NFL: Saints maintained 'bounty' program from 2009-2011

TV has this new technology called "recording". They do an interview during the commercial break and "record" it so they can show the "recording" when the commercial break is over.

 

you don't think instructing your players to cause specific injuries to specific players is a big deal? him saying to go after crabtree's acl is unacceptable.

 

I'm not getting how fewer commecial breaks = less lawsuits.

 

I disagree with this. He started out using the head/body metaphor...but it became very real after that. He made it very clear what he was talking about...and then referenced his own bounty incentive.

It's funny...average fans keep saying, "this goes on all the time." But I keep hearing pro football players on the radio and TV saying that this is unique and they've never heard anything like this before.

 

Agree with Donny. This seems like hypocritical nonsense, if you ask me.

 

Darren Woodson on Mike & Mike today:


"The issue I have with that speech is when he talked about going after Crabtree's ACL...that's crossing the line."


So just so I can understand the take of those who feel this is much ado about nothing...are you saying that bounty programs are fine? The outrage over Williams comments here is in the context of him offering money to players above and beyond their contract to go intentionally target other players for injury...including head injuries. He specifically references this bounty in this very tape.

I've been watching football for as long as I can remember. I played in high school. I love football. I can't imagine suggesting that it's hypocritical to be critical of this crap. Tackle guys...hit them hard...but don't aim to injure a player, specifically calling him by name and target before the game.

 

The changes I'm talking about will alter the nature/importance of violence in the game as well as the pace, they go hand in hand. I guess you'd have to see Aussie rules to know what I'm talking about. If you take out the "10 seconds of carnage" element and make the game flow more consistently, that alone reduces the chance of injury... guys can't run full speed for that length of time, etc. In addition to other things. The way the game is set up makes violence a huge part of winning, seems to me if they want to change that, they shouldn't just add rules that penalize people for hitting each other, they should fundamentally change the way the game is structured to make violence less important to winning (for example, the way they have basically phased out kick-returns). I'll still watch it, I'm not married to the 10 seconds of carnage concept.

 

There is certainly violence inherent in football...is that a new thing, though?

And they have added rules penalizing people for hitting one another...they've added a ton of those. You can't lead with the head...you can't "rough" the QB...you can't horse collar...and on and on. All of those changes are designed to limit the bullcrap and force guys to make form tackles which are less likely to lead to injury for the player being tackled and the tackler himself.

But we're talking about a huge line being crossed here. You're talking about a coach calling on his players to target guys on the other team specifically for injury...specific injuries...specific targets...and encourages them to do so even after the play is over and they're on the pile.

 

By the way people are reacting to this whole bounty thing, you'd think so.

And I don't think it's working. My personal preference is rather than trying to legislate "bad" hits out of the game, they make "bad" hits less advantageous or important to winning the actual game.

Yep, and I'm not shocked about it at all (the money thing is a little unsettling, for a couple different reasons, though). And I think the people who are fall into one of two categories; naive or feigning outrage. Injuring players has been a way to gain a competitive advantage forever. Mind you, injuring players doesn't have to come by an "illegal" hit, either, due to the nature of the game. Which is why I don't really have a beef with Gregg Williams, I have a beef with the game of football.

 

I'm not shocked...we've heard of bounties before with Buddy Ryan. But I'm totally fine with the NFL punishing the hell out of it. And I find it funny that player after player who have been in an NFL locker room keep saying, "I've never heard anything like what Gregg Williams just said," while fans are saying, "This goes on all the time."

I don't think "bad" hits necessarily equate to winning, anyway.

 

Pretty much agree. But I don't have beef with football. It is what it is. Trying to pretend it's something different it what I have beef with. All these silly rules to try and change the game are just that, silly. They've reinforced the violence with bigger, stronger players trained from age 5 to hit and hit hard. They get handsomely rewarded for it. That's the game. Arguing about where the rewards come from and how is a strawman of giant proportions.

 

Wait...they get trained from the age of 5 to hit hard with form. No one is teaching 5 year olds to lead with the head. They get rewarded because they're effective parts of a defensive unit...not because they seek to injure people.

J.J. Watt (for example) is a kickass defensive player...he's extremely effective and he's made an assload of money because of it. But never do I get the idea that he's been trained to specifically go out and injure other players, targetting specific parts of the body to injure. That's nuts.

Remember the reactions of defensive players who injured Theisman? Or when LT knocked Montana out of a playoff game? There was concern..urgency...waving doctors over quickly. Not exactly indicative of someone who set out to injure another player with every hit. The idea that the game of football is nothing more than seeking to injure the other team is not well founded.

 

But it's absolutely a likely outcome of the game. More to the point, it can be very beneficial. It follows that, intentional or not, it's a temptation.

Whether you're told to aim for the head, or you make that decision personally in order to jar the ball loose, or get a bigger contract, or show up on sports center is moot. The end of the line is that the game rules allow for it. And you're paid to play the game.

 

Seems to me Williams is the fall guy for stuff that has gone on for years, and the NFL is trying to protect its brand for fear of lawsuits by former players.

Nothing he said was all that bothersome, imo.

DD

 

That's amateurs. You know full well that as the stakes get higher and higher, those objectives change from "good form tackle!" to "RIP HIS #@$!ING HEAD OFF!".

Yes, that's anecdotal. Not everybody falls under the purview of "trained killer" on the football field. Especially not rookies.

Once again, more anecdotes. No one is doubting that there are instances where players accidentally get hurt, and opponents actually show great concern over it. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive. But the objective is to win, if your chances of winning are increased by forcing a player to leave the field, you should expect players and coaches to try to play to those ends. Paying them to do it, though, is not kosher for a number of reasons.

 

Give me a break. They earn salaries. Big ones.

 

The coaches giving them money to cause specific injuries to specific people, in addition to circumventing the salary cap, isn't ok. "Knock him out of the game" is different from "go give him a concussion/tear his ACL", just the same as "here's a contract to play football" isn't the same as "here's a contract to go cause X injury to Y player."

 

It's fairly easy to cause serious injuries in the NFL (mostly by going for the knee, I would think). If players were wanting to intentionally injure each other, you'd see a hell of a lot more injuries.

At the end of the day, most of these guys are friends and with so much free agency, many are ex-teammates. They aren't going to try to destroy each other's careers. Like MadMax said, besides the anecdotal "everyone does it!" from fans, no one inside the game actually seems to think this is normal or acceptable.

 

At the same time today, Woodson said how if an opposing receiver had a cast on his hand, he was going after that hand, trying to hit it at any chance. I know an ACL is more important to an athlete but injuring an already broken hand of a receiver could be just as devastating seeing as a receiver needs his hands. I think it's pretty hypocritical of him to say Williams instructing people to go after an ACL is crossing the line but him intentionally trying to injure an already broken hand isn't.

My solution to all of this would be to keep team injuries confidential, like something that only the league and individual team has to know for cases like concussions. The only reason they release injury reports is for betting anyways, and other teams don't need to have this information.

 

Don't think so. You see guys dive at knees all the time, which is a perfectly acceptable way to tackle somebody. It isn't acceptable, however, if that person is already engaged with a blocker. And it's counterproductive and dangerous to your teammate if you try to go at the ball carrier's knees when he's already being tackled by someone else.

I can't speak to that. But we do know that sometimes guys do hold grudges against other players, label them dirty, etc. They're not all buddies. They all, undoubtedly, understand it is a business. Every single one of the players I've seen talk about this are like "so what?", they know that every time they step on the field, the guy across from them is trying to knock him off the field. It's an accepted reality. Now, doing it illegally is something different altogether.