2011 NFL thread

[Darryl]

I have to say, I'm a little surprised that this whole "bounties" thing is such a big deal. It seems to me that it'd be entirely legal if no money were involved.

Despite what I have heard some media types saying on the airwaves. The intent of the sport is to stop the other team, not hurt them.

 

[Kin]

Despite what I have heard some media types saying on the airwaves. The intent of the sport is to stop the other team, not hurt them.

Sure but there is the sort of reality of the situation. Players get rewarded and admiration for making big, vicious hits. That jives to every bit of lockerroom footage I've ever seen and held true for when I played(and that's Toronto HS ball so not exactly big timing it). Guys who go out and rattle the other player's ears get recognition for their abilities to make big hits. Coaches will tell you to hit a guy as hard as you can.

So I don't see the huge moral gap between "Hit that guy as hard as you can because that's awesome!" and "hit that guy as hard as you can because there's 10 grand in it for you".

 

[Darryl]

Hitting someone to hurt is just poor sportsmanship.Aiming to hurt a player even with in the rules is just bad form to me. There needs to be a line drawn here.

"Hit that guy as hard as you can because that's awesome!" and "hit that guy as hard as you can because there's 10 grand in it for you".

Problem is it was also "....and here's an additional 5 grand because you knocked him out of the game."

 

[Kin]

Problem is it was also "....and here's an additional 5 grand because you knocked him out of the game."

I don't know. Provided you do things within the rules I have a hard time getting worked up about it. Scott Stevens, to me, was an NHL guy who looked to hurt guys legally and he got rave reviews for it.

Within the context of the game I don't know that there's a significant difference between hitting someone as hard as you can and hitting someone to hurt them provided it's on the up and up.

 

[Darryl]

If you could ask players in the NFL or NHL I wake confident they would disagree. Just even asking my brother who spent sometime in the CIAU he stated he'd been quite angry if there was a bounty awarded for hurting him.  I don't know how you support the idea that "hey I got 10000 for that hit that ruptured Smith's spleen. "

 

[Kin]

If you could ask players in the NFL or NHL I wake confident they would disagree.

Well, if we're going to make appeals like that I'd be similarly confident that most NFL or NHL players would say that any such bounty system wouldn't change the way they played.

But anyways, Peter King did ask Brett Favre about the bounty system and in particular about a specific game where he got hit late by the Saints a bunch of times. Here's what Favre said:

"I'm not pissed,'' he said. "It's football. I don't think anything less of those guys. I would have loved to play with Vilma. Hell of a player. I've got a lot of respect for Gregg Williams. He's a great coach. I'm not going to make a big deal about it. In all honesty, there's a bounty of some kind on you on every play. Now, in that game there were some plays that, I don't want to say were odd, but I'd throw the ball and whack, on every play. Hand it off, whack. Over and over. Some were so blatant. I hand the ball to Percy Harvin early and got drilled right in the chin. They flagged that one at least

"I've always been friends with Darren Sharper, and he came in a couple times and popped me hard. I remember saying, 'What THE hell you doing, Sharp?' I felt there should have been more calls against the Saints. I thought some of their guys should have been fined more.''

That's kind of my point. As long as they correctly call/penalize/fine dirty hits I think it's generally understood that guys are going to try and hit you as hard as possible.

I don't know how you support the idea that "hey I got 10000 for that hit that ruptured Smith's spleen. "

I don't particularly. What I'm saying is that I'm not especially outraged by that 10,000 dollars in that sentence as opposed to the increased playing time/notice from scouts/bigger contract at the end of the season that could be put in there and be just as true about the way football is played.

 

[Darryl]

Well, if we're going to make appeals like that I'd be similarly confident that most NFL or NHL players would say that any such bounty system wouldn't change the way they played.

And yet here we having in your own Farve quote him saying that guys were trying to give him that extra hurt. This on the very team that is accused of the bounty system. But then again I'd look no further than Todd Bertuzzi when you say players don't respond differently to bounties.

I don't particularly. What I'm saying is that I'm not especially outraged by that 10,000 dollars in that sentence as opposed to the increased playing time/notice from scouts/bigger contract at the end of the season that could be put in there and be just as true about the way football is played.

It's just too bad the other guy who got taken out by your bounty hunting wont be able to get that same pay and notice while he mends up.

It's all comes back to and down to sportsmanship. Ask teams if they don't look different at a guy like Bernard Pollard who has injured several players within the rules. You might not see a line here but there is. Spitting on my hand before I shake yours at the end of the game isn't against the rules. Drilling the catcher in the head as hard as possible on a play at the plate isn't against the rules. etc, etc. But it's not good sportsmanship and neither is rewarding players for hurting others.

