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Sports Arena
The NFL Goes Bounty Hunting
Will the league rewrite the rules of America’s greatest contact sport? Let’s hope not, girls.
(Page 2 of 2)
I am worried that Pro Bowl Rules may become the future of professional football. No blitzing, no rushing the punter, no sacking. A Pro Bowl tackle is now more like a prolonged hug until two guys fall down together. I stayed up late to watch this seasons’s game but switched it off in disgust after one quarter.
I don’t like the direction this scandal is taking. The big guys on the field don’t need the money, and they like the roughness anyway. Let them carry on but without the extra cash.
Retired NFL linebacker Coy Wire had the most hopeful comment. He does not approve of the bounty payments he told CNN, but “you can still play the game of football competitively with viciousness. It can be a violent game and… we can do it with integrity and with good old-fashioned sportsmanship.”
Mike M| 3.12.12 @ 7:13AM
Jack Lambert used to say the quaterback shoud wear a skirt.
We're almost there!!
somnolence| 3.12.12 @ 7:39AM
Jack Lambert never played against Sammy Baugh, who was as tough as they come, and wasn't afraid to punch back.
Mac Jehoff| 3.12.12 @ 12:47PM
Jack Lambert did play against the late Walter Payton, who would unload on his initial tackler and often set him back. Sweetness broke alot of tackles that way.
Occam's Tool| 4.16.12 @ 2:16PM
Well, we all know where Slingin'
Sammy Baugh attended college, don't we?
TCU, of course. And he WASN'T the best QB ever there. That fellow is about to start his second year for the Cincinnati Bengals.
jothepro| 3.12.12 @ 8:24AM
I fall into a deep sleep every time I watch the Pro Bowl.
donserge| 3.12.12 @ 9:02AM
The NFL is very afraid that one day, (if 'violence' is not curbed ahead of time) a player will die from injuries. Sounds a little like liberalism trying to 'fend off' a problem that probably exists only in their mind.
Seek| 3.12.12 @ 11:45AM
Actually, a pro football player did die of injuries. It happened in 1965. Kansas City Chiefs running back Mack Lee Hill died on the operating table. Maybe the issue is a little more complicated than Liberal Sissies.
donserge| 3.12.12 @ 1:10PM
Mack Lee Hill injured his knee and died of heat stroke.
Maddox| 3.12.12 @ 10:19AM
If the NFL disallows hard hits, football will be just another version of soccer. Perhaps that would make liberal controllers happy. We could give all the players a Super Bowl Trophy just for showing up on the field.
Paul from SA| 3.12.12 @ 10:35AM
I see it as just another incentive pay program.
Liberals are writing articles, almost daily, about how football needs to be changed to protect the players.
Ok, then how about some race, gender and age quotas and affirmative action? How about a fans' union? How about raising income taxes on football players? Maybe 20% of each player's salary and bonus can go directly to the Democrat party?
Oldefarte| 3.12.12 @ 10:51AM
'....March 11, 2012The Old Raiders Didn’t Need Bounties to Be BrutalBy WILLIAM C. RHODEN
OAKLAND, Calif. Last week several former Oakland Raiders players and hundreds of guests flocked to the Oakland Marriott to honor Clem Daniels, the four-time A.F.L. All-Star running back who played for Oakland from 1961 to 1967. Daniels, who helped the Raiders reach Super Bowl II, was the bridge between their barren years and the years after his retirement when the team won multiple Super Bowls. Daniels was also at the core of the intimidating, physical style of football that conjures images of Raiders players. The Raiders, under their owner Al Davis, cultivated a reputation for rough-and-tumble football. Daniels, who later became the president of a trade association for African-American-owned retail beverage stores, bars and restaurants in California and Nevada, was present at the laying of the Raiders’ foundation. I thought about the old Raiders in the wake of news about the N.F.L.’s so-called bounty scandal. Some New Orleans Saints players, with the knowledge of coaches and their general manager, put a price on the heads of some opposing players. Fairly or not, the Raiders, with their pirate logo and physical style, long ago became a symbol of a renegade mentality in professional football. The guests last week included John Madden, the Hall of Fame coach; Willie Brown, the Hall of Fame defensive back; the legendary Boston Celtic Bill Russell; and numerous former players. And as I moved through the room and spoke with former players, there was a sense of confusion about the bounty story. Everyone agreed that putting a price on someone’s head seemed unseemly. On the other hand, in football, there is a price on everyone’s head. That is the nature of the game. George Atkinson, a Raiders safety in the late 1960s and ’70s, said: “When you look at your contract, you’re getting paid. You can call that a bounty.” Atkinson and Jack Tatum formed perhaps the most intimidating safety combination in modern N.F.L. history. They played at a time when defensive players were allowed to do virtually anything to receivers. Atkinson and Tatum did. Atkinson said that early in their tenure together, he and Tatum made bets with each other about who would deliver the hardest hits. “We would