2012 NFL Offseason

[Hooch]

Price for Saints’ bounty program should be heavy fines, suspensions, forfeiture of draft picks

So the New Orleans Saints were dumb enough to continue a “bounty” system even after the NFL investigated them once, after owner Tom Benson told general manager Mickey Loomis to have it stopped and, worst of all, long after it had stopped working.

On stupidity alone, the Saints deserve to lose their first-round draft pick this year – except that they’ve already traded it to the New England Patriots. That shouldn’t stop commissioner Roger Goodell from taking a couple of picks this year or taking the 2013 first-rounder as the starting point for punishment.

Brett Favre, the subject of abuse from the Saints, had no hard feelings over New Orleans' bounty program. "It's football," he told Sports Illustrated. "I don't think anything less of those guys. Said or unsaid, guys do it anyway. If they can drill you and get you out, they will."

Yes, that’s the starting point. From there, the Saints deserve a $500,000 fine as a team (hopefully that doesn’t cut into the Drew Brees contract fund), head coach Sean Payton deserves a $250,000 fine, defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, now with the St. Louis Rams, deserves a $200,000 fine and each of the assistant coaches who participated deserve to at least be docked $50,000. On top of that, Loomis deserves to be fined and/or fired since he disobeyed an order from the owner.

That’s all in line with roughly what the punishment New England received in 2007 for the Spygate scandal.

Of course, in the world of comparative morality, Saints and Patriots fans spent Friday afternoon dueling (or, more aptly, drooling) over whose team had the worse transgression.

Do you vote Spygate or Bountygate?

Hmmm, let's see... cheating to win 3 Super Bowls or tackling a player hard. I have to mull this one over before I answer.