New Orleans Saints, Sean Payton, Mickey Loomis and Joe Vitt appealing NFL penalties
With time running out, New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton, General Manager Mickey Loomis and assistant coach Joe Vitt appealed their bounty-gate suspensions Friday, while separately the team also asked NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to reconsider the punishments he imposed on it.
New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton has appealed his suspension which was supposed to begin Sunday. There is no precedent for either the harsh penalties Goodell imposed March 21 or these appeals, and thus it was difficult to gauge what chances the men or the club have of seeing a reduction in their sentences. In the case of Payton, the suspension was set to begin Sunday; whereas the other penalties would have kicked in during the NFL draft or at the beginning of the season.
In any case, Goodell made it clear at the NFL owners meeting this week in Palm Beach that he would rapidly expedite any appeals, and a final decision would likely be rendered within days, not weeks.
Still, in Payton's case, the appeal could buy time and money. Because the suspensions are in abeyance while the appeal is considered, it gives Payton more time to huddle with Loomis and the team's scouts as April's draft approaches, more time to sketch out plans with his coaching staff, and more time on the team's payroll. As it stood, Payton's suspension would have cost him roughly $5.8 million, according to various reports; Saints officials declined comment on the financial aspect of the matter.
The suspensions of Loomis and Vitt, on the other hand, were not set to begin until the beginning of the season so the appeals will have no immediate impact on their situation. Goodell gave Loomis and Vitt eight- and six-game bans, respectively.
The Saints as an organization, meanwhile, appealed Goodell's stripping of second-round draft picks this year and next and a $500,000 fine. The sweeping, harsh punishments were imposed after the NFL deemed the Saints guilty of running a bounty system in which cash bonuses were paid for hurting opponents from 2009 to 2011. Payton and Loomis said they accept responsibility for what transpired on their watch, but neither they nor the other figures absorbed in the scandal, most notably Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams who has been suspended from football indefinitely, have ever admitted they countenanced deliberately injurious play. Williams did not appeal his suspension.
Friday's appeals come at a time Goodell is still mulling the penalties he will impose on players for their part in the scandal. The NFL says 22 to 27 Saints defenders were "willing and enthusiastic" participants in the bounty pool, although it has never identified the players other than linebacker Jonathan Vilma and it is unclear how many of that group are still on New Orleans' roster.
Goodell has said he will not impose those punishments until he has finished interviewing unnamed player leaders and conferred with the NFLPA. His meeting with union leaders, who, like the owners, held their annual meeting earlier this week, had not happened as of Friday.
In an interview with Pro Player Insiders, NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith said he is troubled by the notion Goodell may have already set player penalties and is seeking the union's imprimatur. A better scenario would be one in which Goodell suggests punishments but is open to the NFLPA's suggestions, Smith said.
"Obviously, the first word that popped out to me was the word 'determine,'" Smith said, according to an interview transcript. "I'd much rather that be the word 'discuss.' As of yet, they haven't turned over anything that we would consider to be direct evidence of player involvement in a 'pay to injure' scheme that we could consider for discipline. It's very hard to have a productive discussion about punishment when one side has kept, to itself, all the information."
Yet the NFLPA is also holding its cards close. It has spoken with various players involved in the matter, league sources said, and Saints quarterback Drew Brees, defensive end Will Smith, and former Saints linebacker Scott Fujita were all in attendance at the union's meeting this week. But just what the NFLPA believes happened in New Orleans as a result of those discussions is also a secret.
To some extent, the silence surrounding the two investigations - and the NFLPA did not get a chance, as requested, to speak with Loomis, Payton, Vitt or Williams - has contributed to a feeling, widely held by Saints fans, that New Orleans is being made an example of by a league worried about its potential legal liability over pending lawsuits from former players, and nursing a vendetta against the Loomis/Payton regime for its perceived arrogance.
Goodell denied that in Palm Beach, and union officials have thus far declined to speculate on the NFL's possible motives. The league has acknowledged, however, that "pay for performance" or "incentive" programs have been alarmingly common in pro football.
There is a chance the NFLPA will use the upcoming discussions between Smith and Goodell as a springboard for hiring a sort of independent adjudicator for disciplinary matters, according to league sources. There is a concern that in cases where the commissioner deems an infraction to have been "conduct detrimental" to the game that the commissioner's office is able to function as a sort of star chamber, assessing evidence, ruling and sentencing all at once, and then charged with hearing any appeals of its own decision.
To be sure, such a proposal is unlikely to gain any traction with the commissioner's office or the owners it serves, and at the moment there is no indication Goodell seeks or expects a confrontation over his discipline. But league sources said Friday the union is bracing for punishments it is unlikely to sign off on without a fight.
"What I would expect is to have a conversation soon and certainly it would be our expectation that the request for all information, as it relates to particular players, will be provided before any discipline takes place," Smith said. "It's a very, at least from our perspective, a very unfair situation where you have a number of allegations floating back and forth in the press. It's difficult for those players to be in a situation where they can hardly defend themselves from unsubstantiated accusations that are being made in the public."
