Hypocrisy Writ Large in NFL ‘Bountygate’ Scandal
So, one NFL team got caught paying its players to inflict injury on key players on the opposing side. Be still my palpitating heart. You mean to tell me that pro football is a nasty, violent sport played for keeps and with no holds barred and where teams will do anything — up to and including trying to injure an opposing player — to win? Perish the thought.
The hypocrisy of the league, the teams, the fans, and especially the sanctimonious twits who style themselves “sportswriters” is incredible. The teams pay players to knock the snot out of the other fellow — the harder the hitter, the more dollars in his contract. The fans pay big bucks to watch them do it and cheer wildly at the mayhem. The league markets the game with not so subtle hints at the ferocity of its players. And sportswriters run out of adjectives describing hits on opposing players that, if delivered outside the lines of the field, would constitute probable cause for assault and battery.
The New Orleans Saints — specifically, defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and 22 players — pooled their money to pay bounties for knocking opposing players out of the game. Williams, hired as defensive coordinator for the St. Louis Rams this past offseason, has been suspended by the league “indefinitely.” Head coach Sean Payton, who apparently tried to cover up the activity, got a one-year suspension. The team was also fined and lost a couple of draft picks.
The league took this action not so much because they are concerned about “sportsmanship” or “fair play” but because paying bounties is against the rules. There is a perfectly legal and far more elegant way for teams to accomplish the exact same thing the Saints managed to do: Pay massive contracts to players with a reputation for pulverizing opponents. Some of the highest paid players in the game are also some of its hardest hitters. Hitting an opponent like a ton of bricks is likely to cause some kind of injury whether it slows the player down or puts him on the sideline for a couple of games. Bone, sinew, muscle, tendons, cartilage — the human body, no matter how well conditioned, did not evolve over the last 2 million years to be crunched by a 260 pound linebacker who runs a 4.4 40 yard dash. The collisions rattle bones, and even brains, as concussions are at an all time high in the NFL.
And there is a far more effective way to police this kind of thing: let the players and opposing teams deal with it in their own way.
Warren Sapp, former all-pro defensive lineman:
“We don’t keep many secrets in the NFL, if you knocking a dude out, you getting paid — that’s going to get around,” Sapp said on CBS This Morning. “Once that gets out, the league’s going to come down on you even more then. Teams are going to start coming after your guys.”
There you have it: mutually assured destruction. You take out our guy, we go after two of yours. It worked in baseball for 100 years until the league began to butt its nose into the nuances of the game. If a pitcher threw at the head of an opposing player, he had best be ready to duck when it was his turn to bat. Or sometimes the payback would come in the form of a bean ball thrown at the other team’s best player. A balance of power was maintained in this imperfect manner, and it protected players and pitchers as well.
– de Niners gonna “welcome” back next time.
And yet, if I deliberately concuss someone…
or deliberately chop off his thumb…
or deliberately damage his hearing…
or deliberately castrate him…
(all outside the realm of self-defense, mind you)
Then I will be charged with “malicious mayhem”.
Worse, if someone pays me to do these, then I’ll be charged under federal RICO statutes.
Mis-calculations happen. It’s one of the reasons car wrecks occur. What the Saints did was not mis-calculation; it was a deliberate calculation. I don’t buy the argument that it shouldn’t be prosecuted as a criminal case, just because it happened inside the Superdome.
It was painfully obvious in the Minnesota-Saints matchup in the NFC championship a couple of years ago that intentionally inflicting injuries was on the Saints to do list. Would probably have to go back to the Steelers and Raiders of the ’70′s to see similar displays of unsportsmanship.
There’s no doubt in my mind that nearly all NFL players are ‘roided up enraged monsters and I have no delusions that it is not anything but our modern day version of Roman gladiatorial “sport”. That said, I still love football, but hey I am fascinated by ancient Rome too.
