Continued Fall Out From Saints Bounty-gate

As if things werent bad enough for the Saints with losing their head coach Sean Payton for the season, last week the NFL handed down a decision to punish several former and current players of the Saints defense as well. This unfortunately includes LB Jonathan Vilma who received the most severe punishment when he was suspended for the entire 2012 season. DE Will Smith was also suspended for 4 games. 2 players no longer with the Saints are also being suspended during the 2012 season. Green Bay Packers DE Anthony Hargrove is suspended for 8 games and Cleveland Browns LB Scott Fujita is suspended for 3. All 4 players are appealing the suspensions.

The validity of the suspensions is not in question in so much as the length of the suspensions and the few number of players who were actually penalized. On top of this former players such as Cris Carter admit to putting bounties on the heads of players in his day. Is a bounty system so unique to the Saints? Or is this even a new phenomenon? As more players and coaches former and current speak out there is come contention to these questions. In the eras of Pete Rozelle and Paul Tagliabue issues such as bounties, off field personal conduct and on field conduct detrimental were not addressed nor grounds for suspension unless they were extreme (think Lawrence Phillips). Nowadays players can face league suspensions before they even face criminal charges. Behavior once accepted now makes teams even leary to draft players coming out of college because of past personal issues. Is this new tougher stance fair? Do suspensions and fines for plays that are legal at the time they occured even warranted?

Saints bounty system may be an extreme example of a tough defense gone horribly wrong, but it is not new. If the Steelers of the 70s faced suspensions for hits put on opposing players  at that time, how many Super Bowls would they have actually won? This may be the question the Saints and other teams will have to face moving forward. Teams will now have to draw the line between being tough and being legal and it may not be for the improvement of the game.