I wasn’t surprised when I first heard former New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and up to 27 Saints players were involved in a bounty fund from 2009-11 that rewarded defenders for making hits that inflicted injuries upon opponents.
I’m not saying that the Saints are a dirty franchise, but it doesn’t blow my mind that players in the National Football League would participate in such activity.
The first and most recent NFL scandal equivalent to the Saints’ Bountygate was back in 2008, when the league discovered the New England Patriots videotaped New York Jets’ defensive signals during a game.
That season, the Patriots went undefeated in the regular season before losing to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLII.
I’m not condoning what Williams and the rest of the New Orleans players involved did. But Spygate was worse for the league than the Saints’ scandal.
To know exactly what defensive coverage or blitz scheme another defense is going to run is far more of a competitive advantage than trying to injure an opposing player.
Patriots coach Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 for his involvement in the Spygate scandal — the maximum amount allowed by the league and highest penalty ever handed down to an NFL coach.
New Orleans should have a first round 2013 NFL Draft choice taken away and Williams should be suspended for the first 8 games of the 2012 season when he takes over as the St. Louis Rams’ defensive coordinator.
But with the NFL’s recent push to protect players at all costs, it wouldn’t be a shock to see NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell hand the Saints an even harsher penalty than what the Patriots received. Goodell has made a name for himself in the last couple of years for softening the game and dishing out stiff fines that even some victims of the illegal hits deem unnecessary.
NFL players sign up to take crushing blows and put their bodies on the line. They aren’t signing up to play flag football.
The NFL is football at its highest level. Professional football players are athletes in the prime of their careers. And in such a fast-paced game, is it really plausible to think that players don’t already have enough incentive when their job is to lay out opponents?
Take, for example, former Saints defensive end Bobby McCray’s block on former Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner in the 2009 NFL Playoffs that essentially ended his career. When I watch that play again, I find it hard to believe that McCray made the play with the thought in his mind that lighting Warner up would put an extra $1,000 in his pocket.
The average NFL salary is $1.9 million. What difference is a fraction of the salary going to have on a player’s desire to injure an opponent?
I don’t the think Saints’ 2009 Super Bowl victory should be asterisked in any way, shape or form because of the findings on the bounty fund.
The Patriots, on the other hand, haven’t won a Super Bowl since 2004. With videotaping other teams’ defensive signals commencing upon Belichick’s arrival in 2000, the three championships won by the Patriots in 2001, 2003 and 2004 were won in part due to the competitive advantage of knowing the opposing defenses’ play calls.
Saints coach Sean Payton should have put an end to the bounty fund when he caught wind of it in 2010.
No question.
But when it comes to looking at the situation from a competitive standpoint, Spygate had a greater impact on the NFL than Bountygate ever will.
Micah Bedard is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from Houma. Follow him on Twitter @DardDog.
 
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Contact Micah Bedard at [email protected]