"A linebacker's job is to knock out running backs and to knock out receivers," - Ray Lewis.
Anyone who watches football understands the job of a defender: to use his body to physically punish offensive players, stop them from moving down the field, and make sure they don't score.
Apparently NFL commissioner Roger Goodell doesn't understand what defenders are supposed to do. It's been evident since the moment that he took over the league from Paul Tagliabue, but never as much as Wednesday when he handed out the unthinkable and ridiculous punishments to members of the Saints' coaching staff.
The issue stems from a scandal in which former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was running a bounty system where players were monetarily rewarded for knocking opponents out of games.
Williams was suspended indefinitely, along with a one-year ban for head coach Sean Payton. General manager Mickey Loomis was suspended eight games, assistant head coach Joe Vitt suspended six games, and the franchise was fined $500,000 and docked second round picks for the next two years in the draft.
The NFL's official stance is that the system "threatens the safety of its players."
No kidding! So does a pair of 300-pound men running full speed at each other.
Listen, I get the whole need to be politically correct and punish people for wanting to hurt people because on the surface it sounds criminal - the details of the scenario sound like condoned premeditated assault on the Saints' part.
But if you told me there was a player on my favorite team's defense that wasn't trying to hurt the opposition, I'd be clamoring for that player to be released.
It sounds gruesome, but at its core, that's what football is.
The problem is that people associate hurt with injure, and there is a huge difference. Attempting to hurt someone is inflicting pain to the point that a player can't return for the remainder of the game, it's just a natural consequence of a solid hit.
Injure is taking a run at someone with season, and career threatening consequences. Going after an ACL intentionally is not okay at all.
That brings me to the case at hand with New Orleans. If there were guys that took guys out with dirty hits then they should have been punished with the weekly thrashings already given out by Goodell. If a Saints defender knocked out a running back by lacing him with a clean body blow, then what's the issue?
Is it a problem that the people in the Saints' locker room discuss what every player at every level of football is thinking (that they want to hit someone really, really hard)? Or is the problem that Roger Goodell can't handle anything that could be perceived as negative, or that he doesn't like?
If the commissioner knew about this in 2009 like he says he did, then clearly he would have been paying attention to the hits that Saints' defenders were making. If he was really concerned he would have punished the players for the hits he perceived as dirty.
The fact that the punishment comes out now - three years later - after the media had gotten wind of the bounty system leads me to believe that this is a farce just to save face.
Goodell's punishments don't protect the players because he doesn't care about the players. The suspensions are a public relations measure to keep up an image, and that's all this whole fiasco is.
This is just yet another example of Goodell running the NFL with an iron fist and refusing to embrace the organized violence that is football - except this time he unjustly took it out on an entire franchise.
At the end of the day, Goodell did not punish the right people for attempting to hurt players. Payton never sacked a quarterback, Williams never brought down a running back, and I've never seen a general manager go head-to-head on a receiver.
Not only does the punishment not fit the crime - partly because there wasn't a crime - Goodell locked up the wrong criminals.
Email: tyler.cady@ubspectrum.com
