Saints coach suspended for a year Options

[Lee Corso]

WOW

[dkst0426]

• The New Orleans Saints are fined $500,000. In addition, because the violation involves a competitive rule, the Saints will forfeit their selections in the second round of the 2012 and 2013 NFL drafts.

• Saints coach Sean Payton is suspended without pay for the 2012 NFL season, effective April 1.

• Saints general manager Mickey Loomis is suspended without pay for the first eight regular-season games of the 2012 season.

• Former Saints (and current St. Louis Rams) defensive coordinator Gregg Williams is suspended indefinitely from the NFL, effective immediately. Commissioner Goodell will review Coach Williams' status at the conclusion of the 2012 season and consider whether to reinstate him, and, if so, on what terms. Commissioner Goodell said he will give close attention to the extent to which Coach Williams cooperates with the NFL in any further proceedings.

• Saints assistant head coach Joe Vitt is suspended without pay for the first six regular-season games of the 2012 season.

Wow. Now that's what you call disciplining a team.

[Carlos the Jackal]

Well, maybe it's deserved...what about any other teams?...and there are other offenders...

(No link, just surmise by radio "talkers." ...from personal anecdotes of players.)

[Lee Corso]

Everybody does it

[Champs 5 times]

Everybody does from what players seem to say...but they sure won't now.

[Dread]

Not openly.

[DevilDJ]

Everybody does from what players seem to say...but they sure won't now.

Geez Louise , that was a corn-holing of biblical proportions. Saints won't walk right for 6 months.

[dkst0426]

Sean Payton, Bill Parcells talk role

While seeking the counsel of his former boss and mentor, Bill Parcells, New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton has broached the idea of Parcells becoming the interim head coach during Payton's suspension for the 2012 season, according to several league sources.

Payton and Parcells have spoken numerous times, sources said, since NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced last Wednesday that the Saints coach was being suspended for the year because the league found that the team had engaged in a bounty program that included incentives to injure opposing players.

Payton is contemplating an appeal of his stiff sentence, sources said. His suspension begins April 1 and will end after the Super Bowl.

However, under a number of problem-solving scenarios related to his suspension that he has discussed with Parcells, one of those scenarios has gauged Parcells' interest in taking over as interim head coach. Payton served as assistant head coach under Parcells when the two were with the Dallas Cowboys from 2003-05, and has sought his counsel on a regular basis since becoming the Saints coach in 2006.

The franchise would have to adhere to the Rooney Rule and interview at least one minority candidate if the Saints went outside their coaching staff to seek a coach to replace Payton for the 2012 season.

Rooney Rule - think Dungy would be interested in coming back and coaching Brees?

[DevilDJ]

Don't know if it was mentioned but Payton stands to lose what? 5.8 in salary?! That's a hit , ya'll. Jus' sayin.'

[Lee Corso]

Don't know if it was mentioned but Payton stands to lose what? 5.8 in salary?! That's a hit , ya'll. Jus' sayin.'

I bet the Saints make it up (or some of it)

[dkst0426]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhnn9kbqQUA

Gregg Williams urged Saints to injure 49ers before game

"At one point Williams says, 'We hit (expletive) Smith right there' -- then he points under his chin (and continues) -- 'remember me,' " Pamphilon told Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports. "Then he rubs his thumb against his index and middle fingers -- the cash sign -- and says, 'I got the first one. I got the first one. Go get it. Go lay that (expletive) out.' "

Williams' alleged speech to Saints pinpointed 49ers

• Williams told Saints players: "Kill the head, the body will die," a phrase Pamphilon viewed as a "metaphor," according to Silver's story. Williams reportedly branched off this to focus on 49ers running back Frank Gore: "We've got to do everything in the world to make sure we kill Frank Gore's head. We want him running sideways. We want his head sideways."