put up a small pot; whoever gets the best hit wins the pot,” Atkinson said. “That was just between us. “We did it game to game or opponent to opponent, depending on who we were playing. It wasn’t a bounty, it was a bet — the hardest hit was judged by the actual result of the game and the receivers you were covering. If the guy’s laying out on the field, that speaks for itself. That was to incite us to make plays. It was an incentive; it wasn’t a bounty.” Atkinson said his primary focus was intimidation — not necessarily to injure players, but to discourage the opposition. He didn’t understand why a bounty was needed to do something that is an intrinsic part of the game. “Our thing was, whatever came in the middle, we wanted to discourage it,” Atkinson said. “But it wasn’t a bounty.” He added: “I don’t care what anybody says; intimidation in the N.F.L. is part of the game. If you intimidate your opponent, you’re going to win; if your opponent intimidates you, they’re going to win.” Madden, asked about Atkinson’s comments, laughed and said, “I don’t believe it.” Madden, who coached the Raiders from 1969 to 1978, helping them win their first Super Bowl in the 1976 season, said he believed Atkinson and Tatum made the bets. He just didn’t believe either player ever paid up. “You know how, when you were a kid, you’d say, ‘I’ll bet you a hundred dollars.’ You don’t have a nickel in your pocket but you’re betting the guy a hundred dollars,” Madden said. “I can see those guys saying, ‘I’ll bet you a hundred dollars for a hard hit’ and this and that. I can’t see either one of them paying. I know them, they’re both cheap. I can’t see them pulling a hundred dollars out and handing it to the other guy.” I asked Madden what he thought about the New Orleans story. Focusing on key players, though not necessarily putting a price on their heads, he said, has “always gone on in football, and it’s part of football, but paying for someone to get carted off the field, that’s the part that’s hard for me to stomach.” The deeper issue is not a price being put on a player’s head, but the nature of a game that exacts such a high price. “It’s a violent game,” Madden said. “We can’t take that out. You have big, strong fast guys running into each other legally. That’s a violent game. To say that it’s not violent, that there’s not going to be injuries, that there’s not going to be hard hits, that’s baloney. It’s going to be, that’s what football is, always has been, always will be.”
Madden said he coached his teams to be physical.
“I did, but I didn’t like penalties,” he said. “I believed that from the time the ball is snapped until the whistle blows, you play like hell. After the whistle blows, you go back to the huddle and save your energy for the next play.” In the last three seasons, the N.F.L. has begun a campaign aimed at player safety in the form of greater concussion awareness, fines for helmet-to-helmet hits and greater protection for quarterbacks. “We can’t make it safe,” Madden said of football. “We can make it safer with rules, but it’s a tough game, it’s a violent game.” Daniels, 74, speaks eloquently and honestly about the game he played, one that has required spinal operations, joint replacements, neck operations and that has left him with arthritis. “The game will result in people being shaken up, injured and hurt,” he said. For Daniels, football at the N.F.L. level is “the closest thing to war you can get to without an M-16 in your hand.” Especially since the attack on the World Trade Center, sportswriters have been cautioned to stay away from using war metaphors. Wars maim, cause casualties, destroy villages, towns and cities. Wars devastate. Yet there continues to be mounting evidence that football devastates in its own way, too. The revelations that an N.F.L. general manager, coaches and players engaged in a bounty system seem unsettling, but old news. Football is a hard sport. At a time when the N.F.L. is being sued by retired players over safety issues, the news of an investigation into player-on-player bounties seems designed to put a focus on the players’ callous disregard for one another. That would shift the focus away from the owners for the debilitating effects of the game and inaction to remedy that or prepare for the long-term aftershocks of playing N.F.L.-caliber football.
But the news out of New Orleans raises troubling questions less about sportsmanship than about the nature of a supposedly civilized society. Even before the bounty scandal became news, professional football had been on the defensive about the effects of violence on generations of former players, many of whom are battling debilitating physical and emotional conditions.
Unlike the tobacco industry, which was eventually forced to put warning labels on cigarette packs, the N.F.L. has yet to acknowledge a connection between league-sponsored violence and conditions like dementia and early-onset Alzheimer’s. Beyond the evidence, what should we make of the character of a nation when the game that defines the American ethos is football — an unapologetic paean to violence? “People have an innate love for war, for battle,” Clem Daniels said before the banquet held in his honor. “It’s why football is more popular than baseball or basketball.” ....'
