"Who Dat" Bounty Games...

[Vandy Vol]

The media is scratching their heads trying to figure out WTF in here is such devastating evidence the NFL claimed to have that warranted these severe punishments.

Then the media is retarded.

It took me five minutes of skimming Exhibits 1-5 before I found the first mention of rewards for cart-off hits, "whacks," interceptions, etc.

[AWK]

Then the media is retarded.

It took me five minutes of skimming Exhibits 1-5 before I found the first mention of rewards for cart-off hits, "whacks," interceptions, etc.

ERRONEOUS!

[RWS]

Then the media is retarded.

It took me five minutes of skimming Exhibits 1-5 before I found the first mention of rewards for cart-off hits, "whacks," interceptions, etc.

No shit. 5, 6, and 7 could damn near make the case on their own. Sure, there is a lot of mundane game prep stuff in between everything, but the proof is there. 

[GH2001]

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8065820/appeal-new-orleans-saints-bounty-suspensions-claim-email-was-joke-sources-say

dude needs to seriously upgrade his phone.

[AUChizad]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/19/drew-brees-compares-evidence-for-bounties-to-evidence-for-wmds/

Drew Brees compares evidence for bounties to evidence for WMDs
Posted by Michael David Smith on June 19, 2012, 6:49 AM EDT
Samsung's Annual Hope For Children Gala - Red Carpet Getty Images

Saints quarterback Drew Brees has offered up an interesting analogy for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s case that some of Brees’s coaches and teammates on the Saints were involved in a bounty program: Brees says it’s reminiscent of President George W. Bush’s case for the Iraq War.

On Monday, as reporters were scrutinizing about 200 pages of what the NFL says is a 50,000-page file of evidence in the Saints’ bounty program, Brees wrote on Twitter that he isn’t buying it.

“If NFL fans were told there were ‘weapons of mass destruction’ enough times, they’d believe it,” Brees wrote. “But what happens when you don’t find any????”

In the run-up to the Iraq War, the Bush Administration repeatedly said Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, a claim that most Americans believed and that turned out to be false. Bush later called his biggest regret as president.

If I were Brees, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for Goodell to call suspending the Saints his biggest regret as commissioner.

[AUChizad]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/19/haystack-of-nfl-evidence-has-a-few-possible-bounty-needles/

Haystack of NFL evidence has a few possible bounty needles
Posted by Mike Florio on June 19, 2012, 1:03 AM EDT

The 50,000 pages in the bounty file became fewer than 200 that were given to the NFLPA on Friday, which via careful, time-consuming, page-by-page scrutiny by yours truly reveal a handful of documents that suggest the existence of a bounty program in New Orleans.

There’s no doubt that the Saints maintained an illegal pay-for-performance program, which rewarded defensive players for good plays and penalized them for mental errors and penalties. For that violation, the coaches and the team should indeed be punished.  As to player discipline, the question is whether and to what extent players offered, paid, or received money for the infliction of injury on opponents.

As Gantt mentioned on Monday afternoon, one document indicates that several persons pledged money to what is described in at least one of the other documents as a “kitty pool” for the 2009 NFC title game against the Vikings, and that several of the contributions were tied to the opposing quarterback, Brett Favre.

The league didn’t produce to the NFLPA a copy of the handwritten notes.  Instead, the league converted the handwritten notes into a typed document, providing the typed document and not the handwritten notes.

For the non-lawyers in the crowd, this is very unusual.  Disputes routinely involve handwritten notes, which may or may not readily be legible.  The standard procedure in such situations is to:  (1) figure out who wrote the notes; and (2) question that person as to what the notes say.  In 18 years of practicing law, I never encountered or heard of a party to any type of litigation converting handwritten notes to typed notes, producing the typed notes, and not producing the handwritten notes for scrutiny and witness questioning.

In this case, at a bare minimum, the NFL should have produced both — especially since the NFLPA will now argue that the typed version does not qualify as an acceptable alternative, and that the typed notes should not be considered because they weren’t produced at least three days before the appeal hearing.

