Saints Fan Here Wishing You A Good Game This Sunday

[AsylumGuido]

Originally Posted by cajuncocoa

You don't believe it because you're being a homer.

Only the player suspensions were vacated; Tagliabue felt the players had been punished enough. The report indicated that coaches and management were clearly involved, and that they participated in an attempt to obstruct the investigation. That's why Payton, Williams, and Loomis did not have their suspensions vacated.

The report was carefully worded to support Goodell and to deflect damage from the upcoming defamation case (Vilma vs. Goodell), which, by the way, has Tagliabue's law firm defending Goodell. Can you say conflict of interest? The report depended almost entirely on the testimony of former Saints defensive quality control coach (means he cleaned their jock straps), Mike Cerullo, who was fired following the 2009-10 season for lying to management about two absences during the season and other issues.

Cerullo appeared almost two years later with personal claims and handwritten notes confirming bounties. At the time he claimed he had detailed notes covering the Warner bounty and signed a statement later confirming this "fact". During the appeal hearing he admitted that there were never any notes from that game. He also admitted that the supposed notes that he had from the Favre game were totally inaccurate and he "really didn't know where he was going with that document".



Besides, the hearing was for the players. The others had exhausted their appeals already. There was no way Tagliabue could do anything about them even if he wanted.

This is just starting to get interesting and may very well cost Goodell his job.

Uh, of course I am a homer, but I also take the time to learn everything I can about the facts and do not base my judgement on the slanted view of the league and what they feed to the media.

[Kilyin]

Originally Posted by AsylumGuido

First of all, there was no "bounty program". There was your run of the mill pay for performance program found in every locker room in the league. But, why did the performance pool not start until 2009, the year that Williams joined the Saints, instead of 2006 when Vitt showed up? And don't forget that Williams also ran performance pools when he was with the Redskins and the Jags.

a_saints_fan01: There was no bounty program!

a_patriots_fan_01: There was no spygate!

etc

[AsylumGuido]

Originally Posted by Kilyin

a_saints_fan01: There was no bounty program!

a_patriots_fan_01: There was no spygate!

etc

Apples and oranges, Kilyin.

Eight defensive players and Coach Vitt under oath in District Court during a hearing on a retraining order against the league before Judge Helen Berrigan: There was no bounty program!

Twelve other defensive players via signed affidavit: There was no bounty program!

Gregg Williams during player appeals hearing: There was no bounty program!

NFLPA Head De Smith after reviewing all of the testimony from the player appeals: There was no bounty program!

Paul Tagliabue after the player appeals hearing: There was no evidence of a bounty program!

Mike Cerullo, with a vendetta against the Saints: There was a bounty program!

Roger Goodell going solely on the word of Mike Cerullo: There was a bounty program!