• Williams turned to the concussion history of 49ers wide receiver Kyle Williams: "We need to find out in the first two series of the game, the little wide receiver, No. 10, about his concussion. We need to (expletive) put a lick on him, move him to decide. He needs to decide."

• On 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree: "We need to decide whether Crabtree wants to be a fake-ass prima donna or he wants to be a tough guy. We need to find that out, and he becomes human when you (expletive) take out that outside ACL."

• Williams returned to Gore and 49ers tight end Vernon Davis: "We need to decide on how many times we can meet Frank Gore's head. We need to decide how many times we can bull rush and we can (expletive) clip Vernon Davis' ankles over the pile ... respect comes from them fearing us."

Pamphilon's blog

I was sitting next to Steve Gleason in the back of the room as Gregg Williams screamed ‘fuck’ and ‘fuckin’ countless times when instructing his men to hurt other men. Williams wasn’t considering the fact that many of those men have children and all of those men are somebody’s son.

“We make no apologies for the way we play the game,” Williams said in a tone which suggested that he actually had the balls to put on a uniform and do the very things he was ordering his players to do, much less be on the receiving end of the blows he was ordering up.

I don’t have those balls.

You don’t have those balls.

And Gregg Williams most definitely does not have those balls.

It’s a cowards play to send someone off to do your malicious bidding. I’m sure many of his players would have told him this if they weren’t scared to lose their jobs or look like bitches in front of their teammates. Or if they weren’t 25 and couldn’t possibly have a fully developed perspective on life.

“This is a production business,” Williams said emphatically when he began his speech. He repeated that mantra again and again, during the balance of his impassioned, profanity laced diatribe.

Nearly two months before this story broke, I was sitting in a room with a full-frontal picture of the way “Bounty-Gate” really looked and sounded. Reading about it in the paper or hearing talking heads drone on about it–incessantly for the past several weeks–gives you no idea of the way it really goes down.

If you were in the room, as I was, it was clear who was the puppet master as he passed out money for forced turnovers and big plays. He did not reward anyone that night for perpetrated violence. But he did point to beneath his chin when bringing up 49ers quarterback Alix Smith and in a chilling tone, paused and said, “First one’s on me.” At that moment he rubbed his fingers together in a way that cannot be mistaken.

He was ordering his players to maim in as many ways possible. Plain and simple.

He was the only one in the room willing to go into his pocket to reward it.

Anyone who blames the players for this behavior is clearly missing the point. Just as in sexual harassment cases, it’s the person with the power, influence and–most importantly–control, who dictates the behavior. Yes, the players could have said, ‘no’, but Americans play “follow the leader” and these men have families to feed and many dudes willing to come off the street to sacrifice their body for team and do it for less. The fact is the majority of men who play in the NFL are paid league minimum, with non-guaranteed contracts. How do these–mostly 20-something-year-old–men make a stand in this situation fraught with enormous peer pressure?

How does one take a stand against a coach who so clearly controls their destiny?

And did they ever consider the possibility that maybe their names were being called out in the other team’s locker room? Perhaps their heads were on the block, as well?

On this night of January 13th, the Saints defensive coordinator’s message was delivered loud, clear and with specific meaning.

“This is a production business…This is how you get respect in this league.”

In his San Francisco speech, Gregg Williams specifically was calling out players with concussion histories and telling the men in his employ to “attack the head.”

Again and again, Gregg Williams implored his team to, “Break their will.”

“You break their will, you break their skill.”

But then it became something else. He started talking about 49er receiver and return man, Kyle Williams. He specifically mentioned his concussions and to go after the guy. FYI, this is the same 49ers player who the following week would famously fumble twice in the NFC Championship game. In the paper, Giants players were quoted as saying they specifically went after the lithe Williams because of his concussion history.

Essentially, Gregg Williams is not entirely unique. He’s just the one who was arrogant enough to continue when he was told to stop and eventually, he got popped for it. In his apology statement he said, “we knew it was wrong.”