With that caveat, the typed translation of the handwritten notes state “Vilma $10,000 QB,” which the NFL presumably interprets as linebacker Jonathan Vilma pledging $10,000 to anyone who knocked Brett Favre out of the game.  The document similarly indicates that defensive end Charles Grant pledged $10,000 with the “QB” designation, as did non-Saints employee Mike Ornstein.  The notes likewise reflect that assistant head coach/linebackers coach Joe Vitt contributed $5,000 to the “QB out pool,” and that linebacker Scott Fujita and defensive end Will Smith contributed $2,000 and $5,000, respectively, to the “General Pool.”  (Vitt’s lawyer, David Cornwell told PFT on Monday night that Vitt was never accused nor suspected of contributing money to a bounty pool.)  Finally, safety Darren Sharper pledged $5,000 for a “Pick 6″ and “QB hits.”

Another document (also a typed version of handwritten notes) lists a variety of names and amounts, with no specific designation as to what the amount reflects.  The presence of Ornstein on the list, along with $5,000, suggests that it’s a list of pledges for an unknown game.  Vilma is down for $2,000, Smith for $1,500, Grant for $1,500, linebacker Scott Shanle for $500, cornerback Leigh Torrence for $500, and “Evans” (presumably linebacker Troy) for $500.  The document in a separate column states “Fujita to DL,” with “$500 Sack” and “$500 FF” below that.

Other documents raise questions, including a 2009 email from Ornstein to Gregg Willliams regarding future contributions from Ornstein, and an October 11, 2009 email from former Saints assistant Mike Cerullo to Williams that says, “Here’s Ornstein’s slide, I also added Jets injury to our Monday slide . . . Here’s what it looks like.”  (The Saints played the Jets on October 4; October 11 was the Sunday of the Saints’ bye week.)

One item lists the “Kill the Head Totals” for 2010, with Vilma leading the way at 62.  It’s unclear what “Kill the Head” means in that context.  Another document shows safety Roman Harper being paid $1,000 for a “cart-off” against the Giants, with no indication as to the subject of the “cart-off” or what specifically happened to him.

Finally, the slide containing the photo of “Dog The Bounty Hunter” looks bad on the surface, but it seems to be an exaggeration, with entries like “Must suspected be delivered dead or alive?”

Though most of the documents produced by the NFL to the NFLPA contain no evidence of a bounty program, a few of the pages keep the bounty case alive.  But it may not be enough to constitute persuasive and adequate evidence that players paid, offered to pay, or received money for inflicting injuries — especially without the handwritten notes and in the absence of testimony from the person(s) who created them.

[The Prowler]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/19/drew-brees-compares-evidence-for-bounties-to-evidence-for-wmds/

Well that's a scary thought, if you're bammer Saints fan...GW Bombed the fuck out of Iraq.

[AUChizad]

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/18/ginsberg-chastises-goodell-for-distortion-of-evidence-demands-reversal-of-suspension/

Ginsberg chastises Goodell for distortion of evidence, demands reversal of suspension
Posted by Mike Florio on June 18, 2012, 6:23 PM EDT
Peter Ginsberg, Billy Martin, Joel Segal AP

The Commissioner of the National Football League rarely gets talked to in the way he got talked to today.

On Monday Goodell got an earful from lawyer Peter Ginsberg in the initial session of the bounty hearings.

As set forth below, Ginsberg accused Goodell of failing to conduct a fair process and distorting facts, calling the proceedings “shocking and shameful.”  Multiple sources tell PFT that Ginsberg’s remarks were “heated,” and one source present at the session perceived that Goodell’s face turned red during Ginsberg’s rant.

Ginsberg also claimed that former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and former Saints assistant Michael Cerullo have since retracted any claim that the players actually were engaged in a bounty program.  That’s an allegation that hasn’t previously been made and, if true, would be extremely significant.

