nfl offseason transactions, fired coaches, general nonsense 2012

well they won't allow shotguns so

Adam Schefter ‏ @AdamSchefter Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
Investigation reviewed 18.000 documents totaling more than 50,000 pages. Commissioner Goodell will determine the discipline.

how could there possibly be 50000 pages? just like a billion printed out text msg exchanges & emails or.. i honestly cant think of one thing anyone involved would put in written form

"Dear Diary..."

my guess would be email printouts where the entire email thread gets copied on every new message.

also transcribed interviews

phil simms just said in an interview he thinks peyty goes to washington

not that he knows anything im sure

he's headed to politics already?

Peyty could definitely be a Senator from Indiana.

it does seem like he could slot into any job in america, football or non-football. there was some rumor i heard that espn took jaws out of the mnf booth so they could easily get him in there if he retires. if i had 2 go in 4 some medical procedure next week and peyty was the head surgeon would i be surprised?

just saw the clip of the maybe cheap shot-ish hit? on kurt warner from the '10 playoff game after an int

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC1T1tAbA4s

be very interested in what comes down on sean payton...goodell specifically said he wasn't "directly" involved but that he knew and did nothing to stop it...and my feeling is that, as a head coach, that's pretty much a meaningless distinction in my mind

also, i feel like the league is pretty much petrified behind the scenes about possible class action lawsuits by former players regarding concussions and how does that factor into the nfl's response?

well they won't allow shotguns so

― Peppermint Patty Hearst (VegemiteGrrl)

billy cole went around this by using a .45 iirc

so which sportswriter is the first to take the time to go through all the film of the season and see how many guys got injured vs the saints defense and which ones were cheap shots...

http://mike-freeman.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/6264363/35066335

Funds for the Saints bounty system, the memo states, weren't solely contributed by players. People close to the Saints team contributed as well. One was a felon: Michael Ornstein.
[..] The NFL memo to teams state that then Ornstein pledged $10,000 towards the quarterback bounty in 2009.

Then, on at least two occasions in 2011, Ornstein again contributed to a bounty fund on an opposing quarterback.

The NFL memo also states there was a bounty paper trail. Ornstein put details of the bounty system in an e-mail to Payton, according to the NFL memo. In that e-mail, Ornstein committed $5,000 towards yet another bounty.

holy shit seriously?

also whoever on the saints talked to NFL during the first investigation (before evidence turned up) lied about it. per bedard @ boston globe who is a solid reporter so..

i wonder about those years when williams was DC on the redskins.

fuuuuucking hell

a-ha. well, here you go:

Washington Redskins, New Orleans Saints had bounty systems that paid for big hits

the next thing i thought after "did williams do this with the redskins?" was "sean taylor (rip) would definitely hit somebody"

what the fuck

this is crazy

ban gregg williams from the league

christ on a cracker

this saints thing is getting ott, but the nfl needn't wring its hands so hard. the money is next to nothing compared to what most players make and totally nothing compared to what the nfl rakes in.

these players have been told since they were 10 years old to deliver hits that knock ppl out. you ask butkus or whomever and you're goddamn right they ordered the code red. i remember hearing an opposing coach say that while he couldn't stop earl campbell, he figured that if you got four helmets on him on each carry, he wouldn't be in the league too long. which was more than otm.

james harrison is a convenient scapegoat for shit because he's black and scary, but his play is a perfect response to every incentive the nfl creates. the league is built on this shit -- ppl want big hits and the league is more than willing to profit on the danger.

that a saints lb who has been trained to fucking pulverize his opponents since he was a child got paid an extra $1500 for doing so doesn't obviate everything else the league stands for.

:( stories like this make me think i should stop watching football :(

noooooooooooo

DON'T EVER SAY THAT

mookie i have no idea what point youre trying to make there?

<3 <3 <3 saints <3 <3 <3 fuck a feigned indignation sports media machine

lol yeah this is all "sports media" at work

that the kind of mindset to target the best opposing players and try to take them out of the game is basically a fundamental part of playing defense? but institutionalizing it as a coach and leaving a paper trail is REALLY DUMB

i figured stuff like that was why lolbelichick revealed as little information as possible about injuries, wouldn't let his players ever talk about them, and did stuff like putting 'brady - questionable - shoulder' on the injury report for like an entire season

my point is that the game itself incentivizes (sorry) the behavior of injuring one's opponents, with or without a 'bounty.' and that the league has profited from this behavior for decades.

thus i find it rich that everyone is up in arms because gregg williams made explicit, with entirely insignificant financial bonuses, what everyone in the league has been trying to do for years.

wouldn't it sometimes be counterproductive if you are coached to intentionally go for the big hit/INT & take a greater risk of missing the tackle and giving up a big play

i'm just saying having unfortunately watched a lot of washington football you would def see lolron landry/d hall do that.. ?

