Saints' HC Payton Suspended Over Bounties

Is Sean Payton the head man in charge, and therefore accountable? Or is this a case of the NFL making an example and using a scorched earth policy to get a "common" practice within the league to stop?



Vote, then expand on your answer.



Here's a link to the CNN Story:

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/21/nfl-suspends-saints-coach-ex-coordinator-over-bounty-program/?hpt=hp_t1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Intentionally hurting players is uncalled for. Incentivizing injury to your opponents is despicable. I'd also start looking at suspending the players involved as well. It shouldn't come as a surprise that we're seeing even more concussions and big hits from defenders.



The NFL should be acting with a heavy hand to clean their sport up.



The NCAA could learn something from the NFL on discipline.

SpiffCoug wrote:
Intentionally hurting players is uncalled for. Incentivizing injury to your opponents is despicable. I'd also start looking at suspending the players involved as well. It shouldn't come as a surprise that we're seeing even more concussions and big hits from defenders.



The NFL should be acting with a heavy hand to clean their sport up.



The NCAA could learn something from the NFL on discipline.

Spiff, I agree with everything you said. I hope that the "leading with your helmet" rules make the NFL a tackling league instead of a torpedo league.



But should the HC, Sean Payton, be suspended for a year? It's not clear that he was a party to what was going on.

UPDATE: I heard this morning a report that there's a very incriminating email wherein Sean Payton supports - at least tacitly - the bounty program. This is something I hadn't seen/heard before and it changes the dynamic of the situation.



To suspend the HC simply becasue he's in charge is very different than punishing a willing participant. And it appears that Payton was the latter.

I've also heard that the NFL offices are communicating with the NFLPA on how to punish the "22 to 27" players involved.

I'm waiting for them to start doling out penalties to the 49ers as well as the other teams Williams has run bounty programs for in the past.