bounty hunting

football:  So I suppose it's time I weigh in on the bounty situation in the NFL.  The NFL has levied heavy suspensions with more to come, against the New Orleans Saints.  The bounties that are referred to are players being offered cash incentives for knocking opposing players, particularly quarterbacks, out of games.
The suspensions that have been handed out are severe to say the least.  Head coach Sean Peyton has been suspended for a full year starting April 1st.  The general manager of The Saints, Mickey Loomis, has been suspended for eight games.  These are both suspensions without pay.  Also, defensive coordinator Greg Williams, who is now with The Rams, has been suspended indefinitely without pay.  These are undoubtedly the most severe penalties ever handed down by the NFL.
Let me first say that these penalties while severe are fair.  The NFL, and its Commissioner Roger Goodell, have  spent so much time and money over the past few years to ensure and protect player safety that this kind of promotion of violence and injury would surely not be taken lightly.  Not to mention the fact that this is just a gross incentive on the part of the Saints.
Now, this is not the entire story.  The Saints and their management certainly made mistakes in judgement in terms of promoting certain behavior from their players.  It was also the arrogance of The Saints that hurt this situation.  They had been warned while under investigation to stop the bounty program and they did not.  Not only did they not stop but they told the NFL they would.  Lying to the most powerful sports league in America, if not the world certainly didn't help.
Now not only are they without their "genius" head coach, but they are without their general manager who helped build their team into the winners they have become (among the top teams in the NFC and with a Super Bowl win in 2010).  The players are also facing suspensions.  There are as many as 27 players on defense who could be facing a suspension during the upcoming season.  The problem with that is the NFL Players Association.  They are bound by a multitude of rules in the collective bargaining agreement, that in the face of the bounties are contradictory.  They have to advocate for players facing suspensions.  They are the ones who negotiated the player safety rules in the most recent collective bargaining agreement.  They also have to help to ensure fair competition.  These ideas are all in conflict with so many players being suspended from a Super Bowl caliber team for endangering other players.  The sheer volume of players create a problem with competition because without staggering the suspensions The Saints would be completely decimated on defense.  Thus ruining their ability to compete at the level expected of them without the suspensions.
The NFL and the NFLPA are meeting as week speak to try and work out the suspensions.  The Saints are trying to find a way to move forward without their head coach.  The Rams, who were looking towards a bright future, hiring Steve Fischer as their head coach and Williams as their new defensive coordinator, are no longer feeling so excited.  The NFL was right to come down hard on this.  I don't want to hear the argument that $1500 dollars for knocking out a quarterback is much incentive to a player who makes millions when Jonathan Vilma was caught on tape screaming, "Pay me my money." after sacking Brett Favre in the NFC championship in 2010. The Saints Super Bowl hopes have all but been set back at least a year.  The Rams future has been set back at least year with the loss of their new, and highly regarded, defensive coordinator.  Roger Goodell is handing out punishment with impunity like David Stern after the melee in Detroit.
I understand that football is a violent game and that sometimes, if not often, players get hurt.  But to hear that  coaches and organizations are promoting it with cash incentives does nothing but make the NFL look like exactly like what they are trying to not look like: a bunch of thugs.
I wish more than anything that Peyton and other members of The Saints weren't so arrogant as to think they could have gotten away with it.  Maybe then we could have seen some fun this season.  Maybe then we could have seen the first home field advantage in Super Bowl history.  But alas, poor judgement and arrogance have turned a model franchise and feel good story into a cautionary tale for what happens when you do morally reprehensible things and then arrogantly lie to try to get away with it.