NFL rescinds fine on Rafael Bush after appeal

[MizzouHawkGal]

I'll stick to my first thought on the hit as it occurred. With ANY team, when they know an opposing player is returning to the lineup from injury, they are going to TEST him, and not in the easy way. They are going to hit him hard because a player at less than 100% is easier to slow him down the rest of the game from a hard hit than a player who's at full strength.

So, it's not like the Saints we're trying to injury Harvin, but there was an incentive to play more aggressive with Harvin, if that makes sense. (I don't mean money incentives!)

FWIW, I think Seattle would have done the same thing, whether that's dial up more blitzes on a hobbled RG3 to test him or smack a Jason Witten recovering from an injured spleen.

This is probably right and I do definitely agree the Seahawks would have done something similar. Doesn't mean I like it though.

 

[AsylumGuido]

I'll stick to my first thought on the hit as it occurred. With ANY team, when they know an opposing player is returning to the lineup from injury, they are going to TEST him, and not in the easy way. They are going to hit him hard because a player at less than 100% is easier to slow him down the rest of the game from a hard hit than a player who's at full strength.

So, it's not like the Saints we're trying to injure Harvin, but there was an incentive to play more aggressive with Harvin, if that makes sense. (I don't mean money incentives!)

FWIW, I think Seattle would have done the same thing, whether that's dial up more blitzes on a hobbled RG3 to test him or smack a Jason Witten recovering from an injured spleen.

Very well put. That is, has always been, and will always be part of the game.

No player EVER wants to injure another player. Do they want to hurt them? Make them think twice the next time? Absolutely! But, no, not injure.

 

[AsylumGuido]

There were most definately a system where players put in money and then got payouts for hits.

Is that the bounty system they were accused off etc or not that is a different matter

Yes there was that system and it is against the rules. But, the bounty system they were initially accused of running was a trumped up, falsified version. The penalties were based upon the second, not the first.

 

[pugs1]

I understand Saints fans wanting to cling to their argument about no money exchanging hands but the NFL gave them a chance to stop and end the bounty system. With no penalty! Payton and the Saints decided to lie and ignore the NFL. From impregnating a cheerleader to stealing schedule two drugs out of the Saints drug closet (BTW that's a felony) IMO the dirt finally caught up with Payton and the Saints.

 

[Brahn]

There were most definately a system where players put in money and then got payouts for hits.

Is that the bounty system they were accused off etc or not that is a different matter

Yes there was that system and it is against the rules. But, the bounty system they were initially accused of running was a trumped up, falsified version. The penalties were based upon the second, not the first.

Nothing happened. Payton just needed a season off.

 

[AsylumGuido]

I understand Saints fans wanting to cling to their argument about no money exchanging hands but the NFL gave them a chance to stop and end the bounty system. With no penalty! Payton and the Saints decided to lie and ignore the NFL. From impregnating a cheerleader to stealing schedule two drugs out of the Saints drug closet (BTW that's a felony) IMO the dirt finally caught up with Payton and the Saints.

Sorry, but you don't understand. Money definitely changed hands. The players openly admitted from day one that they had a performance pool. But, there was no bounty program going on to stop. Payton was never involved in the defense at all. The story is that after Payton was approached by the league back in February 2010 after the Vikings coach claimed that the Saints must have had a bounty on Favre, Payton went to his assistant head coach, Vitt, and asked if there was any bounties and if there was they were to end. There were no bounties. It was just a simple pool that virtually every defensive locker room had going on.

Nothing else was done about it until a defensive quality control coach, Mike Cerullo, who was fired after the 2009 season for lying to management on multiple occasions, brought claims of a bounty system to Goodell in December of 2011. His word and a couple of handwritten "vouchers," presumably from 2009, that did not correspond to actual events from that season, was the whole of the evidence presented. Cerullo later admitted that he "did not know the meaning of the vouchers" even if they were in his own handwriting.

You see, the issue has nothing to do with money. It has everything to do with the false claims that opponents were intentionally targeted for injury that Goodell first claimed publicly. By the time Tagliabue overturned the players suspensions everyone, but Goodell, in the NFL offices were referring to it as nothing more than a performance pool.

 

[The Radish]

I think this has been explained enough.