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Breaking News - Saints players have won their appeal


Grits and Shins
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OK, so Vilma shows up to his meeting with the 9 affidavits signed by teammates & coaches back in July saying that he didn't put up money for a bounty on Favre & the league and the league presents him with their own affidavit saying he did signed by Gregg Williams 3 days ago? :wacko:

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OK, so Vilma shows up to his meeting with the 9 affidavits signed by teammates & coaches back in July saying that he didn't put up money for a bounty on Favre & the league and the league presents him with their own affidavit saying he did signed by Gregg Williams 3 days ago? :wacko:

 

 

I did not follow along today, but I expect your report is accurate as you are a thorough guy. If the NFL is having Williams sign an affidavit three days ago I suspect they are reducing testimony to affidavit form. If they are actively pursuing that angle then I believe they are actively pursuing the matter rather than looking to let it drop. I believe this is a very negative sign for the palyers.

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Williams was quoted as saying that what he said in the affadavit was exactly what he told the NFL a long time ago, and he re-stated in affadavit form just to make it official. He says very definitely that there was a pay-to-injure program and that he was a direct participant, and that the $10,000 story about Vilma is 100% true.

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I wonder what Vilma's affidavits say? People swearing that there was no pay for performance system? That Vilma never participated?

 

Fujita meets with Goodell tomorrow, will see what they tell him.

 

Some probably think Williams cut a deal or was paid off to swear that Vilma did something, but I'm not buying that.

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I wonder what Vilma's affidavits say? People swearing that there was no pay for performance system? That Vilma never participated?

 

Fujita meets with Goodell tomorrow, will see what they tell him.

 

Some probably think Williams cut a deal or was paid off to swear that Vilma did something, but I'm not buying that.

 

 

Too much smoke for there to be no fire . . .

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I did not follow along today, but I expect your report is accurate as you are a thorough guy. If the NFL is having Williams sign an affidavit three days ago I suspect they are reducing testimony to affidavit form. If they are actively pursuing that angle then I believe they are actively pursuing the matter rather than looking to let it drop. I believe this is a very negative sign for the palyers.

 

 

First thing that went through my mind also. The league is ramping up their case.

 

Also don't see what concerns rajn has with the timeline on signatures. Williams presented evidence that the NFL relied upon, and now the NFL is formalizing that, presumably to dig in and go after Vilma et al.

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OK, so Vilma shows up to his meeting with the 9 affidavits signed by teammates & coaches back in July saying that he didn't put up money for a bounty on Favre & the league and the league presents him with their own affidavit saying he did signed by Gregg Williams 3 days ago? :wacko:

 

 

do you honestly think 3 days ago is the first time williams said all this? that it wasn't something that came out when williams was first busted and came clean to the league? and do you honestly think that the word of 9 people directly involved in the exact same scheme themselves should carry any weight whatsoever?

 

good grief, man, the homer blinders are making you myopic beyond recognition :blink:

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do you honestly think 3 days ago is the first time williams said all this? that it wasn't something that came out when williams was first busted and came clean to the league?

 

Well, when it was first reported, yes, that was my initial reaction. :shrug: Now it's being reported that the NFL had him sign this statement because it was rumored that he'd recanted some of his testimony to the NFL.

 

FWIW, here is the actual declaration. It's only 7 pages, so it's a quick & easy read.

 

and do you honestly think that the word of 9 people directly involved in the exact same scheme themselves should carry any weight whatsoever?

 

Do I believe them? I don't know who to believe. I think the truth may lie somewhere in the middle as it usually does. But to say their testimony doesn't hold any weight at all against the testimony of a guy who absolutely has an axe to grind with the Saints (Cerullo) and a guy who knows he will never coach in the NFL again if he doesn't go along with the NFL's version of the story (Williams) is just silly. They all have their own best interest in mind. That doesn't mean that one's testimony is valid & the others are not. Vilma is saying now that he has 30 players & coaches that will testify on his behalf and have subpenaed Williams as well in the defamation suit, so maybe the truth of what actually happened will come out. According to Vilma & his lawyer, much of Williams testimony is contradicted by Cerullo's. But the NFL only Williams' declaration so a comparison can't be made. As I've said before, if Vilma or any other player/coach did offer money to injure Favre then I hope they burn for it to be perfectly blunt. Because in that one action they turned what was intended only to be a pay-for-perfomance pool into what is being punished for as a 3-year long bounty program with which I still disagree.

