Posted on 03/04/2012 7:51:05 PM PST by U-238
During the past three seasons, while the National Football League has been changing rules and levying fines in an effort to improve player safety, members of the New Orleans Saints’ defense maintained a lucrative bounty system that paid players for injuring opponents, according to an extensive investigation by the N.F.L.
The Vikings' Brett Favre is said to have been a target of player bounties.
The bounty system was financed mostly by players — as many as 27 of them — and was administered by the former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who also contributed money to the pool. The N.F.L. said that neither Coach Sean Payton nor General Manager Mickey Loomis did anything to stop the bounties when they were made aware of them or when they learned of the league’s investigation.
According to the league, Loomis did not even stop the bounties when ordered to by the team’s owner.
The N.F.L. said the total amount of money in the pool might have reached $50,000 or more at its height during the playoffs of the 2009 season, when the Saints were a feel-good story as they won the Super Bowl for post-Katrina New Orleans.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The 2009 Playoffs really comes to mind with the tons of late hits on Farve and Kurt Warner. What made me even more upset was the officiating seemingly looking the other direction. I was afraid that they would do the same thing to Peyton Manning in the Superbowl.
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