Saints violate NFL Bounty rules, paid bonuses to injure players

[salsadancer7]

That's only the case for off the field issues though, and while he's the judge he relies on others in the process of every fine and suspension to recognize incidents and recommend punishment. Most appeals go to the jointly hired Ted Cotrell and Art Shell.

Again, this is all stuff the players agreed to.

And again, did not dispute that. It's still flawed anyway you look at it cause none of those guys are gonna say no to him.

 

[Rey]

It's still flawed anyway you look at it cause none of those guys are gonna say no to him.

you'd think the players would've been smart enough to realize that before agreeing to such thing. lol....

 

[salsadancer7]

you'd think the players would've been smart enough to realize that before agreeing to such thing. lol....

True...

 

[cosmo_kramer]

Tweet from ESPN's Trey Wingo:

"Said it before and I'll say it again: The Super Bowl in New Orleans this year will be the most awkward SB week in the history of the league''

 

[cosmo_kramer]

Maybe Vilma should be careful what he asks for:

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says he expects evidence in the New Orleans Saints bounties case would be made public after all the player appeals and grievances have been heard.

Roger Goodell expects bounty evidence will go public after hearings, appeals - ESPN

 

[whitewolf8214]

Patriots should of got nearly the same penalty for spygate as the saints got for bounty gate

 

[meStevo]

If two dozen+ players participated for years, successfully covered it up when previously investigated it, then continued to do it... then maybe they would have.

 

[yaz96]

Report: Saints kept ledger detailing $1,000 payments for cart-offs

Posted by Michael David Smith on June 1, 2012, 5:54 PM EDT

Reuters
As suspended Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma continues to spar with the NFL about the disclosure of evidence in the league’s bounty investigation, a new report details one piece of evidence that the league views as significant: A ledger showing payments to Saints players for meeting the goals of the bounty program.

Jason Cole of Yahoo Sports reports that the league has a “ledger” showing earnings for players in the bounty program, with $1,000 payments for cart-offs, $400 for hard hits and $100 deductions for mental errors.

The ledger includes notations from 2009 games against the Bills (three $1,000 payments) and against the Giants (one $1,000 payment). It’s not clear who the players involved were, either the Saints players involved in the payments or the Bills and Giants players who were hurt.

One disturbing detail in the report is that in the case of one $1,000 bonus on the ledger, someone wrote down that the player carted off was placed on injured reserve, marking it with an exclamation point.

There are plenty of unanswered questions in all this, such as who was keeping the ledger, who made the payments (or whether the payments were actually made) and who turned the ledger over to the league office. And NFL Players Association spokesman George Atallah said the NFLPA has not seen the ledger and questions the league’s reliance on it.

“I guess it either qualifies as evidence, which means fair due process was violated because [the] players didn’t get to see it before they were punished or it is not hard evidence because they didn’t get to see it and cross examine the validity of that piece of evidence,” Atallah wrote in a message to Cole.

But whether the union accepts the evidence or not, it’s one more damaging report for the union’s members who have been implicated in the Saints’ bounty scandal.




--------------------------------------



OOPS!

 

[meStevo]

The grievance trying to get the suspensions dismissed because of the salary cap violations has been dismissed by Special Master Burbank. Still remaining is the 'it happened before this CBA, no fair!' grievance.

 

[cosmo_kramer]

The four players suspended for their roles in the New Orleans Saints' bounty program will have their appeals heard by commissioner Roger Goodell on June 18, a source with knowledge of the situation told NFL.com.

Roger Goodell reportedly will hear New Orleans Saints bounty appeals June 18 - ESPN

 

[salsadancer7]

IF the NFL says they have the proof that clearly shows that Vilma was involved...then whey won't they show this proof.

Somethings smells fishy here...

If my boss accused me of stealing....you better have proof. Same things should apply here.

Jonathan Vilma of New Orleans Saints leaves hearing, calls process unfair - ESPN

 

[meStevo]

Again, this is after a quick read, and we’re going to get deeper into it later in the day. (Florio promises.)


But among the slides the league presented, three pieces in particular stand out.


As part of Exhibit 5, the league handed over a slide which shows a series of payments made to players which could reasonably be considered a simple “pay for performance” system. Those included “whacks,” “sack” and “impact play.”


But the first entry on that sheet reads: “Harper = Cart-off 1000.”


That could reasonably be read as paying safety Roman Harper for knocking a player out of the game.


Exhibit 9 includes the “Dog the Bounty Hunter” photo we referred to earlier. That slide includes “Now its time to do our job…collect bounty$$$!” along with “No apologies! Let’s go Hunting!”


Even the NFLPA concedes that image was “a poorly chosen and ironic example to use.”


