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Blow the whistle on NFL ‘bounties’

By Staff | Mar 12, 2012

Every major professional sports league vigorously protects its reputation, particularly when it comes to the health and safety of its players.

For instance, as sports-related concussions emerged as a hot topic in recent years, each league quickly implemented measures to ensure that players suffering them would be promptly diagnosed and kept out of action until his team’s medical staff cleared him to play.

Not surprisingly, the National Football League responded to the issue quickly. The NFL has a long history of cool efficiency when it comes to guarding its image, particularly when it comes to players’ physical well being. That many ex-players endure lifelong medical problems directly related to their football careers is a blot that the NFL may never fully cleanse.

The league now faces one of the biggest public relations disasters in its history: at least one team has had a bounty system, rewarding defensive players for sidelining opponents.

Give the NFL credit for revealing the results of the alarming investigation showing that the New Orleans Saints had such a bounty system in force for the past three seasons. That would include the Saints’ Super Bowl championship season of 2009.

A bounty pool, holding upward of $50,000, was distributed to defensive players who injured an opponent. The payouts: Inflicting an injury that forced a player out of the game drew a $1,500 reward. If an opponent had to be carried off the field on a stretcher, the Saints’ defender received $1,000.

Sources say that in the National Football Conference Championship played in January 2010, Saints defensive captain Jonathan Vilma put up a $10,000 reward for anyone who put Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre out of the game.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell issued a statement reading, in part: “The payments here are particularly troubling because they involved not just payments for ‘performance,’ but also for injuring opposing players.

“The bounty rule promotes two key elements of NFL football: player safety and competitive integrity. It is our responsibility to protect player safety and the integrity of our game, and this type of conduct will not be tolerated. We have made significant progress in changing the culture with respect to player safety and we are not going to relent.”

Indeed, the NFL has liberally handed out fines for players ruled to have made dirty hits on their opponents, usually within 24 hours of the game’s end. Some coaches and players have complained that the definition of a “dirty hit” is so subjective that it creates uncertainty in players’ minds, thus limiting their instinctive reactions on the field.

If that is the case, good. Football is a game of violent contact, but defenders should be forced to pause before deliberately hitting an opponent in such a way that they suffer a debilitating injury. The system of fines and suspensions for repeat offenders should be applauded if it is reducing the risk of serious injuries.

But the fact that one of the league’s elite franchises actually rewarded players for inflicting injuries is more alarming than any scandal with which the NFL spin machine has had to deal.

The league’s investigation showed that Saints coach Sean Payton and General Manager Mickey Loomis did nothing to end the bounty program when informed of its existence.

It is flabbergasting that a team’s management could let such actions continue, in direct violation of league rules, let alone social consciousness.

The NFL should expand its investigation to see if any other teams have resurrected a relic of times when players too often acted no better than street thugs.

And it should make sure that the Saints – the franchise and individuals – are penalized so severely that any players inclined to engage in such activity will decide the risk is not worth the bounty.

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