrSlayer]

17. He would have gotten four games if he hadn't lied about it.

The commish has a hard on for that. The whole thing is a cover your ass against lawsuits in the future. Bounties have always been and always will be a part of the game. Every team does it, every player knows it. You're just not supposed to talk about it.

If, as is being claimed, Jeremy Shockey was the rat, his career is over. No team will have him.

[Grassy Knoll]

18. Oakland Raider Jack Tatum's Book In 1980

So NOW it's a big deal. If they want you they will get you....32 years later.