The hammer has fallen on Bountygate...

[Davi323]

The NFL has suspended Jonathan Vilma for the entire season, Anthony Hargrove (now with the Packers) for 8 games, Will Smith gets four games, and Scott Fujita (now a Cleveland Brown) gets three.

The NFL's rationale for the severity of the punishments, according to E$PN:

• The league said Fujita pledged "a significant amount of money" to the Saints' bounty program.

• Hargrove submitted a signed declaration to the NFL not only that the Saints' bounty program existed, but that he was an active participant in it. In addition, the NFL said that Hargrove told at least one player on another team that former Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre was a target of the Saints' bounty pool in the 2009 NFC Championship Game and that Hargrove obstructed the league's investigation in 2010 when he wasn't truthful with investigators.

• Smith, according to the NFL, helped former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams create and fund the bounty pool when he was a captain of the defense.

• Vilma, also is alleged to have helped Williams create and fund the program. Also, the NFL said Vilma pledged $10,000 in cash to any Saints player who knocked former Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner out of the 2009 divisional playoff game involving the teams and then repeated the pledge for Favre for the NFC title game.

WOW. Obviously, all four players will appeal the punishments, and I am sure that the NFLPA will have something to say...but they have a dangerous time ahead of them. The NFLPA is not just for defensive players, it also includes all of the offensive players that were subjected to these bounties. If they come down too strongly in favor of letting these players off lightly, they run the risk of pissing off the offensive players who now would have reason to think that the NFLPA doesn't have their best interests at heart. This could be a very divisive issue for the NFLPA, as they represent both the suspects AND the victims of Bountygate.

I am just glad that I am not a New Orleans Saints fan. It has not been a good couple of months for them...

 

[Little Jerry Lawler]

So Smith and Vilma both helped Williams create and fund the bounty pool yet Vilma gets a year and Smith only gets four games? Was the only difference then between the suspensions is that Vilma was going to put out cash to anybody who took out Warner and/or Favre? I would rather have had all four players be suspended for the same amount of time.

 

[Big Sexy]

I'm sure the players will all appeal but it won't do them any good. Goodell has made his decisions on suspensions and they are all going to stand. The only suspension that really hurts the Saints is that of Jonathan Vilma. He is the captain and the leader of that defense so him being out a year certainly won't help matters, but they were at least prepared for this and signed Curtis Lofton in the offseason.

Losing Will Smith will hurt their depth a little but he is only out 4 games. The other two no longer play for the team so their suspensions won't affect the Saints. I'm just ready for this entire mess to be over. This seems to be the last of the suspensions and now we can hopefully just move on to the actual football aspect of the season.

 

[Big Sexy]

So Smith and Vilma both helped Williams create and fund the bounty pool yet Vilma gets a year and Smith only gets four games? Was the only difference then between the suspensions is that Vilma was going to put out cash to anybody who took out Warner and/or Favre? I would rather have had all four players be suspended for the same amount of time.

Taking $10,000 of your own money and putting it on the heads of two future HOF quarterbacks in the same playoff run is going to get you a bigger suspension then the other three guys. If Vilma hadn't done that then he would have gotten 4 games like Smith. The only reason Hargrove got 8 games was because he lied to investigators about everything in 2010.

 

[Davi323]

Now, considering that these suspensions are not paid, does that mean that their salaries don't count against the salary cap of their teams? IE, can the Saints take the money that they would otherwise have owed Vilma and Smith contractually, and use it in some sort of signing bonus/heavily front laden contract for Drew Brees? What are the rules for non-paid suspensions? Cap relief or not?

 

[Big Sexy]

Now, considering that these suspensions are not paid, does that mean that their salaries don't count against the salary cap of their teams? IE, can the Saints take the money that they would otherwise have owed Vilma and Smith contractually, and use it in some sort of signing bonus/heavily front laden contract for Drew Brees? What are the rules for non-paid suspensions? Cap relief or not?

Because Smith is only suspended for 4 games his salary doesn't stop counting until the start of the regular season and then it goes back on the books when he comes back so that doesn't help them. However, if Vilma's suspension is not overturned then his salary is completely off the books for this season. He just renegotiated his deal and it was set to run through 2013 but with the suspension everything is pushed back a year so now his deal covers 2013 and 2014. This means that the Saints have around 5 mill extra to work with this year and that could definitely help them reach a deal with Brees. It is the one somewhat bright side of Vilma's suspension.

 

[LoudClearVoice]

They'll appeal beacause they have a right to but how about just accepting punishment like men and moving on.

Hargrave gave the league a signed letter stating that he knew about the program and was an active participant, yet he's going to appeal? We're not talking about Duke Lacrosse here.

These guys admitted that they did it.

 

[Davi323]

That's the part I don't get...First, you are appealing to the exact same guy that gave you the punishment in the first place. What can you possibly argue that hasn't already been considered? What could you say to get Goodell to change his mind? Vilma claims he hasn't seen any of the evidence against him. He needs to be very careful about what he wishes for, because Goodell could give him that evidence. And he could give it to E$PN, put it on NFL.com, distribute it to reporters, etc. If you are Jonathan Vilma, and you know that the commissioner of your league has over 50k pages of documents that implicate you, teammates, coaches etc, do you REALLY want that evidence to become public knowledge? Do you really want the entire world to know just how involved you were? You aren't Ryan Braun. You won't get away with it on some ridiculous technicality.

This is a losing battle for Vilma, the more he fights, the more he stands to lose. Take your lumps and move on. Right now, your credibility is low. Force the NFL to reveal all of the evidence against you, proving your denials to be 100% false, and your credibility on anything, ever again will be zero. They have 50k pages of evidence. It's really hard to believe that it's fabricated.

 

[Natural Selection]

Every last one of them should be out for the year. A bounty program takes the honor out of the game. They should be glad the hammer didn't drop harder.