Bountygate Punishment for the Saints

[sportscurmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Ruhskins

So at this point it seems that Goodell has not closed the Bountygate investigation. Given how the league seems to make sh*t up, I am slightly concerned about this.

However, at worst I think any penalties would be a fine on the team, but they'd have to prove that Snyder somehow knew about this, since he's the only person leftover from that regime. A lot of the severity in the penalties for the Saints came because the league had warned them to stop the bounties and the Saints did not.

Still, as TMC said, I will be more comfortable after the draft once we've selected RG3 (or Luck). Before that, there's a small part of me that is paranoid about this. At least until the matter is closed by the league.

The NFL position on this has been that this is an ongoing investigation - - and it has been that way since the story on the Saints broke.

The league is not likely to "make stuff up"; there is no "stuff that has been made up" about the Saints; Gregg Williams and Sean Payton have pretty much admitted that what the NFL alleged to be the case was in fact the case.

And there are so many threads in this story/investigation/whatever that lead to the conclusion that Gregg Williams has done this before in other venues that the NFL HAS to do an investigation to learn whatever it might. Remember, the US Senate is going to hold hearings on this matter and that could put a lot of people under oath while they tell their stories.

Imagine Gregg Williams under oath sitting next to all the owners he has worked for and head coaches he has been the DC under and all of them are under oath too. The NFL would not like that to happen...

You really should not speculate on what might or might not happen to teams where Gregg Williams had been DC in the past. It is comforting to speculate that the worst that could happen to the Redskins would be a fine but you do not know - - and neither do I - - where an investigation might lead. The odds favor an investigation of the Redskins turning up some kind of "bounty system" but with no links to current management. But might there be links to the owner(s)? I have no idea...

I would say the same thing is true of an investgation of the years that Williams was in Tennessee, Jax and Buffalo and what links might be made within those teams to folks still associated with those teams.

And remember, the NFL has incentivized Gregg Williams to "spill the beans" on what went on in previous incarnations in the league. The commish's letter to him says that a major factor in the commish deciding whether to lift his indefinite suspension is the degree to which Williams cooparates with and furthers the ongoing investigation.

MAYBE you can be worried that Williams might start to "make stuff up". It is less likely that the NFL would find it beneficial to do the same.