 

[WalterSobchak]

My two cents..

Stating the obvious, but the world of sports has changed and is still evolving as we speak.

For me, it used to be about an escape from every day troubles and to have a good time at the bar...beer and wings with friends, yadda yadda...

Now it seems sports and its icons have taken over from what musicians used to do, and maybe still do, but on a smaller scale, and that's try to get people to think one way, to make you aware of whats going on in the world..give peace a chance, etc....whether you agree or not, I am not here to debate.

Bounty hunting in football has always been there. Using Video to tape other teams, like the Pats did in the mid oughts there, nothing really out of the ordinary, the Steelers when they won their 4 Super Bowls in the 70's with their rampant steroid use. Teams tell their players to knock guys out based on knowing that those players have an injury, so, take advantage of it.

In the NHL,Scotty Bowman telling his goalies to bung up the posts with snow, or Mike Keenan getting his home teams maintenance guys to shorten the visitors teams benches, all in the name of trying to get an upper hand.

Cheating happens all the time, and there is a credo out there about "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying"...

I understand Darryl your feelings on sportsmanship, but really, those days also seem to be going the way of the do-do bird. Only sometimes you see a scene where it still exists..last night the Erie Otters goalie was an emergency fill in for their injured regular goalie, and he got pummelled 13-4, but the Niagara Ice Dogs all went after the game and patted him on the mask. Great effort and it was good to see. But those are few and far between in my opinion.

I know its the off season in the NFL, so there isn't much about the game itself to talk about, but, the draft is coming up, free agency starts soon, and we are stuck on Bounty Hunting. Well, at least it gives us a break from the Payton Manning crapshoot at the moment, only temporarily of course!

 

[Kin]

And yet here we having in your own Farve quote him saying that guys were trying to give him that extra hurt. This on the very team that is accused of the bounty system. But then again I'd look no further than Todd Bertuzzi when you say players don't respond differently to bounties.

I think you're kind of ignoring the text of that Brett Favre quote(which is Peter King's, not mine). You said players would get angry if there was a bounty system in place. Favre explicitly says that he isn't. He thinks he took a bunch of illegal hits but that's not the same thing.

Bertuzzi wasn't engaged in a bounty system. Bertuzzi made an illegal hit. There's really no connection to what I'm saying here.

It's just too bad the other guy who got taken out by your bounty hunting wont be able to get that same pay and notice while he mends up.

It's all comes back to and down to sportsmanship. Ask teams if they don't look different at a guy like Bernard Pollard who has injured several players within the rules. You might not see a line here but there is. Spitting on my hand before I shake yours at the end of the game isn't against the rules. Drilling the catcher in the head as hard as possible on a play at the plate isn't against the rules. etc, etc. But it's not good sportsmanship and neither is rewarding players for hurting others.

You're kind of misrepresenting what I'm saying. As BMan says, putting a bounty on players is pretty widespread. In the same Peter King article that has that Favre quote, he acknowledges that nobody thinks that the Saints were the only team with this sort of thing in place.

Does Football as a whole have a problem with sportsmanship? Maybe and that's a fair reason to not love the game these days. But that's not what I'm disputing. I'm saying I don't get the outrage when it's acknowledged that this is widespread and why money would make it especially egregious. If hurting a guy doesn't get you 1,000 bucks(pocket change to most players) but it gets you the game ball, is that better sportsmanship? I don't think most players will be any more or less intent on doing it for 1,000 bucks if dirty hits are still fined.

As for Bernard Pollard, I mean, I think what we've seen in Pro Sports is that dirty players will find work so long as they're effective players. Matt Cooke, Sean Avery, Ulf Samuelsson. They had no shortage of teams willing to hire them so long as they were productive. Same with a guy like Bruce Bowen in the NBA, Hines Ward, James Harrison, Cortland Finnegan in the NFL and on and on.

I'm not arguing with you as to whether or not "the line" exists, I'm saying that the sports themselves don't recognize it.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Within the context of the game I don't know that there's a significant difference between hitting someone as hard as you can and hitting someone to hurt them provided it's on the up and up.

But in that Favre quote he specifically says, in the game that there was a bounty on him, he thought:

"in that game there were some plays that, I don't want to say were odd, but I'd throw the ball and whack, on every play. Hand it off, whack. Over and over. Some were so blatant. I hand the ball to Percy Harvin early and got drilled right in the chin. They flagged that one at least.