“Alright men, now here’s the play we’re gonna use. I don’t think the guards know this formation. It’s called ‘incidental punishment after the ball is blown dead.’ Remember, any man you tackle gets an elbow, knee, or kick in the mouth.”
I’m sure that in the players briefings before every game they have a list of injuries of players on the other team. If one of them has a bum knee or ankle they will hit them low and hope it puts the other player out of the game. If the other quarterback has thrown his shoulder out or sprained an elbow or wrist they are going to be hitting him from that side. It’s all part of the game. All the players know it and all the players do it.
I agree that said practice is quite common, but when you get caught, as with many other actions, you have to pay the price. This is a basic law of our era, and maybe forever, isn’t it?
Back in the day, Marcus Auraelius, the great Roman emperor, wrote something about this. He argued that “if you get into the ring, and your opponent beats you up tremendously, you don’t complain afterwards. After all, you chose to box. Boxers get hurt.” (paraphrasing here)
That’s exactly what one can say about the NFL and bounties. If you choose to play, you kno you may get hurt. End of debate.
Really? Meaning that there are no rules, no penalties, no fines, no suspensions? Do you have any idea how the game is played and supervised? Yes there is incredible violence including cheap shots, intentions to injure, and unbelievable collisions on players, defenseless and otherwise, but there still are rules.
Almost everyone may break the speed limit regularly, but that does not mean that some of us do not get nailed for it, even lose our licenses, sometimes the worst offenders, sometimes not.
I played football for 13 years; 4 in High School, 4 at University and 5 in the Military. It was standard practice to deliver legal hits with maximum force. That is part of the Game. Many opponents were charged to deliver illegal hits, and sometimes given illegal equipment with which to do so.Thats not Football; thats athletic thuggery.
Mr. Moran implies that there is something wrong with whacking an opponent in his sore spot. Not so! Read the Rule Book! There is no such foul.
Howard Jones, the great USC coach, built his offense around dominating the opponents’ best player.”Wear him out, wear him down; then run all over his substitute.” The Bear, Lombardi, Noll and many others insisted on the use of maximum legal force.
Hypocrisy Writ Large
I recollect something about “Spygate” – something all NFL teams practiced. Well, until the Pats got “caught.” Then it was a heinous crime.
Business as usual.
If you have watched the change in the NFL over the last 20 years-since blacks became the dominate race of players, you would have known that this is what the NFL was going to degenerate to which is nothing more than the Bloods and Crips. The same goes for the NBA. Thugball. Williams was just trying to be down with the boys.
No more beauty. No more thoughtful plays. Just smash-mouth thuggery.
to be crunched by a 260 pound linebacker.
-
You forgot to mention that he is probably doped up on steroids.
How many of those 126 professional football brain injuries are the result of drugs,
not concussions?
What happens to a damaged brain when the injured person continues to takes steroids?
Mine is probably a minority opinion, but I think the greater emphasis on violence in football has hurt the game. Forget the moral argument, it’s made football boring. While any single game can still be exciting once in awhile over the course of the season your best two or three players go out with injuries, so the team is made up of players with nagging injuries who have lost a lot of their quickness, 2nd stringers, and thugs without much talent who are paid to injure the opposing team. Football has always been a rough sport, but it would be much better if they went back to emphasis on scoring touchdowns and stopping the other team on downs instead of beating each other up. If you want to see that sort of thing you would be better off watching a street fight or one of those extreme boxing matches that are on now.
– seem small for multi-millionaires. And if you retaliate when — and if — you get up, you will be the one who draws the flag.
Well, we have some commenting who want to turn football into a girls embroidery and crochet contest. Certainly illegal hits must not be tolerated. And just as certainly, watering the game down by prohibiting hard hits would turn it into sissyball. Contact is the very essence of the game. Stevie is wrong about no talent players. There is no NFL player who lacks extraordinary physical prowess. And he is also wrong about dominating and physically defeating opposing players. That is part of what football is about. Maybe crochet or embroidery is more his line.