Every Team Does It: Why The Saints Deserve To Be Punished

Few NFL players are strangers to bounties. But that doesn't excuse Gregg Williams and the Saints.

As this Saints bounty story unfolds, I hear folks compare it to the Spygate scandal of 2007. Probably because it involves a top-down organized effort to skirt the rules of fair play. Probably because it will bring massive penalties for the offending franchise. And probably because I live in New England, where every Patriots fan is desperate to have another NFL team get slapped with the "cheaters" label.  But the link that catches my eye is that familiar phrase, spoken by people who defended Bill Belichick five years ago and uttered by Saints fans now: "every team does it."*

*For the record, any implication that all NFL teams were videotaping defensive signals is an unsubstantiated excuse trickled down from the northeastern part of the United States. I personally believe that a handful of teams were taping defensive signals, but not close to a majority. The year before Bill Belichick was busted, the league took a vote to allow one defensive player to have a radio in his helmet. The rule was suggested partially because of fears that some teams were videotaping hand signals. The motion didn't pass because 10 teams voted against it, the Patriots being one of them. My guess is that a few of those nine other teams also didn't want to give up the advantage they got from their clandestine cheating. Unfortunately, only the Patriots were appropriately punished. 

If you've been an NFL fan for a few years, you've probably seen the word "bounty" rear its ugly head once or twice. The most memorable example for me is Ray Lewis' hit on Rashard Mendenhall in 2008, which broke the running back's shoulder and ended his rookie season after only three games. In a postgame interview, Lewis said "After the play, I wasn't screaming 'He's Hurt.' I was screaming 'He's done.'" Terrell Suggs bragged about targeting Mendenhall, and said, "We did a good a job of sending a message." This was a case where a defense focused on a specific player, purposefully injured him, then boasted about it afterwards. Instead of investigating, the NFL merely sent Suggs a warning that emphasized its rules against bounties.

How did the Ravens go free, while the Saints are facing harsh unprecedented punishment? One, the NFL is taking player safety more seriously than it did three seasons ago. You can questions Roger Goodell's motives and consistency, but the rule changes of the past two seasons have shown that he is taking steps to protect players, often from themselves. Two, the Saints' bounty system was far more developed and egregious than what the Ravens or any other team has done in the past. This wasn't a case of the defensive line taking bets in the locker room or an amped up linebacker challenging his teammates in a pregame huddle. Peter King's revealing story today paints a scene of Gregg Williams ceremoniously presenting envelopes of cash while his players whooped about that week's battered opponents. This was systematic, calculated endangerment of a peer's health to gain a competitive advantage.*

*One connection I have yet to see anyone make: Troy Vincent was on Williams' defense at Washington in 2006, where, as former safety Matt Bowen describes, "Prices were set on Saturday nights in the team hotel...we laid our bounties on opposing players. We targeted big names, our sights set on taking them out of the game." Why does this matter? Because during his time with Washington, Troy Vincent was the President of the NFL Player's Association. Imagine if the man responsible for protecting players' interests participated in weekly meetings designed to injure them. It shocks me that no one has yet mentioned Vincent's role here. 

King shoots down the "every team does it" excuse, saying that the Saints are like a car pulled over for speeding while other vehicles zip past them on the highway. I'll take the simile one step farther. If the other 31 NFL teams are speeding down a boulevard, then the Saints are a souped up Maserati in a drag race, with Williams at the wheel while Sean Payton and Mickey Loomis sit in the backseat, their eyes avoiding the speedometer.

Now, I don't think Williams and Payton are evil people who like to do harm on others for their own personal gain. It's easy to see how they got to this point. Football is inherently a violent sport, and toughness is emphasized to players the moment they put on a Pop Warner helmet. High school coaches make commands like, "I want some kid's mother crying in the stands because her son was carted off the field!" This is the culture that Roger Goodell is trying to change. Williams and Payton grew up in this environment as players themselves, and the morality of encouraging harm to an opponent probably doesn't occur to them like it would to someone outside of the locker room. In this atmosphere, the transition from informal betting to an organized rewards system seems almost natural.

Nevertheless, although this may explain Loomis, Payton, and Williams' transgressions, it doesn't excuse them. No matter how harmless it may have seemed to them, the Saints would not have lied to NFL investigators if they didn't know they were breaking rules. "Everybody's doing it" is a line that kids learned not to trust while watching anti-drug videos in grade school. It's not one we should accept now.

Follow me at @BostonGiant.

Image found here.