I've always been friends with Darren Sharper, and he came in a couple times and popped me hard. I remember saying, 'What THE hell you doing, Sharp?'"

Sounds to me like he noticed a difference in the way they were going after him that game.

 

[Darryl]

I think you're kind of ignoring the text of that Brett Favre quote(which is Peter King's, not mine). You said players would get angry if there was a bounty system in place. Favre explicitly says that he isn't. He thinks he took a bunch of illegal hits but that's not the same thing.

Bertuzzi wasn't engaged in a bounty system. Bertuzzi made an illegal hit. There's really no connection to what I'm saying here.

I realized who's quote it was but you posted and I am replying to you hence me associating it to you. You can stick with the quote all you want but Farve in the very same article contradicts himself. He believes there was some quite on the level going on during that NFC Championship game.

Actually there is quite a strong connection as you stated.

I'd be similarly confident that most NFL or NHL players would say that any such bounty system wouldn't change the way they played.

Brad May placed a bounty on Steve Moore's head and Todd Bertuzzi ended his career.

You're kind of misrepresenting what I'm saying. As BMan says, putting a bounty on players is pretty widespread. In the same Peter King article that has that Favre quote, he acknowledges that nobody thinks that the Saints were the only team with this sort of thing in place.

Wide spread or not doesn't make it any less wrong or against the rules.  But we'll see how wide spread this is and how many players just accept it. Look no further than Cory Wire who played for Gregg Williams.

Goodell has to make an example of this,? Wire said. ?All that we know now with brain trauma and head injuries, this isn?t just taking players out of a game. Significant changes have to be made to protect our players. A precedent has to be set now; otherwise, [Goodell] condones it.

?Things have to change. Football will always be football. There will be big hits. I?m saying there?s no need to ruin the livelihood of another man and cause harm to his family and children. That malicious intent doesn?t need to be a part of the way we play

A bit of a different take than Brett Farve. Wire also stated that Williams is the only coach he played for that used such a system.

Does Football as a whole have a problem with sportsmanship? Maybe and that's a fair reason to not love the game these days. But that's not what I'm disputing. I'm saying I don't get the outrage when it's acknowledged that this is widespread and why money would make it especially egregious. If hurting a guy doesn't get you 1,000 bucks(pocket change to most players) but it gets you the game ball, is that better sportsmanship? I don't think most players will be any more or less intent on doing it for 1,000 bucks if dirty hits are still fined.

It simply comes down to the idea of a bounty system being sleazy and low class. Also factor in a sport like football where the money/contract isn't guaranteed the way it is in other sports, I think you'd find that few thousand more bucks a year can definitely influence a player. In a sport where CTE has become a major concern there should be outrage for these type of actions.

As for Bernard Pollard, I mean, I think what we've seen in Pro Sports is that dirty players will find work so long as they're effective players. Matt Cooke, Sean Avery, Ulf Samuelsson. They had no shortage of teams willing to hire them so long as they were productive. Same with a guy like Bruce Bowen in the NBA, Hines Ward, James Harrison, Cortland Finnegan in the NFL and on and on.

I'm not arguing with you as to whether or not "the line" exists, I'm saying that the sports themselves don't recognize it.

Big difference between Pollard and every other name you mentioned there is that he's never been suspended. He's playing within the lines that make a bounty for his acts acceptable in your eyes.

 

[Kin]

I realized who's quote it was but you posted and I am replying to you hence me associating it to you. You can stick with the quote all you want but Farve in the very same article contradicts himself. He believes there was some quite on the level going on during that NFC Championship game.

I don't think there is anything contradictory there. Being ok with a bounty system that rewards big hits/injuries from those big hits is not the same thing as being ok if guys hit you illegally.

Either way, the main point of the quote is that this isn't isolated to the Saints and that not all players would react angrily to the concept of a bounty system, as you claimed.

Actually there is quite a strong connection as you stated...

Brad May placed a bounty on Steve Moore's head and Todd Bertuzzi ended his career.

That quote of mine is "any such bounty system" as we're talking about what went on with the Saints. To the best of my knowledge no such system was in place with regards to the Canucks and there's never been any allegations, again to the best of my knowledge, that Todd Bertuzzi did what he did because of an actual monetary price being put on Steve Moore's head and that money changed hands subsequently. It was a specific, targeted act of revenge against a player in retaliation for something earlier.

Bad, yes, but not along the lines of what the Saints were doing and what we were talking about.

Wide spread or not doesn't make it any less wrong or against the rules.  But we'll see how wide spread this is and how many players just accept it. Look no further than Cory Wire who played for Gregg Williams.

