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Williams and Bounty System in Washington

Burgundy Burner said:
Brett Favre's take on it...

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...e-happy-that-truth-on-saints-coming-to-light/
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No surprise that every QB they interview has a similar perspective. That's because while THEIR success depends on not getting caught by defenders, the guys coming after them rely entirely on getting to the QB and doing damage for theirs.

And interestingly, while Favre talks about some 'odd' plays where it seemed like he's being targeted excessively, he himself acknowledges that he's targeted on every play, even within the confines of perfectly legal play.

The lines here are 8 shades of grey gentlemen.

I also recommend Bram's 'MeTalkAthlete' blog entry on the subject at the top of the home page. He covers a lot of the same ground we have here on Williams.
 
Good articles BB, and Boone. Thanks.

As I've already said. If the NFL wants to use this as a teachable moment, to draw a line in the sand, that's fine.

If the Saints were forewarned about this specifically, and continued it's practice, then they should be punished.

But looking backward is black hole.
 
Excellent article here. Terrific read, nice breakdown of society as a whole:

Over the weekend, Harvard opened up its museums to the public for free. It was Parents Weekend, and the long corridors and exhibit halls were jammed with parents, uncles, and noisy younger siblings getting under everyone's feet and wondering why there was a rule against climbing up the dinosaur skeletons. At one point, I got shuffled along into a corner of the Mesoamerican exhibit in the Peabody that contained artifacts from the Copan, an ancient Mayan ballyard. Things went hard for the players back in those days. Most of them were captives taken in war, and many of them wound up beheaded, or as the prime attractions in some other kind of ritual bloodletting. As President Jed Bartlet once said, "If the Oscars were like that, I'd watch," but, still, it's plain that the Mayan ballplayers needed a union and some decent workplace protections. However, after what we learned about what may have been going on in New Orleans — and maybe in Washington — I have to admit that it was rather refreshing to be confronted with some good, honest paganism for a change.

Think of all the illusions about the National Football League that the revelations of a bounty program in New Orleans shatter. Think of all the silly pretensions those revelations deflate. The preposterous prayer circles at midfield. The weepy tinpot patriotism of the flyovers and the martial music. The dime-store Americanism that's draped on anything that moves. The suffocating corporate miasma that attends everything the league does — from the groaning buffet tables at the Super Bowl to the Queegish fascination with headbands and sock lengths while teams are paying "bounties" to tee up the stars of your game so they don't get to play anymore. What we have here now is the face of organized savagery, plain and simple, and no amount of commercials showing happy kids cavorting with your dinged-up superstars can ameliorate any of that.

Which is why Roger Goodell is going to land on the Saints, and on their coaches, as hard as he possibly can. It's not so much that they allegedly paid players to injure other players. That's just the public-relations side of the punishment to come. Goodell can see the day when one of these idiotic bounty programs gets somebody horribly maimed or even killed, and he can see even more clearly the limitless vista of lawsuits that would proceed from such an event. But what the Saints will truly be punished for is the unpardonable crime of ripping aside the veil. For years, sensitive people in and out of my business drew a bright moral line between boxing and football. Boxing, they said, gently stroking their personal ethical code as if they were petting a cat, is a sport where the athletes are deliberately trying to injure each other. On the other hand, football is a violent sport wherein crippling injuries are merely an inevitable byproduct of the game. I always admired their ability to make so measured — and so cosmetic — a moral judgment. This was how those sensitive people justified condemning boxing while celebrating football, and, I suspect, how many of them managed to sleep at night after doing so.

The entire existence of the NFL — and of football at any level, for all of that — rests on whether or not the game can keep fooling itself, and its paying fan base, that it is somehow superior to boxing and to the rest of our modern blood sports. That's how it gets the upmarket ad revenue that is still leery of, say, those barbarians who compete in MMA. That's what keeps the luxury boxes filled with executives from BMW and Sony, and not with guys peddling cheap legal services and discount gold. That's why the NFL was so unpardonably dilatory to come around on the issue of head injuries. To recognize that head injuries were as essential a part of football as they are of boxing would be to erase the fine distinction on which the game's respectability rested.
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http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7647468/the-new-orleans-saints-nfl-concussions
 
I don't know Goal if I buy the comparison that is being drawn in order to set up the whole argument. the distinguishing fact for most folks I know who adore football is that it is a team sport......unlike boxing. the moral niceties this writer wants to draw attention to are not what I think about...or most football fans I know think about. he's trying to argue that since boxing and football are both violent sports...they should be viewed under the same subjective moral microscope. (and, betwen the lines, he means his moral sensibilities).

I don't think the two fall on the same branch in the taxonomy of sports...if you will.
 
Boone said:
No surprise that every QB they interview has a similar perspective. That's because while THEIR success depends on not getting caught by defenders, the guys coming after them rely entirely on getting to the QB and doing damage for theirs.

And interestingly, while Favre talks about some 'odd' plays where it seemed like he's being targeted excessively, he himself acknowledges that he's targeted on every play, even within the confines of perfectly legal play.

The lines here are 8 shades of grey gentlemen.

I also recommend Bram's 'MeTalkAthlete' blog entry on the subject at the top of the home page. He covers a lot of the same ground we have here on Williams.
Click to expand...

no doubt Bret, Peyton, et al, severly chastised their defensive teammates who applied excessive violence on the field......not.
 