Darcy| 3.12.12 @ 10:59AM
This article is disgusting. "Viciousness" is completely unnecessary in football. Make clean, hard blocks and tackles; the other stuff is barbaric, including teaching your little Pop Warner charges to use their "knees and elbows." Honestly, if this is where the sport is headed, time for soccer.
Maddox| 3.12.12 @ 2:05PM
Most do. For those who don't, there are referees and penalties, both on the field and financially.
cfc| 3.12.12 @ 11:16AM
I'm only personally familiar with high school and college level football and that was about twenty years ago. But there is a world of difference between hitting good and hard and hitting to injure. Hitting to injure is usually not even a good tackle because the player does not wrap properly (too busy trying to punch and kick) and they seem to be trying to lead with the helmet for a spear instead of making contact with the chest and sholder.
Especially at the high school level, injuries are going way up because the kids don't know how to make a good tackle anymore.
nathan| 3.12.12 @ 11:25AM
The writer doesn't get it right? There is a difference between hard legal hits and trying to hit a guy in a manner that puts him out of the game if not destroy his career? What are we the fans really paying to see? The best players ON THE FIELD. Seeing Brady DELIBERATELY blasted in a manner that sidelines him for the rest of the game and maybe two or three more? Is that what the fans are paying all this money to see? Really?
Didn't think so which is part and only part of what makes the bounty so objectional because it could adversely impact the quality of the product the NFL is trying to put on the field.
And besides what does this do for the image of the league? Goodel can't be casual about this. He can't just take a boys will be boys attitude here. He needs to come down hard and make it clear that his league is not a bigger bunch of thugs than it already is.
Mike Daly | 3.12.12 @ 7:24PM
nathan, what the Saints were doing does not qualify as illegal hits - that's what the Raiders do. The Saints hits were legitimate football hits.
nathan| 3.12.12 @ 11:25AM
The writer doesn't get it right? There is a difference between hard legal hits and trying to hit a guy in a manner that puts him out of the game if not destroy his career? What are we the fans really paying to see? The best players ON THE FIELD. Seeing Brady DELIBERATELY blasted in a manner that sidelines him for the rest of the game and maybe two or three more? Is that what the fans are paying all this money to see? Really?
Didn't think so which is part and only part of what makes the bounty so objectional because it could adversely impact the quality of the product the NFL is trying to put on the field.
And besides what does this do for the image of the league? Goodel can't be casual about this. He can't just take a boys will be boys attitude here. He needs to come down hard and make it clear that his league is not a bigger bunch of thugs than it already is.
Bob K.| 3.12.12 @ 11:30AM
Darcy,
Get with the times! What we really want is something like "Roller Ball Murder" that 1975 film starring James Caan! Think of the profits! All those week end jobs created for beer and peanuts sellers! All those tax write offs for those Capitalist owners whose teams play in Taxpayer funded stadiums! All that money being made by the untaxed gambling industry! All those scholarships issued so that poor kids can get an education! "Football, Chevrolet and Apple Pie!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_(1975_film)
Bob K.| 3.12.12 @ 11:39AM
Try this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollerball_(1975_film)
Occam's Tool| 4.16.12 @ 2:17PM
The short story Rollerball Murder was even better.
Evan| 3.12.12 @ 12:05PM
The author has not read what the Saints and coaches actually did if he excuses it. Paying extra if a player leaves on a stretcher? That is not acceptable.
We also now no more about concussions and brain injuries than before. Why do you think boxing has largely died off? People know the consequences. Look at Ali. Look at Jerry Quarry.
Ask myourselves a question. If you have ma son,would you want him "taken out"ona stretcher as part of a bounty program?
Oldefarte| 3.12.12 @ 1:15PM
You obviously have NOT read or possibly COMPREHENDED the above articles, since thei point of same is that this purposeful violence has existed within the NFL since the '70's. The Saints etc were NOT doing anything that has not been done before and should not be singled out as such for their formalization of same!!!!!!
Paul from SA| 3.12.12 @ 12:18PM
Would any commenters here let your son become a football player or boxer?
No. No way. Never.
Swimming is the best sport....
Mark MacInnis| 3.12.12 @ 12:41PM
Yeah, swimming is all fun and games until someone drowns, or hits their head on the pool deck after slipping by running near the pool....no thanks! Now, golf...that's the safe sport....or bowling, yeah bowling!
Gary| 3.12.12 @ 1:04PM
I prefer tiddly winks myself, but beware of thumb pain syndrome.
Bob Grant| 3.12.12 @ 12:19PM
I say if we are all going to pay for one anothers' health coverage via Oblammycare, the NFL should be banned.