A bit of a different take than Brett Farve. Wire also stated that Williams is the only coach he played for that used such a system.

Okay, well, we can probably play dueling quotes on this all night. Ex-NFL safety Nick Ferguson, who played with six different teams, is on this week's episode of Hang Up and Listen and was asked how familiar he is with this sort of thing and his response was:

This is something that runs rampant in the NFL and anyone who says it isn't is lying to themselves.

Link

So clearly, I suppose, there's a variety of opinions when it comes down to just how widespread this is.

But, again, I think you're kind of misunderstanding me. My point isn't that because this is widespread that it's ok but rather that because it's widespread it's both a) not shocking and b) a problem inherent to the culture of football and not to the specific instance with the Saints(Although the Saints seem to have put themselves into a double jackpot because of their attempts to cover it up.)

Likewise, and I think the quote from Wire speaks to this, Wire isn't saying, or at least he isn't in that quote, that this is something that's really terrible because it was being done for money. If you go back to my first post what I'm saying is that this seems like something that would generally fall within the accepted culture of the NFL if it weren't being done for pay outs from a bounty system but rather for the more usual rewards of "that guy makes big hits". My point originally was that I don't instantly see the moral distinction there, not that I don't think there isn't a problem with the level of violence in the NFL.

It simply comes down to the idea of a bounty system being sleazy and low class. Also factor in a sport like football where the money/contract isn't guaranteed the way it is in other sports, I think you'd find that few thousand more bucks a year can definitely influence a player. In a sport where CTE has become a major concern there should be outrage for these type of actions.

Like I said, you and I aren't disagreeing on the morality of this exactly but rather the reasons we find it objectionable. I'm not especially outraged that this is being done for money not that I don't wish that the culture of football weren't different so that this sort of approach wasn't widely accepted within the game.

And along those lines, there is the difference between addressing an issue where there's a lone violator and addressing an issue where it seems systemic. If there's one kid in school smoking pot, or whatever, and you kick him out of school the problem is solved. If 50 or 60 or 75% of the kids in school are on drugs, you have to take a different approach to the problem. To my mind this is a problem that pervades the culture of the NFL. That doesn't excuse it but it should change the way we look at it.

Big difference between Pollard and every other name you mentioned there is that he's never been suspended. He's playing within the lines that make a bounty for his acts acceptable in your eyes.

I think you may have lost me here. When you said "ask teams if they don't view Bernard Pollard differently" I thought you saying that his having injured players in the past made teams "look at him differently" as in they wouldn't want him on their teams. The reason I mentioned the players I did is to give examples of dirtier players who have been suspended whose teams are more than happy to keep around. I didn't understand why teams would have a problem with those guys and not Pollard.

So, yeah, I'm not entirely sure what point you're making with regards to Pollard. I only clearly remember his hit on Brady and it never seemed to me to be an intentional attempt to injure a guy and the way I remember it the NFL agreed because I'm pretty sure it was illegal to intentionally go low on a player to try and hurt him.

(edit: and it's important to point out a distinction here. Suspensions in the NFL are handled differently than in the NHL or NBA because even 1 one game suspension is a 1/16th of a guy's paycheck. Pollard doesn't do everything within the rules just because he's never been suspended. He's been fined for illegal hits. So when you or I or NFL teams look at Bernard Pollard we're under no obligation to look at him as a "clean" player just because he's never been suspended.)

But again, you're kind of confusing me saying "This is acceptable and widespread within the confines of the sport so I don't understand why people are getting outraged" with "This is acceptable within the confines of the sport so I think it's A-ok".

To me a great example of the distinction is MMA(which funnily enough, does employ something of a bounty system). I know a lot of people who find the idea of two consenting adults trying to beat the heck out of each other reprehensible but it's not like they see MMA fights and say "Those two men are hitting each other! How is that acceptable?" because they recognize that the sport is what it is and acknowledge its existence. Where we disagree is where the bar is set of acceptable or common action within the world of football, not whether that bar is where set where you or I would have it.

You seem to think that what the Saints did is something egregiously outside the norms of pro football. I just don't think that's true. That's neither an implicit nor an explicit endorsement of it.

 

[Kin]

Sounds to me like he noticed a difference in the way they were going after him that game.

Well, yeah. His problem was with the late hits/illegal hits which were and aren't acceptable within football. But he pretty clearly states he has no problem with the concept of a bounty system and doesn't think less of the guys in it. I was just using the quote to refute the idea that guys in the NFL would necessarily be outraged by the bounty system. Again, as he said, he thinks there's a bounty on the QB on every play.

