Whipped Cream Difficulties

Between 22 and 27 defensive players on the New Orleans Saints, as well as defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, maintained a “bounty” program funded primarily by players in violation of NFL rules during the 2009, 2010 and 2011 seasons, the NFL announced Friday.

Holy crap. The Saints were paying their defensive players to injure opposing players.

In some cases, the amounts pledged were both significant and directed against a specific opposing player, according to the league’s investigation.

I’m going to out myself here as something of a closet Saints fan, at least since Katrina. I thought they had a great comeback story, and I was delighted when they won the Super Bowl (especially after being so historically bad for so long).

But this? This is beyond the pale. This doesn’t even compare to what the Patriots did; say what you will about Bill Belichick, but illegal videotaping doesn’t even begin to come close to what the Saints have been doing.

This is the kind of thing where the NFL needs to get out in front of this story now. There’s talk of suspensions, fines, and giving up draft choices; my first reaction is that some people need to be tossed from the league for life. Gregg Williams, who is now defensive coordinator with the Rams, participated. Mickey Loomis, the Saints GM, was told by both the team owner and the NFL to shut down any bounty program that may have existed (the NFL has been investigating since 2009); he did not. Coach Sean Payton “was aware of the allegations, did not make any detailed inquiry or otherwise seek to learn the facts, and failed to stop the bounty program. He never instructed his assistant coaches or players that a bounty program was improper and could not continue,” according to the NFL

I would start with lifetime bans for Loomis and Williams, and a suspension for Payton, and work from there.

In other breaking TMQ related news, Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold has been indicted on charges that he misused his personal security detail. This is still a breaking story, and details are sketchy, but the WP is currently stating that he had his security detail drive him to parking lots and wait around while he “engaged in sex acts with another county employee.” (Apparently, they used a separate vehicle for the sex acts, not the one the security detail was hauling Leopold around in. So at least he’s got that small element of class going for him.)

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2012 at 4:14 pm and is filed under Clippings, Law, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.