 

good grief, man, the homer blinders are making you myopic beyond recognition :blink:

 

 

Whatever Az

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it's funny how your position on this has gone from "sure they had a 'performance pool' that rewarded injuries, but everyone does it", to "sure they did it, but it was all gregg williams' fault and peyton and loomis did anything wrong, gosh darn it, they were just too trusting"...now that the players have been implicated and decided their best tactic is to go into full-blown johnny cochrane mode, you're suddenly unsure whether anything at all has taken place. :rolleyes:

 

come on, either vilma offered $10K if someone knocked favre out or he didn't, either a coach told hargrove to lie to the NFL and he obliged or he didn't. if these things DIDN'T take place, what possible incentive could williams have for lying about them? you say the NFL has him over a barrel....well, sherlock, if none of this chit was true then the NFL wouldn't have him or anyone else over a barrel. why on earth would williams lie to make a non-existant case against him stronger? it's a preposterous theory. the NFL could only have any leverage against williams to the extent the basic charges are true. at that point, williams has incentive to cop to the truth, but what possible incentive could he have to make chit up that could only damage him? I just don't see it.

 

this is pretty simple....either the saints ran an illegal "bonus pool" that rewarded, among other things, hits that resulted in injury, or they didn't. if they had one, it appears it was run by the defensive coaches, williams in particular, but it couldn't have taken place without player participation and buy-in, particularly leaders and captains like vilma. you either believe all of the evidence and the admissions of several key players, including williams himself, or you believe that williams and other key players concocted the whole story in order to make sure williams can never work again.

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AZ,

William's affidavit is really informative for someone, like me, that has been casually following the bounty gate story. Here are some highlights:

  • Defensive players could recieve payments for, among other plays, sacks, interceptions, causing an interception, causing a fumble, fumble recoveries... a 'Pick 6'...'big hits'...'cart offs/knock-outs.'
  • A 'cart-off/knock-out' resulted in an opposing player leaving the game due to a hit (for example, having the 'wind knocked out of him' or being shaken up or injured in some other way.
  • If a penalty was called on a play, no payment would be made for anything that happened on the play...(for example, on a big hit on the quarterback that was called roughing the passer)...any possible pool payment based on that penalized play would not be awarded.
  • Therefore, it was my view and my intention that we were only encouraging clean, aggressive hits within the rules of the NFL.
  • I was aware that the pay-for-perfomance pool violated league rules, including rules about gambling...

The affidavit goes on to talk about the whole Farve issue. In short, if Williams is the NFL's "smoking gun" that Saints players had a bounty system to injure opposing players, I think the evidence is pretty weak. If Williams is the NFL's evidence that a "performance pool" was in place then I think their evidence is pretty strong.

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You should also check out this article which breaks down the appellate decision. http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8349330/panel-ruling-blow-roger-goodell-power. In summary, the appellate panel divided the misconduct into two categories, non-contract payments and intent to injure. The first is NFL arbritrator's province; the latter is Goodell's. After reading William's affidavit I would say that the players conduct falls clearly under the arbritrator's domain as non-contract payments and is subject to his jurisdiction.

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AZ,

William's affidavit is really informative for someone, like me, that has been casually following the bounty gate story. Here are some highlights:

  • Defensive players could recieve payments for, among other plays, sacks, interceptions, causing an interception, causing a fumble, fumble recoveries... a 'Pick 6'...'big hits'...'cart offs/knock-outs.'

  • A 'cart-off/knock-out' resulted in an opposing player leaving the game due to a hit (for example, having the 'wind knocked out of him' or being shaken up or injured in some other way.