After all, why should a larger percent of the insurance pool go toward treating an ex-NFL millionaire who suffers from self-inflicted, avoidable, health problems?
Universal Health Care dictates that we should all modify our behavior to avoid becoming burdens to our fellow comrades, er, citizens.
Oldefarte| 3.12.12 @ 1:20PM
BG, I'd prefer to ban OBAMA/WELFARECARE myself [instead of millionaire former NFL'ers who at least paid taxes on their millions that go towards support of governmental health insurance programs such as Medicare etc; whereas the SNOT-NOSERS that'll receive Obama's WELFARECARE will pay nothing towards it financial support]!!!!
Oldefarte| 3.12.12 @ 1:20PM
BG, I'd prefer to ban OBAMA/WELFARECARE myself [instead of millionaire former NFL'ers who at least paid taxes on their millions that go towards support of governmental health insurance programs such as Medicare etc; whereas the SNOT-NOSERS that'll receive Obama's WELFARECARE will pay nothing towards it financial support]!!!!
Oldefarte| 3.12.12 @ 1:20PM
BG, I'd prefer to ban OBAMA/WELFARECARE myself [instead of millionaire former NFL'ers who at least paid taxes on their millions that go towards support of governmental health insurance programs such as Medicare etc; whereas the SNOT-NOSERS that'll receive Obama's WELFARECARE will pay nothing towards it financial support]!!!!
Cookie Sewell| 3.12.12 @ 12:22PM
I remember the 1966 "Old Oaken Bucket" game between Purdue and IU. One of the IU players accidentally took out a Purdue cheerleader and to the obvious enjoyment of the crowd both benches cleared. I have a marvelous slide someplace of the scrum in the middle of the field with white and gold helmets flying in the air.
Football is football.
Mark MacInnis| 3.12.12 @ 12:38PM
Yep....you guys just keep going on about how safe the good ol' sport is and how it doesn't need any more regulation, and about now QB's need skirts and such.
All that will be well and good, until the next time a player suffers a Darryl Stingley or Mike Utley type injury (google them if you don't remember), or worse, a player dies. It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt or dies.
Or maybe we should ask the widows and family members of players who recently committed suicide rather than face the dementia that is all too commonly becoming the "reward" of the multiple concussions which come from playing the modern game of football..... For every star that makes millions, and goes on to an endorsement-rich retirement, there are hundreds of broken-down lesser-knowns who live pension-check to pension-check, or disability-check to disability-check, forgotten by the fans and the league.
For years, I was vexed when my son, who's 6'5" and 255 lbs, refused to be interested in football, choosing soccer and academics instead. Now that he's 21, I am so very glad he didnt' give in to please me...
Mike Daly | 3.12.12 @ 7:25PM
Actually for every star there are ten plus others who make decent livings out of the NFL. The myth of generations for former stars destroyed physically and mentally by the game is just that - a myth. Your son should have gone into football - it's a better game than soccer.
Occam's Tool| 4.16.12 @ 2:19PM
Mike:
Had a patient of mine whose son was recruited by an SEC team. The warning given to the parents is that playing football at that level can shorten life expectancy.
Not a myth. Payton was popping pain meds like Candy in retirement.
Ron| 3.12.12 @ 1:01PM
So...And my son is 120, 5' 8" and plays a variety of positions..Wide receiver, Safety, DB...he has taken some serious hits just playing high school football..he bounces up from them and has at it...Sadly, I can see the difference in teams from the Lower 48 that teach to hit clean and hard versus our HS team who tries to play nice...last season in JV was 1 -8...The prior season was 8 - 0...the team was a bit depressed because they did not get to be unleashed because of the coaches telling them to take it easy...which did not seem to apply to the teams coming up from the Lower 48 to play.
Mike Daly | 3.12.12 @ 1:46PM
There are two issues at work -
1 - the league is suddenly scared of concussions because of data supposedly showing players are far more vulnerable to severe head injury than thought - this even though most players get through careers in decent shape; the scare-mongering is aggravated by cases of players so seriously injured as to be cripples, physical or psychological (the likes of sportswriter Gerry Callahan cite players like Kevin Turner who have been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease supposedly caused by head injuries). It's the league panicking at new data and forgetting that new data isn't changing that most players can take the hits and come out okay. Mark MacInnes is flat wrong - football didn't give Dave Duerson or anyone else dementia.