 

[princedpw]

Well, my two cents (which may be irrelevant to the conversation or universally agreed upon) are:

(1) deliberately attempting to injure a player whether it is inside or outside the rules of the game is wrong

(2) on occasion, Scott Stevens appeared to do that -- he was wrong if he did.  I did not approve, even if he stuck by the letter of the law

(3) if you guessed I don't like boxing, you are correct!

(4) incentivizing or encouraging one player to injure another is wrong. As the incentives grow stronger or are made more explicit, the crime grows worse to the degree to which the participants more fully, consciously intend to injure and/or potentially increase the incentive/desire to injure.

(5) I thought most sports had a rule saying "intent to injure" is not allowed.  Does the NHL? The NFL?  Of course, such rules are hard to enforce as intent is hard to detect.  Hard evidence of a bounty system with paychecks for guys carted off the field disabled seems like a smoking gun.

 

[Darryl]

We can nickel and dime back and forth for while on this. It comes down to your original thought of surprise that there is outrage on this. Given the response the NFL is taking to this I would say the outrage is definitely warranted and something they want to remove from the game.

 

[Kin]

We can nickel and dime back and forth for while on this. It comes down to your original thought of surprise that there is outrage on this. Given the response the NFL is taking to this I would say the outrage is definitely warranted and something they want to remove from the game.

Be fair though. That surprise has to do specifically with the money and the idea that the payment is the offensive issue here.

If Williams was telling his players "Brett Favre is a big part of that team's offense so I want you guys to go out there and knock him out of the game" I think there'd be a shrug of the shoulders and an acknowledgement that you hear something like that pretty much all the time. I don't get the big moral distinction between that and, say,  "Brett Favre is a big part of that team's offense so I want you guys to go out there and knock him out of the game and if you do you get a thousand dollars".

Also, we haven't seen the NFL's response just yet but I think you'd have to admit that it's going to have a lot to do with the reality that the bounty system circumvented the cap and that the Saints didn't act promptly to shut it down.

 

[Kin]

Well, my two cents (which may be irrelevant to the conversation or universally agreed upon) are:

(1) deliberately attempting to injure a player whether it is inside or outside the rules of the game is wrong

(2) on occasion, Scott Stevens appeared to do that -- he was wrong if he did.  I did not approve, even if he stuck by the letter of the law

I agree with those two things for the most part although I think leagues have to acknowledge that if they don't make deliberate attempts to injure through "legal" acts illegal they're leaving it up to the individual playing the sport and probably bear some degree of culpability for the practically inevitable injuries it'll lead to.

(3) if you guessed I don't like boxing, you are correct!

I'm a casual fan of both boxing and MMA. Charles Pierce has a great article in Grantland today about how the line between those sports and the NFL may be a little harder to distinguish than a lot of football fans might want to admit.

The Saints, Head-hunting, and (Another) Disaster for the NFL

(4) incentivizing or encouraging one player to injure another is wrong. As the incentives grow stronger or are made more explicit, the crime grows worse to the degree to which the participants more fully, consciously intend to injure and/or potentially increase the incentive/desire to injure.

I don't necessarily disagree here but one of my problems is getting a grip on the extent to which something like this would actually influence behaviour. Without a bounty program like this a defensive player rushing the quarterback would probably want to hit another player as hard as he possibly could legally. With this incentive season I don't know that anything necessarily changes.

Even the biggest reward we've heard about(ten thousand for knocking out Favre) isn't much of an incentive to hit someone illegally because a fine would almost certainly be more than that. Even with all that, I don't know if we saw any hits in that game you wouldn't see in any other game.

(5) I thought most sports had a rule saying "intent to injure" is not allowed.  Does the NHL? The NFL?  Of course, such rules are hard to enforce as intent is hard to detect.  Hard evidence of a bounty system with paychecks for guys carted off the field disabled seems like a smoking gun.

I looked through the NFL's rulebook and couldn't find one but, admittedly, it's got kind of a confusing layout and it could be in there.

 

[Darryl]

Bills signing Mario Williams. Finally a big time move from them.

 

[maplesyrup]

Bills signing Mario Williams. Finally a big time move from them.

I'm glad he didn't sign in the NFC. Particularly in the East where my team is that's for sure. That said, 6 years, 100 mil. (50 guaranteed.)  Man, he better have a few pro bowls left in him for the Bill's sake.

 

[Captain Canuck]

Bills signing Mario Williams. Finally a big time move from them.

Yeah I'm really pumped up by this signing! We should have one of the best D lines in the entire league now!