Ginsberg concluded by demanding that Goodell rescind the punishment of Ginsberg’s client, Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma, and apologize publicly.

Though it wasn’t quite an Animal House-style march out, Vilma and Ginsberg left the hearings after the initial session, and they did not return when the hearing resumed in the afternoon.

PFT has obtained a copy of the uncertified rough draft transcript from the morning session.  Ginsberg’s remarks are summarized below or, for those of you reading this in the Rumor Mill, after the jump.

“We have been willing to meet with you for months now,” Ginsberg said to Goodell after addressing alleged jurisdictional issues with the appeal process.  “If you, sir, were prepared to exchange fairly and thoroughly in a process in which we could have a discourse and you, Commissioner, could come to a better understanding of what, in fact, occurred with the New Orleans Saints.  If you had presented us with a modicum of due process, if you had elicited or evidenced any willingness to share the evidence with us, we were more than prepared to [engage] in a full [dialogue].

“Instead, Commissioner, you have deprived us of the most fundamental rights, you have provided us with no evidence either in a timely fashion or other to support any of the horrific accusation and allegations that you have made about Mr. Vilma.  You have been unwilling to [engage] in any fair [dialogue] or any fair exchange.  You have made serious allegations an in light of those allegations, in light of what you claim to be important to the NFL and in light of you, sir, your supposed concern for the integrity of this sport and in light of the consequences, Jonathan Vilma both personally and professional, we have as you know found these process[es] and these proceedings to be shocking and shameful.

“From the very beginning, Mr. Vilma asked you to do two things, Commissioner Goodell.  One was to investigate as thoroughly [you] could what lay behind your supposed accusation and the other thing Mr. Vilma asked you to do as to listen to him because he was prepared to tell the whole truth about your supposed — about your accusations.

“We have, in fact, engaged in a thorough investigation.  It has been [stymied] in part, sir, because you haven’t issued gag orders to people with evidence, former coaches, people with [the] New Orleans Saints, you had made threats to keep them from talking, you have refused to have them even participate in today’s proceedings, but nonetheless, Commissioner Goodell, we have talked to dozens of people, literally dozens of people regarding your allegations.  We have spend months gathering information and we have compared that information to your descriptions, your public descriptions. . . .  But in preparing with what you have accused Mr. Vilma with the information that we have gathered, we have found the following, Commissioner Goodell.”

Ginsberg at that point accused Goodell of distorting the facts, pointing to the email message Mike Ornstein sent from prison in September 2011, which supposedly offered a $5,000 bounty on Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers for the Week One game between the Saints and Green Bay.  Ginsberg also mentioned Hargrove’s declaration as being “distorted . . . in the media” by the league.

“You have taken words that Gregg Williams used, colorful words like cart-offs and wax and [kill the head] and have chosen publicly to distort the meaning of those words notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Williams and others ha told you that those terms in no way relate to illegal hits or any bounty program that you have decided, sir, to misrepresent what those words, in fact, mean,” Ginsberg said.

Ginsberg also cites “substantial evidence” that Williams and former Saints assistant (and suspected whistleblower) Mike Cerullo “retracted directly and affirmatively and without equivocation any claims they have previously made about a bounty program,” explaining that the league has not disclosed those retractions.

“Your office leaked to the press a couple weeks ago a supposed ledger which theoretically provided evidence of a bounty program,” Ginsberg said.  “And when the media analyzed this supposed ledger, it became clear [apparently] even to the NFL office that since no players were identified in that supposed ledger, there was no tying of that ledger to any way to a bounty program.  You have chosen after airing it out publicly not even to include that ledger in the documents you provided in an untimely fashion with regard to this proceeding.”

Ginsberg then pushed toward a conclusion of his remarks, apparently hoping to end strong.

