Hearing about the New Orleans Saints bounty pool scandal has me cracking up. It wasn’t that long ago that Terrell Suggs spoke openly to an Atlanta radio station about a “bounty” that the Ravens had on Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward and running back Rashard Mendenhall.
Thankfully, ESPN.com’s Jamison Hensley remembered this story as well.
After Suggs received a letter from the NFL that threatened “significant disciplinary action” if he had any further comments or involvement in a bounty.
Suggs later backed away from those earlier comments. “There wasn’t any bounty,” he said. He [Ward] broke some guy’s jaw last week, and he tried to cheap-shot JJ [Jarret Johnson]. He has also cheap-shotted Ed Reed. We’re just going to be on alert the next time we play him.”
I don’t know how serious the Saints scandal is, but I would think that hearing a player use the word “bounty” would be worse than anything that’s be uncovered in New Orleans.
“Bountygate” is the latest slick slight of hand that the NFL is using to push the Kris Dielman story to the back pages. Pretty shrewd PR the NFL employs. Fans eat up talks of “bounties” and rivalries, but no one wants to hear bad news about players’ lives being jeopardized. Poof! NFL Madison Avenue just made the Spielman story disappear.
So the NFL put together a 50,000 page report that quickly huh?
Amazing.
They really are magicians!
Mark – It’s not that I believe that a 50,000 page report was generated in a week, it’s about the timing of it’s public release.
Bounties? Really, this is big news? I remember Charles Martin of the Green Bay Packers back in the 80’s wearing a towels with the numbers of opposing players on them as a “hit list” in full public view for 80,000 fans to see in person and another couple mil on TV – READ ABOUT IT HERE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Martin_(American_football)
This is such a non-issue it’s funny, but the league is going to “crack down” on this while ignoring things like team doctors giving a concussed player a whiff of smelling salts and trotting them back out on the field just a few mintues after they wobbled off the field.
If you smell what the chow he cooking! chow aglee with mr. mgw as he of legal lights to say what he say. chow go raw school and no raw of rand and chow quickry adopt heself to noing nfl meen “Know Feeling Leeg”. Chow go ribrary after morning yoga and meditation to see what lights mr. MGW have in he lawsuit against maker of mattell erectronic football game.
Better quit playing with your chop-stick.
MGW
You’ve got a convicted felon ponying up some of this cash pool.
This isn’t your typical in house type stuff.
If you believe that then IMO you are choosing to ignore much of the story.
The Saints were told point blank to clean this stuff up and stop and they completely ignored it.
I’m well aware of Martin and guys like Tim Harris who pile drove Jim McMahon into the turf after a play.
I’m also aware that the NFL has morphed into something nobody ever dreamed it would be back in the 80s.
If you believe that this report came out to push the Dielman retirement (and yes, he had a serious injury) out of the news, more power to you.
Buddy Ryan in the 90’s, Williams with the Redskins, Bills, Titans, a lot of his players have come out and said its been going on. While this is a black eye for the league, it’s a lot better than stories of guys being incapacitated by questionable league physicians and poor support for the guys that pay the bills – the players.
Charles Martin with his “hit list” towel in 1986, Buddy Ryan had more stories about bounties than you could shake a stick at AND he was a head coach, yet this round of “bounties” is a big story?!? Come on. God bless the NFL PR machine. They’re the best in the business at defraying the real problem of concussions and poor post career care by creating a distraction about “bounties”. Wake up fellas, you’re being snookered.
If Cap’n Roger wants to fine somebody or take away draft picks, start with the Chargers for their indifference and/or reckless behavior with their own employee. It’s the dirty little secret they want swept under the carpet.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/football/nfl/03/01/kris.dielman.retires.ap/index.html
Everything is a conspiracy.
Nothing is what it seems
We’re all being snookered by the big bad NFL PR machine!
Or maybe some people see all the issues. It’s possible to acknowledge the issues you bring up while also seeing the issues that this bounty story brings up.
Do you enjoy anything about the NFL or the Ravens?
You’re right. It would be like a Head Coach showing up to a press conference with a mouse under his eye and a PR department saying it was as a result of “playful frivoloty with his QB”.
Oh, because that’s apples to apples!