The New Orleans Saints

Last week, the New Orleans Saints speculation of a bounty scandal were busted wide open with an exclusive "motivational speech" from coach Gregg Williams. Now, there is no doubt that some of the things he said were pretty fucked up, but I spent some time thinking about this whole thing, and though I don't agree with my own thoughts, I do find it interesting way of looking at it.

The bounty scandal, for those who don't know, was a set up in the New Orleans organization where coaches were paying players to injure certain players on the field. You take Tom Brady out of the game, here is 15,000 bucks, simple as that. The way I see it, the way that analyst and media portray and word the bounty scandal that was taking place influences viewers to see it in a negative light. To me, I don't agree with it, especially after hearing the speech and everything, I think it's obviously frowned upon to tell someone to go after someone with previous concussions, or attack someones ACL. However, I believe that it is only morally wrong that the Saints did this, not necessarily legally wrong and this is why...

The New Orleans Saints were top 9th in the league for penalty yards according to ESPN, which seems bad, but the majority of those came from the offensive side of the ball. Secondly, I tried to find players who got suspended but found nothing on players from New Orleans being suspended specifically for dirty hits on players. Which raises the original question, is the bounty scandal more immoral than illegal? Think about it, that's like suspending players for doing their job too well. They're not getting flagged during the game for illegal hits, yet now they are in trouble for hitting guys legally as hard as they can, but isn't that supposed to be their job in the first place? Now, someone is paying them small amounts of money (compared to the salary they make) to give them incentive to play as hard as they can on every down. If they were getting in fights, and stomping on people's heads in between plays and stuff then this whole thing would be illegal and immoral, but it seems to me that the Saints are just playing the sport like they are supposed to, unfortunately, because it is a contact sport guys do get injured. But them getting paid extra money out of pocket for doing their job doesn't seem illegal, just simply frowned upon. It's not taking money away from the NFL, and it's a crafty and dark way of keeping guys motivated.

I'm not saying that I agree with this thought at all, but I do find it interesting the way the media is portraying the entire "bountygate" thing. It seems to me like video taping practices, anyone who acts like James Harrison, or steroids should be taken more seriously than this, according to how I thought about it. What do you think?