If he knew it was wrong, why did he keep telling his players not to apologize for the way he instructed them to play the game?

But on January 13th what caught my eye and ear was how open this dialog was. The idea of purposely maiming men, targeting their heads

Did Gregg Williams ever consider on that January 13th night that a former player who played balls out– kicking fear’s ass on a weekly basis–was sitting, slumped in a wheelchair within earshot? Does he know that it’s a statistical likelihood that Steve Gleason’s ALS was as a result of head trauma from crashing into other football players at high speeds, since he was in the 8th grade? Gleason emphatically states he could have gotten ALS if he were an architect. The odds say that’s about eight times less likely than if he played football.

Did Gregg Williams ever see the eyes of these men whose heads he was calling for after they got their lights blown out as their limp bodies hit the turf?

Has he seen wives nurse their broken husbands, who hid their injuries as a badge of honor and for their career survival?

I have held their hands and rubbed their backs as they cried, talking about losing their “best friend.”

Has Gregg Williams seen the damage done to men who can’t remember the names of faces of those who love them? The one’s whose life and savings are sapped up in medical bills because the league fights tooth and nail to deny disability claims?

Could he not see Steve Gleason that night because Steve-O was in the back of the room?

Or did he not see the man in the wheelchair because he simply wasn’t looking?

In the interest of full disclosure: If this story hadn’t broken and been made public, I would not have shared this it. I would not have compromised my personal relationships and risked damaging Steve Gleason’s relationship with the Saints. I would have crafted these words and sentiments for another forum, perhaps years down the road.

If it weren’t for the fact I feel deeply that parents of children playing football MUST pay attention to the influence of men who will sacrifice their kids for W’s, I would not have written this.

If it weren’t for the fact that a man of conviction and conscience, Scott Fujita has been publicly attached to this scandal on the day he brought his newborn daughter home from the hospital, I would not have written these truths. FYI, his name was leaked directly from the NFL offices to three HUGE sports journalists, one of which broke the “scoop.”

I’m not calling them out by name because nobody pays me to be an asshole.

To date, there has been no evidence Scott Fujita ever paid a man money to hurt another man. The fact that he’s willing to admit paying for turnovers (fumbles, int’s, etc.) is cause for possible suspension. Seriously? If you met him, you would know he wouldn’t sacrifice his well-earned reputation of social activism and authentic charity work, while reveling in the destruction of another human being.

But every time his children google him, this stain (regardless of whether it is retracted) will follow him and he will have to explain that daddy really isn’t one of the bad guys.

In releasing this material, I have severely strained my relations with Michel and Steve Gleason, whom I sincerely love. They had no part in this material becoming public and I may have to find another producer to finish our film project. This was a film which made me have to learn to shoot my camera while crying. This is a film that guitarist Mike McCready from my favorite band, Pearl Jam has committed to doing the music for. No joke. It’s that deep. It’s that powerful. It’s that big of an opportunity potentially lost.

Some will call me releasing this audio for fame or money grab. True haters will call it exploitation.

All this even after the team had been notified that the league had begun looking into the allegations about a bounty program.

And they still lost to the Niners.

Ban Williams for life.

This post has been edited by dkst0426: Apr 5 2012, 03:21 PM

[Lee Corso]

Williams may never coach again. I think Payton may not either.

Gore and the others have a good case for criminal charges and/or civil charges and a big payout in court.

I would even go so far as to strip their Super Bowl title.

[dkst0426]

I would even go so far as to strip their Super Bowl title.

You know, I had that thought when the NFL announced that there were going to be penalties, then figured that even that would be a bridge too far for Goodell.

[dkst0426]

Four Saints suspended, Vilma for all of 2012

Scott Fujita = three games
Anthony Hargrove = eight games
Will Smith = four games
Jonathan Vilma = 1 year

Pretty sure there were more players involved, but apparently that's it. Waiting for their appeal now, which the NFLPA will support.