“Sir, we have looked at the objective evidence as well as looked at the Gregg Williams video and spoken to people and we have looked at the statistics, we have looked at game film, we have looked at penalties, we have concluded and I think it is irrefutable that there is nothing objective that can support what you have accused Mr. Vilma of having done publicly,” Ginsberg said.  “Commissioner Goodell, Jonathan Vilma has never participated in a bounty program.  He has never put up any money designed to hurt an opposing player. He has never received any money for hurting another player. He has never intended to hurt another player and he has never in any way provided any incentive for any of his teammates to have hurt another playing.

“Commissioner Goodell, what you have done is to make some horrible accusations about Mr. Vilma’s person, about his integrity and about his professionalism. You have imposed a misplaced punishment and, sir, you have cast a shadow not only on Mr. Vilma personally and professionally, and I dare say under NFL and under the offices of the Commissioner in engaging in these proceedings, there’s just one and just one result in this proceeding and that is for you to rescind any punishment against Mr. Vilma and to apologize in public for what you have done.”

Though it’s unlikely Goodell will comply, it feels inevitable that Vilma and Goodell eventually will be hashing this out before someone who wears a black robe on a regular basis — and there won’t be much gray between their respective positions.

[AUChizad]

http://saintswin.blogspot.com/2012/06/closing-casket-on-bountygate.html

Closing the Casket on BountyGate

Monday's events at the players' appeal seemed to provide some finality and closure to the noxious bloodletting Saints' fans have endured for the past 90 days or so. Even if the NFL was shown, yet again, to be less than credible in its assertions--hardly a surprise--the end cycle of the entire process offered a calming sense of repose.

For months we begged for real evidence yet saw very little. Finally on Monday, the league released its raw evidence used to implicate and convict the players. While the evidence itself wasn't so damning or clear-cut, it did move the story forward by giving us a peek into the precursor materials used to ignite this boiling cauldron of demagoguery and bias. 

Let me be clear so as to not be accused of engaging in ambiguity and avoiding the truth. The Saints were guilty of a few things. One, they clearly funded and embraced a pay-for-performance program. Two, they alienated the NFL for years over a variety of issues (addressed in here). They did these things at the wrong time in NFL history and were made to stand as nefarious poster-boys for a league suddenly fearful of the consequences of its true, Hobbesian nature.

What the Saints are not guilty of is maintaining a three-year, institutionalized pay-to-injure ("bounty") program. That this was the original allegation--a misrepresentation at best, an outright falsehood at worst--and that it laid the foundation for the NFL's self-serving, punitive ways, was faulty to say the least. But no matter. The damage is done and the narrative is written.

It's a bit too convenient when, in the same months that thousands of ex-players sue the NFL over a variety of health-related maladies, the NFL suddenly sends a blistering message to the world trumpeting its dedication to player safety.

This wasn't so much about what the Saints may have done wrong, but more so about what the NFL could accomplish by accusing them of doing so.

One game does not a three-year program make
The only actual evidence of a bounty in the 200 pages of official evidence was a transcribed note relating to the NFCCG against the Vikings during the '09 season.

Forget for a second that this piece of evidence was transcribed from the testimony of a disgruntled ex-employee who may have later retracted his statements (more on that in a bit), and focus on the fact that it took the NFL two years to implicate the Saints for this alleged misdeed.

Were the NFL truly concerned for player safety, had they considered this act so offensively egregious, they would have immediately addressed it when it came to their attention in the months following that game.

Instead they sat on it, and used that claim when it best suited their needs. What this reveals, and this really isn't any kind of revelation at all, is that the Saints are just a temporarily disposable piece on the NFL's larger chessboard where protecting the king (i.e, reaping profits) is all that really matters. Whatever it takes. When you view the decision making in this light, you see that the Saints simply served to facilitate the execution of a specific tactic in the NFL's long-term brand protection strategy.

Had to be somebody.

This was never really about guilt or evidence or fairness or due process. It was only about constructing facades and fortifying moats. Plain and simple. Everything else is a peripheral detail that distracts from the emphasis of the larger point. And no matter how obstreperous our protestations may be or how unjustly slighted we feel or how truly flimsy the NFL's evidence may be as it relates to their claims and punishments, it's an end-result that was inevitable the moment it unfolded.

