NFL vacates all player discipline tied to bounty scandal!!!

[havoc00]

Tags >>>>> fakkit roger

 

[Walt]

I honestly might cop a Vilma jersey. From the moment the Saints players got extra funky in terms of taking principled stands and openly antagonizing Goodell, who didn't realize this was nothing but propaganda to deflect blame onto players for player safety issues? This shyt was so transparent and such a poorly conceived scumbag move that even Mr. Burns would be like Smithers, this is too threadbare a case even for me.

Goodell is a bozo the clown ass motherfukker for the ages. Possibly the worst commissioner of my lifetime. Which is saying a hell of a lot, because Bud Selig is a piece of shyt and a doofus.

 

[SubZeroDegrees]

Happy my boys won.
Thanks for ruining the season Goodell.
Hope you catch one in the N.O.

Sent from your girl Tapatalk

 

[3Rivers]

Paul Tagliabue's full decision on Saints bounty appeal - NFL.com

In this context, confronted with the events here, Commissioner Goodell correctly set out aggressively to address them. But when an effort to change a culture rests heavily on prohibitions, and discipline and sanctions that are seen as selective, ad hoc or inconsistent, then people in all industries are prone to react negatively -- whether they be construction workers, police officers or football players. They will push back and challenge the discipline as unwarranted. As reflected in the record in the present appeals, they will deny, hide behind a code of silence, destroy evidence and obstruct. In other words, rightly or wrongly, a sharp change in sanctions or discipline can often be seen as arbitrary and as an impediment rather than an instrument of change. This is what we see on the record here. 2 I note with strong disapproval that one or more parties here improperly leaked confidential information from private settlement negotiations to the public despite the clear agreement of all parties prohibiting such conduct.

There is an important example in the NFL's own history of using a short-term exemption from discipline as a means of swiftly facilitating an intensified effort to change a negative culture to enhance the safety and health of NFL players. I find persuasive and instructive the lessons to be drawn from a safety-related disciplinary program instituted in the 1980s by then NFL Commissioner, Pete Rozelle.

Commissioner Rozelle faced serious new threats both off-field and on-field to player safety and player health and well-being, as Commissioner Goodell faces today. In Rozelle's time, the challenges were presented by new illicit chemistries and substances -- called steroids. Rozelle saw the need for strict standards, strict enforcement and strict compliance -- just as Commissioner Goodell correctly does today. "We now know," Rozelle emphasized, that steroid abuse "gives a strong competitive advantage and has severe medical effects." So in the late 1980s Rozelle developed and implemented a set of policies, prohibitions and testing regimens to identify steroid abusers and eliminate the safety and health risks. He included a discipline-free transition year in the new policy. Rozelle warned one-year in advance that a discipline policy suspending players for steroid use would be implemented the following season. Four months prior to the enforcement of the policy, all players were advised by letter of the specific disciplinary actions for steroid use. For that year, Rozelle sharpened the rules and set escalating penalties while withholding player discipline. Rozelle recognized the realities of team operations and sought to ensure uniform compliance and enforcement in several dozen team workplaces. He understood that sometimes it is necessary to clarify the rules -- make sure everyone understands; postpone discipline for a while, not forever, but maybe for a season; and then enforce the rules with strict discipline.

While no one would suggest that incentivizing and rewarding players to harm another player has ever had a place in football, the undeniable fact is that over many years a pattern and practice of abuse of the rules seems to have developed -- a culture has evolved -- that has led to acceptance of pay-for-performance reward programs. These programs mutated into the deeply misguided Program of the New Orleans Saints.

Full statement at the link