Exhibit 10 might be the the closest thing to a smoking gun among the nearly 200 pages presented, showing a ledger from the “Minny game” which shows Jonathan Vilma and Charles Grant apparently collecting $10,000 each, and assistant head coach Joe Vitt apparently contributing $5,000 to the “QB out pool.”


That last one is a transcribed handwritten note, and the NFLPA has taken issue with some of the evidence, including who transcribed notes such as that one, where they were obtained or whether players had seen them.


Again, this is an early look. Stay tuned for more throughout the day.
​

Early thoughts on the evidence NFL presented | ProFootballTalk

 

[salsadancer7]

Interesting... ANYBODY could have hand written that. LOL! I am going to assume that the NFL hired someone that could identify Wilma's handwriting or something like that because other than you having his signature/hand writing or a picture, it is nothing but hearsay.

EDIT: From ProFootball Talk:

And here’s perhaps the most important point. If any of the evidence shown today to an Apostle-sized collection of scribes wasn’t given to the NFLPA and the four suspended players on Friday, Peter needs to add another word to his description.

“Irrelevant.”

The CBA requires the NFL to produce three days in advance any evidence the NFL will be using at the hearing. If there is indeed “explosive, compelling” evidence, it apparently wasn’t among the information the league tendered to the NFLPA on Friday. And so that evidence can’t be used by the NFL at the appeal hearing.

So either the NFL did a fantastic job of propping up items such as Sean Pamphilon’s ridiculously rambling 10,000-plus-word manifesto during the dog-and-pony show, or the NFL showed the reporters evidence that the NFL failed to give to the suspended players and their union.

If the latter is the truth, there’s something very wrong with this picture.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...o-irrelevant-if-not-given-to-nflpa-on-friday/

Something REALLY stinks here...

 

[Jimbo]

Q.
Can the NFL Owners "Impeach" Goodell ?

Say he's proved to have fabricated this stuff ... would you want him running your league anymore ?

He's handed down some pretty severe punishment for something that he doesn't have substantial evidence for.

 

[meStevo]

Q.
Can the NFL Owners "Impeach" Goodell ?

Say he's proved to have fabricated this stuff ... would you want him running your league anymore ?

He's handed down some pretty severe punishment for something that he doesn't have substantial evidence for.

Owners are very happy with Goodell, most of the arguing is over process and semantics. Some pretty damning evidence was revealed today to the press, and from the Saints own computer systems.

 

[cosmo_kramer]

Exhibits 1-12

Exhibits 13-16

 

[cosmo_kramer]

IF the NFL says they have the proof that clearly shows that Vilma was involved...then whey won't they show this proof.

Somethings smells fishy here...

If my boss accused me of stealing....you better have proof. Same things should apply here.

Jonathan Vilma of New Orleans Saints leaves hearing, calls process unfair - ESPN

• The testimony from disgraced defensive coordinator Gregg Williams to the league, in which he said he knew the program "was rolling the dice with player safety and someone could have been maimed."
• The charge, from what the league said was a handwritten note from a Saints defensive coach, that the defense pledged $35,000 for a defender to knock Brett Favre out of the January 2010 NFC Championship Game -- including a $5,000 pledge to the kitty from current Saints interim coach Joe Vitt. (Vitt denies the charge.)
• The three sources the NFL claims to have who told league investigators linebacker Jonathan Vilma spurred the bounty on Favre by offering $10,000 himself during a night-before-the-game motivational speech by, as one of the sources said, "raising his hands, each of which held stacks of bills, that he had two 'five-stacks,''' to give to the player who knocked Favre from the game.
• The NFL Films-recorded quote from defensive lineman Anthony Hargrove, as first reported by SI in March, with Hargrove saying to defensive teammate Bobby McCray, "Give me my money,'' after Vitt told the team that Favre was out of the game with a leg injury. (Favre did return to the game without missing a play, but that wasn't apparent when Hargrove made his declaration to McCray.)
• The PowerPoint slide collected from a sweep of the Saints' computer system, from the night before the Saints' playoff loss at Seattle in January 2011, complete with a picture of TV bounty hunter Duane "Dog'' Chapman, that said, "Now is the time to do our job ... collect bounty $$$! No apologies! Let's go hunting!''
• The unending stream of evidence from Saints computers, which is going to create some very strange bedfellows inside the Saints' football facility ... seeing that the two-year sweep of the all Saints' e-mails and computer-generated PowerPoints was OK'd by owner Tom Benson, who helped seal the case against the four suspended players and three coaches and general manager Mickey Loomis by allowing forensics experts to search for incriminating electronic evidence against his employees.
• The ledger sheet from an October 2009 game that showed safety Roman Harper due $1,000 for a "cart-off'' of Giants running back Brandon Jacobs in the second quarter, forcing Jacobs to leave the field for several plays.

NFL reveals 'overwhelming evidence' to reporters in Saints case - Peter King - SI.com

 

[meStevo]

IF the NFL says they have the proof that clearly shows that Vilma was involved...then whey won't they show this proof.