Monoliths don't lose the little battles. But crumble they may.   

This isn't about you or me or Jonathan Vilma or Sean Payton or Gregg Williams or anyone else. This is only about a handful of billionaires intent on protecting their money at all costs. Why do you think Tom Benson has made nary a peep? If they have to spare a few people along the way to ensure that the end goal is met, then so be it. Tough shit, little guy. All in the game. That's how the world works even if it's "not fair" or even if it's hurtful when you're the collateral damage.

I could spend thousands of words deconstructing the soft, flabby underbelly of the NFL's "comprehensive" evidence as presented, but Mike Florio has done that admirably and you can read about it here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. The only potentially smoking guns to emerge from these latest documents are two things, neither of which offers concrete proof to justify the extreme harshness of the punishments:

1) Gregg Williams' PowerPoint slide that read "Now it's time to do our jobs...collect bounty$$$!" is certainly damning to an extent, but not near indicative of a 3-year bounty program; nor is it near enough evidence to justify banning Sean Payton for a calendar year, costing him ~$7M. If you haven't heard it said repeatedly over the past three months, the punishments never fit the supposed crime.


Gregg Williams, in dire need of a PowerPoint tutorial

If we're to believe these slides literally, are we to believe that Gregg Williams advocated shooting opponents with sniper rifles as referenced in the above slide? Did he actually want "suspect(s) delivered dead"?

2) The "transcribed note" detailing monetary sums that indicate a bounty on Brett Favre is, for now, flimsy and illusory. Most importantly, let's remember that these notes were presumably transcribed from Mike Cerullo, a disgruntled ex-Saints' employee who decided to seek retribution against coaches he despised (Payton, Williams). This fact alone should call into question his credibility and motivations. Coupled with the fact that Peter Ginsberg just yesterday claimed Cerullo retracted his prior statements affirming bounties (a fact not previously divulged), Cerullo's testimony becomes even less reliable.

Equally important, a transcribed note just isn't good enough. It's a damning piece of evidence that can too easily be falsified. Who wrote the original note(s)? Is the NFL in possession of the originals? Has the authenticity of these handwritten notes been verified by a neutral third party? Absent answers to these essential questions, any transcribed note is just a written account of some random person saying some random things. If these notes do in fact exist, and do in fact detail a large bounty on Brett Favre, then by all means, the Saints' guilt is inarguable.


Not the actual note, but an unverified  representation of it by the NFL

But that information doesn't yet exist. In light of how the NFL publicly misrepresented both Hargrove's declaration and the bounty ledger--pieces of supposed evidence that were so weak they weren't even included with the league's official set of exhibits--why should we just automatically believe that this league-transcribed note is legitimate?

And even if it ultimately proves authentic, it still doesn't mesh with the allegations of the three-year program the Saints were accused of maintaining. One incident, though potentially egregious, is incongruous with the allegations of institutionalized malevolence for three seasons. As I covered here two weeks ago, it's simply a distortion of facts to achieve an end.

But it doesn't change anything, unfortunately.

The NFL continues its manipulative ways. Instead of simply releasing all of its info to the players and the public, the league congregated 12 select media members--in private--to catechize them on the efficacy of their evidence. The fact of the matter is that if the NFL wasn't more concerned with shaping the message than presenting the facts, they wouldn't convene "an Apostle-sized collection of scribes" to spoon feed.

They would simply allow the information to speak for itself, but they won't.

Moreover, the act of attempting to control the message ultimately disseminated by their recumbent media arm is another example of the NFL's dedication to manipulation rather than truth. At this point in the game, it's a formula with which we should all be well acquainted. And it's insultingly transparent to anyone with a partially operating brain.

