The NFL is desperate to change its image in an era where concussions and brain injuries are a major concern.
That’s the message being sent out in the wake of a bounty scandal that has rocked the New Orleans Saints organization.
The league recently discovered that beginning in 2009, players on the Saints defence were given cash incentives for injuring opponents.
Some $1,500 went to anyone who knocked an opposing player from the game. If he needed to be carted off the field, the reward was $1,000.
For his involvement, Saints head coach Sean Payton was suspended without pay for the upcoming 2012 season. He was set to make $7.5 million this year.
Former defensive co-ordinator Gregg Williams, the “mastermind” behind the operation, has been suspended indefinitely. In addition, general manager Mickey Loomis has been suspended for eight games.
Afterwards, both Payton and Loomis acknowledged that the violations “happened under (their) watch.”
The team has also been fined $500,000. More important for the organization, it will forfeit two second-round draft picks in 2012 and another in 2013.
It is one of the most severe penalties ever handed out in league history and it’s left some football fans scratching their heads.
After all, this is a game where players are paid huge salaries to inflict pain on their opponents.
When a superstar player is having a great game in the NFL, it’s naïve to think opponents aren’t encouraged to take him out. The same can be said of most sports worldwide.
Professional athletes are in the business of winning and sending an opponent to the sidelines helps you do that.
From a young age, football players are wired to hit everything that moves on the field, and to do it as hard as they can.
In college, many programs hand out stickers to be displayed on player’s helmets as a reward for key contributions.
While some of those stickers represent players fighting through a difficult injury or scoring an important touchdown, there is no doubt that many are given for laying out a huge hit.
Built on this foundation of violence, the NFL has become the most lucrative sports league on the planet.
So why the sudden interest in player safety?
Football fans are changing and Goodell is making sure his league is doing the same.
In February 2011, former NFLer Dave Duerson shot and killed himself in his Florida apartment. The suicide note left only inches from where his body fell was brief: “Please, see that my brain is given to the NFL’s brain bank.”
After testing it was revealed that Duerson – only 50 years old at the time of his death – suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease caused by multiple concussions.
Last month, his son Tregg filed a wrongful death suit against the NFL, among other parties. He claims the league has misrepresented the impact of brain injuries on its players, including his father.
Reports from ESPN indicate that the NFL is facing more than 600 similar lawsuits. Those lawsuits are the backdrop for Goodell’s firm response to the Saints’ bounty program.
The commissioner needs to show fans that the NFL cares about its players. That’s what he did with this punishment – and he should be applauded.
In the past, the league would have swept the situation under the rug. That’s exactly what happened 23 years ago with the Philadelphia Eagles, when a similar system was in place under head coach Buddy Ryan.
“Bounty Bowl” as it was called, saw allegations that Ryan placed a $200 bounty on Dallas Cowboys kicker Luis Zendejas, who was cut by the Eagles earlier in the year.
The situation was shrugged aside, and fans accepted it as a simple case of men playing a dangerous game.
But times have changed.
Popular pre-game segments emphasizing huge hits are a thing of the past. One in particular, ESPN’s “Jacked Up” was taken off the air in 2007 amidst concerns that it was promoting violence.
People pay to watch players crush each other within the rules of the game. They’re willing to accept that one of the most common sights in football is a player lying on the ground in agony while the opposition celebrates.
What they won’t stand for is the notion that their beloved sport is no different than a premeditated assault where players are given specific incentives to hurt others.