  • If a penalty was called on a play, no payment would be made for anything that happened on the play...(for example, on a big hit on the quarterback that was called roughing the passer)...any possible pool payment based on that penalized play would not be awarded.

  • Therefore, it was my view and my intention that we were only encouraging clean, aggressive hits within the rules of the NFL.

  • I was aware that the pay-for-perfomance pool violated league rules, including rules about gambling...

 

The affidavit goes on to talk about the whole Farve issue. In short, if Williams is the NFL's "smoking gun" that Saints players had a bounty system to injure opposing players, I think the evidence is pretty weak. If Williams is the NFL's evidence that a "performance pool" was in place then I think their evidence is pretty strong.

 

 

your bounty/performance distinction is purely semantic. the affidavit (and all the other evidence) clearly demonstrates that they were paying players for injuring opposing players. the fact that you could lose your "performance bonus" for a "cart-off" if you drew a flag is completely meaningless -- obviously, a flag hurts the team so that only makes sense.

 

the simple fact, demonstrated time and again, is that the saints had a "pay-for-performance pool" that defined "performance" as, among other things, injuring opposing players. to me, that's a bounty, but the semantics are unimportant. the pay-for-injury stakes were particularly high for the NFC championship game against the vikings, and any honest review of the game tape can clearly see the result. it is telling that there weren't equal extra bounties bonuses for that game for, say, a pick 6. just for knocking favre out of the game. if all of that doesn't estabish an "intent to injure", what on earth does?

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the simple fact, demonstrated time and again, is that the saints had a "pay-for-performance pool" that defined "performance" as, among other things, injuring opposing players. to me, that's a bounty, but the semantics are unimportant. the pay-for-injury stakes were particularly high for the NFC championship game against the vikings, and any honest review of the game tape can clearly see the result. it is telling that there weren't equal extra bounties bonuses for that game for, say, a pick 6. just for knocking favre out of the game. if all of that doesn't estabish an "intent to injure", what on earth does?

 

 

This.

 

And it is a f*cking bounty.

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your bounty/performance distinction is purely semantic.

 

No it's not, and here is why. If the NFLs evidence (ie William's affidavit) indicates the Saints implemented a player performance system and not a bounty to injure system then the appellate panel has ruled that this falls under the NFL arbritrators province. And so far, the only evidence that I've seen would indicate that the system was intended to reward "clean" hits as Williams stated. That means that Goodell is no longer the judge, jury and executioner and the issue will be decided by the arbritrator. If that's the case then I would expect the penalties will be less severe.

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No it's not, and here is why. If the NFLs evidence (ie William's affidavit) indicates the Saints implemented a player performance system and not a bounty to injure system then the appellate panel has ruled that this falls under the NFL arbritrators province. And so far, the only evidence that I've seen would indicate that the system was intended to reward "clean" hits as Williams stated. That means that Goodell is no longer the judge, jury and executioner and the issue will be decided by the arbritrator. If that's the case then I would expect the penalties will be less severe.

 

 

Correction, hits that did not draw a flag. A hit can be legal, or not be flagged and be plenty dirty. Especially if the player is incentivized to injure the other player.

 

Of course some group of legal begals will be the ones to make the decision, and splitting hairs and semantics is something they do for a living.

 

If the arbitrator is the only one who can punish the players, what kind of punishment can they use? I doubt they have the ability to suspend a player, I presume it is merely a finacial penalty.

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Current Redskins linebacker Lorenzo Alexander, who played under Williams in Washington, said a player could get rewarded for knocking a player out of a game with a clean hit, but only after the fact - not as a pre-planned "bounty." Sometimes players wrote each other checks for such plays.

"It wasn't always Coach Williams" who paid up, Alexander said.

 

Williams said in his declaration that it was the players that came up with this system of rewarding players for clean hits that knocked a player out of a game & I knew it sounded familiar.