Regardless, the NFL most likely emerged "victorious" for the simple fact that they publicly divulged documentation purporting to be comprehensive, justifiable evidence. The Saints were guilty of a few things--poor judgment, hyperbole, a pay-for-performance system and, at worst, one game over the past three seasons where a bounty was offered.

To say this farcical process was fair, or that the outcome is righteous, would be to miss the mark badly. Mostly, the Saints are being publicly punished for the league's past sins in order to shift existing perceptions about the NFL into a more favorable light. 

That's a reality that will endure no matter what ultimate truth prevails.

[GH2001]

Chadskins is a regular Brooks with this bounty gate stuff.

[AWK]

BREAKING NEWS STORY!!!!@# 

Saint's QB defends his team.  More at 7...

[RWS]

I don't know how this is so difficult to understand. You can call it a bounty program, pay for performance program, or whatever you want to call it. Bottom line, it was illegal. Where the Saints really fucked themselves is when the NFL got wind of it, and the Saints said nothing was going on. I mean, come on man. If this sort of thing were about Alabama football and this type of evidence was released, you would be all over it like a rat on a Cheet-O. You would be beside yourself that Alabama football should cease to exist, circumstantial evidence be damned. Everything is based on what perspective you look at it from.

I couldn't give two shits less if this happened to the Saints, Packers, Patriots, or any other NFL team. I hardly watch NFL ball, so I don't pull for one over the other. But if this shit came out about a team I cared about? I would shit my pants.

[AUChizad]

I don't know how this is so difficult to understand. You can call it a bounty program, pay for performance program, or whatever you want to call it. Bottom line, it was illegal. Where the Saints really fucked themselves is when the NFL got wind of it, and the Saints said nothing was going on. I mean, come on man. If this sort of thing were about Alabama football and this type of evidence was released, you would be all over it like a rat on a Cheet-O. You would be beside yourself that Alabama football should cease to exist, circumstantial evidence be damned. Everything is based on what perspective you look at it from.

I couldn't give two shits less if this happened to the Saints, Packers, Patriots, or any other NFL team. I hardly watch NFL ball, so I don't pull for one over the other. But if this shit came out about a team I cared about? I would shit my pants.

I don't know how it's so difficult to understand that the NFL may be lying. There is no "smoking gun" in any of that, sorry. The most damning evidence is a note that they allege to have transcribed, although they can't produce the original note or even will give a name of who allegedly wrote it. Shady at best.

You are not looking at this rationally if you truly believe the NFL has compiled enough evidence to justify torching the program in the way that they did.

Oh, and the latest...

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/19/ornstein-denies-telling-nfl-that-vilma-offered-money/

Ornstein denies telling NFL that Vilma offered money
Posted by Mike Florio on June 19, 2012, 3:18 PM EDT

And the craziness continues.

On Monday, NFL outside counsel Mary Jo White said at the bounty appeal hearing that Mike Ornstein corroborated the claim that Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma offered $10,000 to anyone who knocked Vikings quarterback Brett Favre out of the 2009 NFC title game, and that Vilma offered $10,000 to anyone who knocked Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner out of the 2009 NFC divisional-round playoff game.

The only problem with that?  Ornstein tells PFT that he never said what the NFL now claims he said.

“I never corroborated $10,000,” Ornstein said.  “The only thing that I told them was that we had the [pregame] meeting, we jumped around, we screamed around, and I never saw [Vilma] offer one dime.  And I never heard him say it.”

Ornstein admits that the Saints had a pay-for-performance program in 2009, but he repeatedly denied that he told the NFL that Vilma offered any money knocking any player out of any game.

“Did I say to the league that I saw Jonathan Vilma offer $10,000?” Ornstein said.  “Absolutely not.”

I asked Ornstein the question several different ways, to ensure there was no ambiguity.  He consistently and repeatedly (and at times profanely) denied ever telling the NFL that Vilma offered money to anyone who knocked Favre and/or Warner out of the 2009 playoff games.

