Saints and Sinners: What the NFL Really Is

A somewhat shocking scandal has hit the NFL. It has been revealed that the Saints organization has been involved in Bounties. On top of friendly pools for making key plays during games throughout the season, there was also a bounty system set up which players could essentially be paid for taking players on other teams out of the game by injuring them. Terms like "knock out" and "stretcher" have been used to describe bounties issued.

Gregg Williams, the defensive coordinator for the Saints the last couple of seasons, has not only admitted that this was true but also admitted to participating in it. Williams apparently met with the league today about the issue. Now speculation starts as to how many others in the organization were involved including whether or not Sean Payton, the head coach, was involved. Penalties for this could be serious from loss of draft picks to long term suspensions.

How does something like this happen... without letting Boba Fett in on it? He's the best bounty hunter in the galaxy and no one called him up? Give me a break.

On a more serious note, this bounty story is awful and scandalous for the league. Even though the amounts listed are relatively small for the most part, it's the principal of the matter and that someone is actually offering money to physically injure someone while playing a game. The ironic part is that football is a violent sport anyway and players are being paid tons of money to make big hits anyway for their teams while trying to win a game strategically.

Let's just cut the BS for a second. Football simply is a barbaric sport made for people who like to make big hits and for spectators who like to watch while they do so. They're basically somewhat lessened gladiators with an emperor (Goodell) watching over them deciding when someone has had enough. Now the league has tried to cut back on these devastating hits and injuries like head shots and concussions in order to make the league presentable and humane.

This bounty story, however, exposes the league for what it really is: a bunch of people paid lots of money to hit each other as hard as they can. Naturally, the league must attack it head on to keep fans and the general audience from thinking this way.