(in the nhl teams are required to list a portion of the body that is injured, e.g. left knee. so the injury reports are full of listings that are totally opposite of the truth, lest opponents try to go after the injured areas. there's no bounty, but that's hockey.)

my two problems with that are 1) "ability to injure opposing players" is probably not a real skill and probably doesn't have a whole lot to do with a given players overall effectiveness, and 2) in a league where an amazingly high # of players grew up poor and end up broke i think it's crazy to call the financial incentives insignificant.

actually there's a third problem--the league does not benefit from quarterback injuries. far from it. i think defensive play will slowly come around to this fact.

let me be clear: at the end of the day i expect that this probably had minimal impact on the field, during the games. the saints defense kind of sucked for this whole period anyway. but there is some value in doing things (playing, coaching) in good faith and this violates that idea about as much as anything could.

xxp obv

'ability to injure opposing players' is probably not a repeatable skill, true. but football prizes batshit players who are willing to run through walls, as evidenced in that don bosco high school story in the new yorker.

the average nfl salary is $1.9m and the median is $770,000. an extra grand for a headshot to brett favre is not particularly motivating unless you are a guy who has been groomed for this all your life.

i am not trying to portray the players as savages, although that is what their coaches would like to make of them. they are responding rationally to what the league values, which is savagery.

well isn't it another myth that fans/sports media/leagues like to maintain, that the motivation for guys is above all winning/love of the game/teamwork/pure competitiveness but for many it is $$$$$$ first so..

and if you have a guy esp at lower than the median salary looking at an extra $1-$5K tax free, seems like that is motivating all right. responding v rationally to the possibility of making more money while you can in a league where you career could be over the next day. that's not crazy at all.

i think the extra $ pales beside the worry that your teammates will think you're a pussy, so to speak.

even in the military, it is not so much patriotism that drives ppl to heroism as looking out for/being one of the bros.

mooks otm

the line between this kinda incentivized violence and the incentivized violence that is 'just playing football' is very, very thin

the financial incentive is really secondary to the way that this practice of manipulating players to intentionally try to injure other players was not just sanctioned but systematized. also, looking at that warner hit, they clearly crossed the line from taking an opportunity to deliver the biggest hit you can legally - which is lamentably or otherwise pretty standard football practice - and cynically taking someone out away from the ball with the single intent of injuring them. there are shades of violence here and the line between is not "very thin" at all.

The thing about this that bothers me is mostly just the way Gregg Williams is lying about it in his apology. He said: "It was a terrible mistake, and we knew it was wrong while we were doing it ... Instead of getting caught up in it, I should have stopped it. I take full responsibility for my role. I am truly sorry. I have learned a hard lesson and I guarantee that I will never participate in or allow this kind of activity to happen again." But he also did this shit when he was with the Redskins, so how exactly did things get out of control so much that it followed him to his next gig?

looking forward to easterbrook's continued mention of him as 'tastefully named'

I'm withmookie on this, but it is still likely going to change the league

But he also did this shit when he was with the Redskins, so how exactly did things get out of control so much that it followed him to his next gig?

He'll be fired by the Rams within the week and suspended by the NFL for no less than a full season.

i think the extra $ pales beside the worry that your teammates will think you're a pussy, so to speak.

yeah this is true but that concern exists regardless of there being a bounty system?

the line between this kinda incentivized violence and the incentivized violence that is 'just playing football' is very, very thin

i suppose i agree but it's not so thin that ppl should act like it's hard to figure out.

I mean honestly I guess mookie raises some points but at the end of the day it's meaningless. The league cannot and will not and should not tolerate that a bounty system

the financial incentive is really secondary to the way that this practice of manipulating players to intentionally try to injure other players was not just sanctioned but systematized. also, looking at that warner hit, they clearly crossed the line from taking an opportunity to deliver the biggest hit you can legally - which is lamentably or otherwise pretty standard football practice - and cynically taking someone out away from the ball with the single intent of injuring them. there are shades of violence here and the line between is not "very thin" at all.

― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, March 2, 2012 11:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

again, the systemized practice of manipulating players to intentionally try to injure other players = the game of football as it is played today

if we want to seriously get real on this, blame espn, blame replay culture. the league benefits from stuff like this - they love to divide things into 'injuries that we wanted to happen' and 'injuries that we didn't want to happen'. when really they all fall under the same category: 'injuries we were willing to let happen'

I mean we're willing to celebrate violent sacks, willing to celebrate teams that play physical - but only when that sack leads to a disabiling injury does it turn into 'a bad thing'. as long as football is a game that involves delivering the biggest hit you can legally, as long as people celebrate that act, as long as people are getting paid millions of dollars but only when they do exactly that, I find it p hard to blame players for 'crossing the line' and not pretending like the things they do every day do not inevitably lead to disabiling injuries. and that people don't enjoy that.

I mean I don't think financial incentives for injuries are a good thing or should be allowed but I think this whole thing needs to be looked at as a symptom not a cause.