Sean Peyton suspended a year for Saints' bounty program

[rdom]

The Saints also lose their 2nd round pick in 2012 and 2013, as well as a $500,000 fine.

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And with Greg Williams suspended indefinitely, I hope Chase can stay focused here in Blacksburg.

[arlingtonhokie]

This whole thing is ridiculous and is blown out of proportion. You have elite athletes, who are put in front of 80k screaming fans, paid enormous amounts of money, told how important they are all their lives, and face an immense amount of pressure. Plus they are 20 something males jacked full of testosterone. Their (they being the defense) job is to keep the offense from moving forward. Its a violent, physical, brutal game. They basically took the money from fines and redistributed it to players they took it from in the form of minor performance incentives. For Payton to get 1 year and Williams to get at least 1 year from this is absurd. Five or so years ago I worked for a company and we had a corporate outing at FedEx. Gregg Williams spoke to us and was a fantastic, very prepared speaker. For this his he was paid 15k, all of which he chose to donate to charity. To have his career and name smeared over this is ridiculous.

[VTECHFAN]

You're right that it's ridiculous.

They should BOTH have criminal charges against them. They both should be fired and banned from coaching football for life. I hear about how prevalent this is in football. That's fantastic, fire those guys too.

[HokieRat]

+1,000,000

[arlingtonhokie]

Criminal charges? For what? Encouraging the defending players to fiercely tackle the offensive players? Have you ever played football? Its a very violent game and to pretend like its not is ridiculous. The whole bounty thing is blown out of proportion. Most of the bounties were in the several hundred dollar range, chump change for guys making millions a year, and just a way to give the money back to the players that was collected for small fines. As VT fans we all celebrate our defense, and the big hits laid on opposition players by our defense. We fondly remember guys like Corey Moore, Brandon Flowers, Jimmy Williams, who were vicious football players. But that is what makes them good. That is in some ways the whole concept of the sport. Its a sport of violence, pain, and intimidation. If there were just over the top amounts of money awarded for ridiculously deliberately and illegal violent hits it would be one thing but these guys were basically just being given small performance rewards for doing their jobs.

[VTECHFAN]

Played football, been around the game my entire life. No place for bounties in this game.

This isn't just guys playing to the whistle. These are guys BEING PAID for injuring other players. That is, they are being paid to cause legitimate harm to another person. We're not talking for a big legal hit... but to actually hurt that person... however you get him out of the game. If I pay someone to hurt another and make it look like an accident, I get charged filed on me. Just because you do it within the scope of a game doesn't make it any different. DISGUSTING that anyone could defend that.

[HOKIE-SAN]

Played football, been around the game my entire life. No place for bounties in this game.

This isn't just guys playing to the whistle. These are guys BEING PAID for injuring other players. That is, they are being paid to cause legitimate harm to another person. We're not talking for a big legal hit... but to actually hurt that person... however you get him out of the game. If I pay someone to hurt another and make it look like an accident, I get charged filed on me. Just because you do it within the scope of a game doesn't make it any different. DISGUSTING that anyone could defend that.

No it's not. It's like the Kangaroo court. You're telling me NFL players were getting rich earning $1,000 to $1,500 to knock players out of the game? First of all, it's hard to do. Second, an illegal hit would cost you 20 to 50 times that on a fine. Third, it doesn't change how the game is played. Instead of a few bucks, how about if a team had game stickers? Gold stars. Or is it that's how players have always played the game. The greatest reward for these players is respect and admiration from their peers, making plays, not getting $1,000 bucks b/c you knocked Brett Favre out of the game. No NFL player has come out and said anything more than it's part of the game, because they understand it is part of the culture. It's more bravado and barking than anything else.

[arlingtonhokie]

Exactly. I saw an ex Redskin say that Sean Taylor was the one who 'financially benefited' from the bounties when he was with the Redskins. Sean Taylor has been knocking people silly since he was in HS. Its part of the reason they Redskins drafted him 4th overall and paid him tens of millions of dollars. How much did he have in fines in his career? Probably more then he got in bounties - 10k and 20k fines add up a lot faster then 1k bounties. Do you really think his style of play changed in the NFL because Gregg Williams gave him $500 after a big hit?

[VTECHFAN]

That's completely untrue. Yes, there are players saying it's part of the culture, yada yad yada. But there are also plenty of current and former players who are talking about how messed up these bounties are.

[lawhokie]

What else was Goodell supposed to do? The NFL spends millions on PR, and what players understand to be part of the game is irrelevant. Williams got hammered because the public now thinks that NFL players get bounties to injure fellow players. Williams got hammered because of the PR hit the NFL took, and Goodell can now be reasonably certain we won't be hearing about bounties again. Bounties probably had no effect on play, so why risk breaking the rules to run a bounty program? Just too damn stupid to believe.