It’s unclear what, if any, impact this has on the broader bounty case, other than to call into serious question the validity of the league’s reliance on Ornstein as proof that Vilma offered money to anyone, for anything.  Though there’s a chance Ornstein is lying now, there’s also a chance he was lying then, and given his history of legal entanglements, the league may have badly erred by using him to support any aspect of the bounty case.

[AUChizad]

http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/post/_/id/43004/odd-timing-on-hargroves-payment-request

Odd timing on Hargrove's payment request
June, 18, 2012
By Kevin Seifert | ESPN.com

I mentioned earlier I would bring to your attention any additional evidence the NFL released about the role of Green Bay Packers defensive lineman Anthony Hargrove in the New Orleans Saints bounty case, and so here you go.

As noted by Sports Illustrated's Peter King and several other reporters who were present for an afternoon briefing by the league, the league has an NFL Films video that purportedly shows Hargrove telling Saints defensive end Bobby McCray to "give me my money" after a third-quarter hit that injured Favre's ankle. (NFL.com video here.)

The statement comes moments after Saints assistant coach Joe Vitt told the defense that Favre had been knocked out of the game. The quote would presumably stand as significant evidence both of a bounty scheme and Hargrove's participation; the NFL has alleged there was at least a $35,000 bounty on Favre in the game.

Here is my only concern with that conclusion: Why would Hargrove expect payment for a hit that he wasn't involved in? As you recall, the third-quarter hit that injured Favre's ankle came at the hands of McCray and defensive tackle Remi Ayodele. In the second quarter, Hargrove received an unnecessary roughness penalty for a hit on Favre, but Favre suffered no documented injury.

The timing doesn't make sense, but we'll have to see if anything comes of it.

[AUChizad]

Oh, and don't give me this shit:

You can call it a bounty program, pay for performance program, or whatever you want to call it. Bottom line, it was illegal.

All this hysteria, slander, and public outcry against the evil Saints is not because they were fucking gambling.

There is a huge difference between just having a gambling pool, that as I've stated before, I am 100% positive (I haz skreetz) happens on virtually every team at every level of professional sports. It may be in the books, but it's Jaywalking at worst. No sane rational person can argue that it warrants the crippling sanctions that were handed down to the organization, fucking with the livelihoods of these men.

[AUChizad]

And MORE of the NFL's bullshit oozes from this story.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/19/anthony-hargrove-denies-voice-on-videotape-was-his/

Anthony Hargrove denies voice on videotape was his
Posted by Darin Gantt on June 19, 2012, 3:39 PM EDT

Anthony Hargrove continued in a long line of Saints and their associates poking holes in the NFL’s bounty evidence.

Hargrove said Tuesday that one of the statements attributed to him wasn’t his voice, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

CBS Sports’ Jason LaCanfora obtained a copy of Hargove’s statement, which can be read here, where Hargrove says “I have felt like the target of a sophisticated mugging.”

Players and reporters were shown a video presentation Monday, which included what they were told was Hargrove saying “Hey, Bobby, give me the money!” to teammate Bobby McCray after they were told Brett Favre was injured and would have to be replaced.

He’s just the latest in a line of denials, including Mike Ornstein denying he told the NFL that Jonathan Vilma offered $10,000 to anyone who knocked Brett Favre out of the NFC Championship Game, and Joe Vitt’s attorney saying the assistant coach was never accused of putting money into a bounty fund, even though the league released evidence saying he had.

[RWS]

Chadskins is a regular Brooks with this bounty gate stuff.

Just as retarded, too.

[AUChizad]

Just as retarded, too.

Brooks = desperately trying to fabricate some scandal where none exists for the sake of sensationalism.

I'm the anti-Brooks. I'm Never to Yielding in this ho.

[Snaggletiger]

Brooks = desperately trying to fabricate some scandal where none exists for the sake of sensationalism.

I'm the anti-Brooks. I'm Never to Yielding in this ho.

Fight the good fight, brother.

[Vandy Vol]

Fight the good tard fight, brother NFL bammer.

Fixt.