The Not-So-Saintly New Orleans Saints
For the past few years, the New Orleans Saints have been a feel good story as the city of New Orleans has rallied around them in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Their Super Bowl upset of the Indianapolis Colts in 2010 had fans cheering not only in New Orleans but also in much of the rest of the country.
But, as we've seen with the Penn State sex abuse scandal, recruiting scandals at storied college football programs, and the steroids scandal in baseball, the feel good story that was the New Orleans Saints came with a dirty little detail: the Saints were cheating. Not only that, they were cheating in an appalling way that undermined the very integrity of the game and the league's efforts to focus on player safety. The Saints were paying bounties to players who knocked opposing players out of games, greatly increasing the risk of serious injuries.
Today, the NFL announced harsh penalties against the Saints, including the one-year suspension of its head coach, an indefinite ban of the the defensive coordinator who orchestrated the bounty system (and he has apparently done this before with other teams), a half-year suspension of the general manager, a $500,000 fine, and the loss of draft picks for this year and next.
Good for the NFL. Considering the nature of the transgressions, the league needed to send a strong message and the penalties dealt to the Saints should put every other team on notice that such antics will not be tolerated. The NFL is also requiring the principal owner and head coach of every team to certify in writing that no bounty system exists. Individual game incentives of any type are prohibited under NFL rules because they undermine the game and they put players' health and safety at risk.
In light of what the NFL found in its investigation of the Saints, we have to wonder about the legitimacy of New Orleans' Super Bowl championship. It is possible that the bounty system may have been responsible for the two rough hits on Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre in the NFC Championship game and if Favre's performance had not been affected by those hits, the Vikings might have won that game. This is perhaps one of the more tragic aspects to cheating in sports: even a team's legitimate accomplishments can be tainted by scandal because there is simply no way to know how big of an impact cheating may have had or whether there was other cheating that was not caught.
Now if only the NCAA would take the NFL's lead and do more to clean up the mess that college football has become. The fact that we've seen so many recent serious violations at so many programs leads me to think there's a more systemic problem here than just shady actions by a few coaches.
But, as we've seen with the Penn State sex abuse scandal, recruiting scandals at storied college football programs, and the steroids scandal in baseball, the feel good story that was the New Orleans Saints came with a dirty little detail: the Saints were cheating. Not only that, they were cheating in an appalling way that undermined the very integrity of the game and the league's efforts to focus on player safety. The Saints were paying bounties to players who knocked opposing players out of games, greatly increasing the risk of serious injuries.
Today, the NFL announced harsh penalties against the Saints, including the one-year suspension of its head coach, an indefinite ban of the the defensive coordinator who orchestrated the bounty system (and he has apparently done this before with other teams), a half-year suspension of the general manager, a $500,000 fine, and the loss of draft picks for this year and next.
Good for the NFL. Considering the nature of the transgressions, the league needed to send a strong message and the penalties dealt to the Saints should put every other team on notice that such antics will not be tolerated. The NFL is also requiring the principal owner and head coach of every team to certify in writing that no bounty system exists. Individual game incentives of any type are prohibited under NFL rules because they undermine the game and they put players' health and safety at risk.
In light of what the NFL found in its investigation of the Saints, we have to wonder about the legitimacy of New Orleans' Super Bowl championship. It is possible that the bounty system may have been responsible for the two rough hits on Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre in the NFC Championship game and if Favre's performance had not been affected by those hits, the Vikings might have won that game. This is perhaps one of the more tragic aspects to cheating in sports: even a team's legitimate accomplishments can be tainted by scandal because there is simply no way to know how big of an impact cheating may have had or whether there was other cheating that was not caught.
Now if only the NCAA would take the NFL's lead and do more to clean up the mess that college football has become. The fact that we've seen so many recent serious violations at so many programs leads me to think there's a more systemic problem here than just shady actions by a few coaches.