That said, Smith made it clear the union, which, like Goodell, insists player safety is its paramount concern, will not tolerate a "pay for injure scheme."
New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton has appealed his suspension which was supposed to begin Sunday. In any case, Goodell made it clear at the NFL owners meeting this week in Palm Beach that he would rapidly expedite any appeals, and a final decision would likely be rendered within days, not weeks.
Still, in Payton's case, the appeal could buy time and money. Because the suspensions are in abeyance while the appeal is considered, it gives Payton more time to huddle with Loomis and the team's scouts as April's draft approaches, more time to sketch out plans with his coaching staff, and more time on the team's payroll. As it stood, Payton's suspension would have cost him roughly $5.8 million, according to various reports; Saints officials declined comment on the financial aspect of the matter.
The suspensions of Loomis and Vitt, on the other hand, were not set to begin until the beginning of the season so the appeals will have no immediate impact on their situation. Goodell gave Loomis and Vitt eight- and six-game bans, respectively.
The Saints as an organization, meanwhile, appealed Goodell's stripping of second-round draft picks this year and next and a $500,000 fine. The sweeping, harsh punishments were imposed after the NFL deemed the Saints guilty of running a bounty system in which cash bonuses were paid for hurting opponents from 2009 to 2011. Payton and Loomis said they accept responsibility for what transpired on their watch, but neither they nor the other figures absorbed in the scandal, most notably Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams who has been suspended from football indefinitely, have ever admitted they countenanced deliberately injurious play. Williams did not appeal his suspension.
Friday's appeals come at a time Goodell is still mulling the penalties he will impose on players for their part in the scandal. The NFL says 22 to 27 Saints defenders were "willing and enthusiastic" participants in the bounty pool, although it has never identified the players other than linebacker Jonathan Vilma and it is unclear how many of that group are still on New Orleans' roster.
Goodell has said he will not impose those punishments until he has finished interviewing unnamed player leaders and conferred with the NFLPA. His meeting with union leaders, who, like the owners, held their annual meeting earlier this week, had not happened as of Friday.
In an interview with Pro Player Insiders, NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith said he is troubled by the notion Goodell may have already set player penalties and is seeking the union's imprimatur. A better scenario would be one in which Goodell suggests punishments but is open to the NFLPA's suggestions, Smith said.
"Obviously, the first word that popped out to me was the word 'determine,'" Smith said, according to an interview transcript. "I'd much rather that be the word 'discuss.' As of yet, they haven't turned over anything that we would consider to be direct evidence of player involvement in a 'pay to injure' scheme that we could consider for discipline. It's very hard to have a productive discussion about punishment when one side has kept, to itself, all the information."
Yet the NFLPA is also holding its cards close. It has spoken with various players involved in the matter, league sources said, and Saints quarterback Drew Brees, defensive end Will Smith, and former Saints linebacker Scott Fujita were all in attendance at the union's meeting this week. But just what the NFLPA believes happened in New Orleans as a result of those discussions is also a secret.
To some extent, the silence surrounding the two investigations - and the NFLPA did not get a chance, as requested, to speak with Loomis, Payton, Vitt or Williams - has contributed to a feeling, widely held by Saints fans, that New Orleans is being made an example of by a league worried about its potential legal liability over pending lawsuits from former players, and nursing a vendetta against the Loomis/Payton regime for its perceived arrogance.
Goodell denied that in Palm Beach, and union officials have thus far declined to speculate on the NFL's possible motives. The league has acknowledged, however, that "pay for performance" or "incentive" programs have been alarmingly common in pro football.
There is a chance the NFLPA will use the upcoming discussions between Smith and Goodell as a springboard for hiring a sort of independent adjudicator for disciplinary matters, according to league sources. There is a concern that in cases where the commissioner deems an infraction to have been "conduct detrimental" to the game that the commissioner's office is able to function as a sort of star chamber, assessing evidence, ruling and sentencing all at once, and then charged with hearing any appeals of its own decision.
To be sure, such a proposal is unlikely to gain any traction with the commissioner's office or the owners it serves, and at the moment there is no indication Goodell seeks or expects a confrontation over his discipline. But league sources said Friday the union is bracing for punishments it is unlikely to sign off on without a fight.
"What I would expect is to have a conversation soon and certainly it would be our expectation that the request for all information, as it relates to particular players, will be provided before any discipline takes place," Smith said. "It's a very, at least from our perspective, a very unfair situation where you have a number of allegations floating back and forth in the press. It's difficult for those players to be in a situation where they can hardly defend themselves from unsubstantiated accusations that are being made in the public."
That said, Smith made it clear the union, which, like Goodell, insists player safety is its paramount concern, will not tolerate a "pay for injure scheme."
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