2 - it's also driven by Roger Goodell. Sports law professor Jeffrey Standen has done a superb job breaking down Goodell's huge flaws a NFL commissioner - Goodell is a moralistic thug who's been a career bureaucrat and PR servant; he joined the league office as an intern and has never left. He has shown that his understanding of the game is subpar and his moralistic personality makes his ignorance worse because he takes things personally and lashes out as a result. The "Spygate" pseudo-scandal was made a fiasco because Goodell and his office misunderstood the rules and league bylaws (the original memo that the Patriots supposedly broke falsified sideline videotaping rules), and when Bill Belichick showed superior understanding of league bylaws than Goodell did, Goodell lashed out with a level of punishment unprecedented in league history (Paul Tagliabue took the worse transgression of the Denver Broncos cheating the salary cap in the late 1990s and merely fined them $1 million) and smeared the Patriots as cheaters when there was no cheating. And now (with help of the Mainstream Sports Media) he's smearing the Saints as a team of assassins even though none of the hits that supposedly come from bounties even qualify as dirty hits; and harder hits to gain an extra $1,000 a pop does not pass the sniff test of motivation.
Bob Grant| 3.12.12 @ 2:37PM
My non-medical background forces me to use common sense on issues such as this, and common sense tells me when you use your head as a battering ram day in/day out for months on end...and seasons on end...there MIGHT be negative repercussions to your brain.
Helmet or no helmet, any time your brain slams against your skull during a hit, you suffer injury to your brain.
By the way, this is not limited to the brain. Muscles, joints, ligaments, bones, all suffer the same fate.
I love how it takes a "study" to point out the obvious.
Boaz| 3.12.12 @ 4:14PM
Disregarding the how tough the writer and all of the "men" writing here actually are, people pay to see Mr. Barady play, not Jonathan Vilma. The purpose of the NFL is to make money, not to fulfill the wet dreams of the tough guys mentioned above so I suspect there will be some real action taken. I've played ball and you can hit really hard without trying to injure or maim someone.
Mike Daly | 3.12.12 @ 6:03PM
Boaz - and your point is..........?
Clint| 3.12.12 @ 5:03PM
If Ya Can't Handle Smash Mouth Ball, Go Sit With The Cheerleaders, Sport.
Bob Grant | 3.12.12 @ 5:20PM
Aw, tough girl Clintessa spouting off again.
Oldefarte| 3.12.12 @ 8:41PM
Nah, he's MEDIA MATTERS BOY 'FIRSTER'!!!!
Bob Grant| 3.13.12 @ 11:20AM
...and Smear Bund Extraordinaire!
Occam's Tool| 4.16.12 @ 2:21PM
That explains your brain.
Sitting with the cheerleaders is more fun, by the way. Have any friends who starred in Apocalypse Now? I do. Met her in the early 90s, 20 years ago. Playboy Playmates of the Decade are fun to hug.
But the Cheerleaders ignored you, Clint.
Cpm| 3.12.12 @ 6:30PM
And in 20 years your brain will be swiss cheese. Throw the book at them and make it hurt.
Mike Daly | 3.12.12 @ 7:22PM
Wrong, Cpm - your brain won't be damaged that much in 20 years if at all.
Bill X| 3.12.12 @ 10:39PM
That was really stupid. You can't allow people to intentionally injure other players and encourage their teammates to the do the same.
Brian| 3.14.12 @ 3:17AM
The NFL wants more women in the stands which means more money. IMO football died the day they had a half time "best butt" contest a few years back.
Flit Andersen| 3.14.12 @ 3:56AM
Bernard Pollard ended Tom Brady's season on September 7, 2008; a near-hit caused Wes Welker to suffer the same injury on Jan. 4th, 2010 ending the NE Patriots serious playoff prospects & almost exactly a year later on Jan. 22, 2011 ended both Rob Gronkowski's season and - once again - serious Patriot playoff prospects. While it's true New England did make it to the Super Bowl, it's also true that a hairsbreath loss most likely would have been a win has Gronk not been crippled by this cheap-shot artist. It is MY opinion that, at least in the Brady & Gronkowski cases, Pollard was deliberately attempting - and succeeding - in creating injuries. Watch the replays carefully. In light of this story, I'm sure I'm right.
Partiot fans have been screwed out of at least one, probably two championships by this goon. If the league isn't going to treat this seriously, perhaps it's Pollards turn to head to the IR. I'll chip in $100. Shhhhhhh......
Mike Daly | 3.14.12 @ 3:42PM
Welker's injury was more about the lousy natural grass turf Houston uses (the Patriots lost several players, including Eugene Wilson, in the Superbowl vs. the Panthers on that turf). The Brady and Gronkowski injuries are borderline.
Mick Lee| 8.17.12 @ 7:41AM
Deliberately trying to cripple the opposing player is "good old-fashioned sportsmanship"?