Roger Goodell...

[a_minimalist]

just made the Saints his ***** and in the worst way possible. I love it. Yes, if it was the Cowboys I would feel the same way. There isn't any room for that shady behavior in the NFL. When people completely outside of the Saints organization are contacting coaches and saying they will give someone $5,000 to knock Aaron Rogers out of the game, it needs to be addressed.

Bravo Roger Godell, you have earned my respect.

[kristie]

i normally hate goodell, but in this case i think he did the right thing.

[big dog cowboy]

Roger Goodell .......just made the Saints his ***** and in the worst way possible.

Wrong. The Saints did this to themselves. Goodell did what any commish would do.

[IheartRomo]

Don't really have an opinion on the ruling either way. In a sense, that's like eliminating the Saints from 2012 competition. On the other hand, the allegations are about as bad as it gets.

Regardless, Roger Goodell is still the biggest joker in all of sports. Absolutely worthless in every sense of the word.

[JBond]

I'm a bit surprised. Considering how light the punishment was for Belicheat, this seems a a little harsh.

[a_minimalist]

Wrong. The Saints did this to themselves. Goodell did what any commish would do.

that's true but he came down very hard, and it's my opinion that the offense was very worthy of it.

[dcdallaschick]

I'm a bit surprised. Considering how light the punishment was for Belicheat, this seems a a little harsh.

It seemed harsh until I started to read some of the language about the coaches' dealings with the league during and after the investigation. Looks like Payton outright lied--saying he didn't know--and then had to admit he did when they confronted him with his own email personally putting up $5K for Aaron Rogers!

Sounds to me like the league found out about it, confronted the coaching staff and told them to knock it off, and if they'd been honest about it (and actually done anything that indicating they had any intention of stopping), you might not have heard about it again, or a Belicheck slap on the wrist might have been plenty.

Remember Goodell was really specific about part of the motivation for Vick's "indefinite" (at the time) punishment coming out of his deception during the league investigation.

[hipfake08]

Corrected it.

Wrong. The Saints did this to themselves. Goodell did what any commish should do.

[Yeagermeister]

Every team is warned twice a season and posters are in the locker room saying that bounties are illegal so they deserved what they got.