Somethings smells fishy here...

If my boss accused me of stealing....you better have proof. Same things should apply here.

Jonathan Vilma of New Orleans Saints leaves hearing, calls process unfair - ESPN

The difference is if your boss caught you stealing, there's a due process and a set of guidelines that is followed under the law for your city/state.

In the NFL there's a collectively bargained set of guidelines that are being followed. I am sure there are a lot of ways to look at and pick apart things that is sure to drum up a lot of hits at Profootballtalk... but in the end this whole thing comes down to 2 points in my view:

1. The NFL found enough evidence to justify the suspension of these players. Clearly a lack of contrition will probably see those players server their suspensions. Even if you go about in jest - for years - using phrasing involving bounties, using Dog the Bounty Hunter in a powerpoint, proclaiming on the sideline you want to collect your money after a hit, denying never paying or intending to pay (but not denying you offered - only the lawyer said that later to try and move on from that point... never Vilma) to injure someone... there's too much smoke, the NFL is right to do what they did IMO.

2. The NFL likely has a shield in the form of the current CBA that will get Vilma's defamation suit thrown out. Even if it isn't, proof of the players playing semantics, and other evidence (there's probably a lot more in their mountain of documents we haven't even seen) will go a long way to show that Goodell didn't mischaractarize or 'defame' Vilma by descriptions of his involvement.

 

[salsadancer7]

The difference is if your boss caught you stealing, there's a due process and a set of guidelines that is followed under the law for your city/state.

I said..and I QUOTE.... "if my boss ACCUSED ME of stealing..."... not IF my boss CAUGHT me of stealing. There is a HUGE difference.

In the NFL there's a collectively bargained set of guidelines that are being followed. I am sure there are a lot of ways to look at and pick apart things that is sure to drum up a lot of hits at Profootballtalk... but in the end this whole thing comes down to 2 points in my view:

1. The NFL found enough evidence to justify the suspension of these players. Clearly a lack of contrition will probably see those players server their suspensions. Even if you go about in jest - for years - using phrasing involving bounties, using Dog the Bounty Hunter in a powerpoint, proclaiming on the sideline you want to collect your money after a hit, denying never paying or intending to pay (but not denying you offered - only the lawyer said that later to try and move on from that point... never Vilma) to injure someone... there's too much smoke, the NFL is right to do what they did IMO.

2. The NFL likely has a shield in the form of the current CBA that will get Vilma's defamation suit thrown out. Even if it isn't, proof of the players playing semantics, and other evidence (there's probably a lot more in their mountain of documents we haven't even seen) will go a long way to show that Goodell didn't mischaractarize or 'defame' Vilma by descriptions of his involvement.

You started the process by using Pro Football Talk AS A SOURCE, I am using it as well. Some have reported, including former Pro Football Talk reporter Adam Schefter as well as Mike Fioro that what was shown to the reporters does not merit the suspension.

There is no doubt that the NFL CBA is etched in stone for the next so many years. But to if YOU were suspended for a year without your VERY lucrative pay, I doubt you would 'sit down quietly and take it like a man' if you felt wrong in any way. I am under the impression that Goodell does NOT want to go to court because HE, not the league, has alot to lose. A court battle will force the NFLs hand to show everything and there BETTER be a "smoking gun" because if there is not. The CBA could be in deep trouble.

 

[meStevo]

I said..and I QUOTE.... "if my boss ACCUSED ME of stealing..."... not IF my boss CAUGHT me of stealing. There is a HUGE difference.



You started the process by using Pro Football Talk AS A SOURCE, I am using it as well. Some have reported, including former Pro Football Talk reporter Adam Schefter as well as Mike Fioro that what was shown to the reporters does not merit the suspension.

There is no doubt that the NFL CBA is etched in stone for the next so many years. But to if YOU were suspended for a year without your VERY lucrative pay, I doubt you would 'sit down quietly and take it like a man' if you felt wrong in any way. I am under the impression that Goodell does NOT want to go to court because HE, not the league, has alot to lose. A court battle will force the NFLs hand to show everything and there BETTER be a "smoking gun" because if there is not. The CBA could be in deep trouble.

Goodell would just have to show there is a reason to say what he did. From what we've read there clearly was a pay for performance program and there's proof of bounties in even just the limited evidence we've seen (see PFT's haystack article) and there is no doubt players likely including Vilma lied to NFL security previously. Goodell is defending defamation, not needing to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a judge or jury justification of the suspensions. Only what has been said about Vilma, and because of the CBA it probably won't even get that far.

Also, Florida is a right to work state, your boss could just let you go,without justifying anything, even if it's just an accusation of stealing. Either way he could turn evidence over to the police and let them decide what to do. The only debate there is if you could collect unemployment for it being without cause or not.


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