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Correction, hits that did not draw a flag. A hit can be legal, or not be flagged and be plenty dirty. Especially if the player is incentivized to injure the other player. Agree in part. But if NFL's smoking gun (Williams) states that the system was in place for "clean" hits and the hits in question (ie Farve) were not penalized by the refs during the games or by the NFL on review. Then how can you argue the hits were meant to "injure"? Just asking.

 

Of course some group of legal begals will be the ones to make the decision, and splitting hairs and semantics is something they do for a living. Agree

 

If the arbitrator is the only one who can punish the players, what kind of punishment can they use? I doubt they have the ability to suspend a player, I presume it is merely a finacial penalty. This is where it gets interesting. The appellate panel told Goodell to determine if any of the discipline he is levying is due to the "non-contract consideration" part of the misconduct. If that is the case, Goodell should refrain from discipline, as that "lies within the exclusive jurisdiction of the System Arbitrator," not Goodell, and fines -- not suspensions -- are the only penalties available for non-contract payments, as per the CBA.

 

 

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If it wasn't pre-planned how did they know how much of a reward would be given? If they had a list of rewards for certain things, then it was pre-planned.

 

Or was it just not a pre-planned bounty?

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Then how can you argue the hits were meant to "injure"? Just asking.

 

 

If I take a swing at you intending to hurt you, but cause no harm, didn't I still have intent to do harm?

 

Just because a player isn't flagged for a play, or fined doesn't mean he wasn't trying to hurt the other guy.

 

If I offer you money to hurt somebody and you get paid for doing that (the cart-off incentives) didn't you succeed in hurting the guy? If you're flagged or fined you don't get the money. But you still had that incentive to do harm, and tried to collect on it.

 

The argument is getting old, most feel the Saints were doing something dirty. Their fans and some others don't. The NFL, NFLPA, and a bunch of dudes in suits are going to determine what the punishment is.

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No it's not, and here is why. If the NFLs evidence (ie William's affidavit) indicates the Saints implemented a player performance system and not a bounty to injure system then the appellate panel has ruled that this falls under the NFL arbritrators province. And so far, the only evidence that I've seen would indicate that the system was intended to reward "clean" hits as Williams stated. That means that Goodell is no longer the judge, jury and executioner and the issue will be decided by the arbritrator. If that's the case then I would expect the penalties will be less severe.

 

 

your distinction is wrong. again, their "player performance system" defined "performance" as causing injury. as you note, hits that drew a flag were exempted from this "performance system". so you don't get your 4-5 figure "cart-off" bonus if you draw a flag on the play. that doesn't even come close to removing the intent to injure, it just qualifies it -- intent-to-injure-without-drawing-a-flag.

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If it wasn't pre-planned how did they know how much of a reward would be given? If they had a list of rewards for certain things, then it was pre-planned.

 

Or was it just not a pre-planned bounty?

 

 

Not pre-planned as in they were not targeting players, not trying to injure players. Just if it happened as a side affect to a "clean" hit. And no, I don't think that makes it right, but I do recognize the distinction of intent.

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[*]Therefore, it was my view and my intention that we were only encouraging clean, aggressive hits within the rules of the NFL.

 

 

 

I don't think that intent to injure is dependent upon a penalty called on the player by an independent party, and therefore you don't have a sound basis for your judgment.

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. $10K on favre, not targeting players.

 

 

Apparently you can't read past the last post. I wasn't even talking about the Saints. He asked about the quote from a Redskins player in regards to how their PFP system worked & I was explaining what that player meant. And the quote wasn't even to compare what the Redskins said they had to what the Saints had... a point that, yet again, went way over your heads.

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You should also check out this article which breaks down the appellate decision. http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8349330/panel-ruling-blow-roger-goodell-power. In summary, the appellate panel divided the misconduct into two categories, non-contract payments and intent to injure. The first is NFL arbritrator's province; the latter is Goodell's. After reading William's affidavit I would say that the players conduct falls clearly under the arbritrator's domain as non-contract payments and is subject to his jurisdiction.

 

 

I don't understand. There are all the elements of a contract here, with payment made for the injury of an opponent as mutually ageed upon by all participating parties as well as the consideration. How does that not demonstrate intent?

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