Ax said:
Got a receipt proving you gave me $10K?

If your hand slips, it wasn't me.
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actually...I meant to erase that comment and post "crack me up"...but the system locked up on me.
 
I had the privilege of playing for a coach (high school) who was at the helm for many years - the longest tenure of any coach in the Hampton Roads region. He was tough, but fair and demanded the best of his team. For those of us who played on the defensive side of the ball, we were instructed to bring some serious hitting to the game. We were also instructed to be the first to extend our hand to the opposing player(s) on the ground and help them to their feet. If I had a good game, the reward would come on Monday with things like fewer wind sprints or fewer drills - nothing more, nothing less.

The problem that I have with what was going on in NOLA centers on how opposing players were targeted. Trying to cause them to miss the next play? Extra pay for taking them out of the game? Extra pay for putting a player on a stretcher? Ending a season? Come on - no one can defend that crap!
 
So...when as Redskin fans can we expect the next post lauding Lavaar for knocking Aikman out for the count?

hypcocrisy reigns across the board on this one.
 
fansince62 said:
So...when as Redskin fans can we expect the next post lauding Lavaar for knocking Aikman out for the count?

hypcocrisy reigns across the board on this one.
Click to expand...


So Gregg Williams was responsible for that too? Gregg Williams coached Dick Butkus too didn't he? Was he involved in the Dexter Manley crushing blow on Danny White?
 
fansince62 said:
So...when as Redskin fans can we expect the next post lauding Lavaar for knocking Aikman out for the count?

hypcocrisy reigns across the board on this one.
Click to expand...

Thing is the NFL and ESPN are as much to blame. ESPN had a popular segment called "jacked up". Players tried to get their hits shown. The NFL has a video called "big hits".

We all enjoy watching the big hits. If we see a big hit now or someone gets injured while being tackled will we say was there a bounty? Or will we applaud hard play.

Guys like Sean Taylor, Chris Hanburger, Dick Butkus, and Ronnie Lott played the game hard. They were intent on intimidating the opponent and often it worked. If were playing today they would be broke from fines and suspensions.

This bounty gate has taken a life of its own with many twists and turns. There is a difference between paying someone to intentionally hurt a guy. Rewarding someone for putting a guy on a stretcher is wrong. Rewarding someone for decleating someone isn't.

I know the NFL wants to promote player safety. They are on a slippery slope. Too much legislation could water down the product.
 
fansince62 said:
So...when as Redskin fans can we expect the next post lauding Lavaar for knocking Aikman out for the count?

hypcocrisy reigns across the board on this one.
Click to expand...

An excellent point! I've seen countless posts celebrating Lavar's hit on Aikman that ended his career (although none here that I can remember). We also talk bad about Philly fans for cheering Michael Irvin's neck injury...but then we cheer for the end of Aikman's career.

Its all about perspective, I suppose. I'm still in the "this is not such a big deal" camp. Its a violent sport...you don't like the idea of a defender trying to take someone's head off, I suggest golf.
 
riggins44 said:
Thing is the NFL and ESPN are as much to blame. ESPN had a popular segment called "jacked up". Players tried to get their hits shown. The NFL has a video called "big hits".
Click to expand...

This right here. They quietly removed "jacked up" a couple years ago, I'm betting after a request from the league. To ESPN's credit, however, they never showed a huge hit that injured someone.

And yes, we used to watch those NFL Big Hits videos before games to get pumped up.
 
Well, for those of you saying "no way Gibbs knew anything about this," here is George Starke saying he used to give out $100 bills for big hits.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-for-big-hits/2012/03/06/gIQAjtumuR_blog.html

(EDIT: also says George Allen had a reward system).

I think its going to become more and more clear that this is prevalent across the NFL. Gregg Williams will be martyred, but he's just a needle in a haystack.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
riggins44 said:
Thing is the NFL and ESPN are as much to blame. ESPN had a popular segment called "jacked up". Players tried to get their hits shown. The NFL has a video called "big hits".

We all enjoy watching the big hits. If we see a big hit now or someone gets injured while being tackled will we say was there a bounty? Or will we applaud hard play.

Guys like Sean Taylor, Chris Hanburger, Dick Butkus, and Ronnie Lott played the game hard. They were intent on intimidating the opponent and often it worked. If were playing today they would be broke from fines and suspensions.

This bounty gate has taken a life of its own with many twists and turns. There is a difference between paying someone to intentionally hurt a guy. Rewarding someone for putting a guy on a stretcher is wrong. Rewarding someone for decleating someone isn't.

I know the NFL wants to promote player safety. They are on a slippery slope. Too much legislation could water down the product.
Click to expand...

exactly. this has nothing to do with the violence of the game...I repeat...it's about intent. what is in someone's mind. which makes it nebulous at best.....BS at worst.
 
fansince62 said:
exactly. this has nothing to do with the violence of the game...I repeat...it's about intent. what is in someone's mind. which makes it nebulous at best.....BS at worst.
Click to expand...

To rephrase what I stated as my interpretation-the paying of the monetary incentives is, in this context, the evidence being used to determine intent. If this factor did not exist then inferences about intent would indeed be "nebulous" and conjectural but it seems the definition, as I see it, has been established.
 
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