The busy part of the NFL offseason has begun, but three stories stand out. Let's jump right in, starting with the big one.
NFL Punishes the Saints
Last week, the NFL finally announced some of the punishments for the New Orleans Saints' bounty program, and we're not talking slaps on the wrist. The program reportedly offered defensive players $1,000 for causing injuries that led to opponents being carted off the field, and $1,500 for knockouts, in addition to other bonuses for good plays such as interceptions. A thousand dollars isn't a lot of money for someone who makes $1 million a season, but the rewards allegedly grew in the playoffs, to the point that defensive captain Jonathan Vilma is reported to have offered $10,000 to anyone who knocked Brett Favre out of the 2009 NFC Championship Game.
All these bounties constitute a clear violation of the NFL's salary cap, but the larger controversy is that the Saints evidently went out of their way to injure opponents. Forgive my pointing out the obvious, but there's a close relationship between the words sport and sportsmanship. The same way a street fight is not MMA — not even the same as amateur MMA, where there are, you know, rules — deliberate attempts to cause serious injury have no place in the NFL. I get as excited by big hits as the next fan, but only when they're part of the game.
We've known for a while now that the NFL was going to punish the Saints and their former defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams, who organized and ran many aspects of the program. What most of us didn't expect was how hard the league would come down on those involved. Williams is now suspended indefinitely from the league — he might never coach in the NFL again. Assistant Head Coach/Defense Joe Vitt faces a six-game suspension, and the league suspended head coach Sean Payton for the entire 2012 season. Even GM Mickey Loomis is out for half the year, an eight-game suspension. The Saints also have been fined $500,000 and docked a pair of second-round draft picks.
The fines and the draft picks don't come as much surprise, but the NFL is usually so reluctant to suspend anyone other than James Harrison, the severe punishments of the Saints' coaches and front office are not what I anticipated. Not that I disapprove — the kind of bounty program the league has described is totally out of bounds in any sport. What I'm not sure about are the individual penalties, relative to one another. Why are Payton and Loomis suspended for longer than Vitt?
These guys face a combined 1½ years away from the team, unpaid, and owner Tom Benson is just an innocent victim in all this? The league consistently deflects blame from ownership. Not that I think Benson had anything to do with the bounty program, but how do you suspend the GM eight games for such a minimal role in the scandal and then publicly proclaim the owner to be totally innocent?
So I don't believe the league was even-handed about the punishments handed down, but my overall reaction is that their severity is appropriate. The one that really gets your attention is Sean Payton, gone for the whole 2012 season. That affects the team, jolts Payton's career, and involves a non-trivial amount of money: roughly $6 million. That's what I'd like to see the league do when players try to injure opponents. Not suspend them for a year, necessarily, but at least a game or two. It shouldn't take a blatant Thanksgiving Day stomp in front of a national audience to draw more than a fine.
What I'm really curious about now is seeing what the league will do to the players involved. Reports indicate that between 22 and 27 Saints defensive players participated in the bounty program, as well as some of Williams' players when he was with other teams, most notably Washington. If the head coach and GM who were not directly involved get suspended for 8-16 games, logically you'd expect at least that much for the players who were directly involved.
With the possible exception of Vilma, though, I'd be shocked to see it. The players' union will fuss in a way coaches and management did not, and suspending half the defense would wreck the team. Losing a talented coach like Payton hurts, but a good team can overcome that, even use it as motivation. There's no substitute for good players. The league has obvious practical incentives to minimize the penalties on players.
I hate that. If the league goes easy on players after bringing the hammer down on higher-ups, even those with little to no direct involvement, it's not only unfair, to me it actually could be interpreted as racist. Punishing white coaches and GMs while going easy on (mostly) black players is uneven and unfair, plus I think it would imply that the white guys are held to a higher standard, like they should know better and the players can't be expected to. I recognize practical difficulties in applying the same penalties to players that were levied against coaches, but the league can't take the easy way out at this point.
What I don't want to see, and don't expect to, is any attempt to re-write history. I know some fans have argued that the Saints' Super Bowl XLIV victory should be taken off the record books, since the bounty program was active that season. That is nonsense. They won. It's childish and pathetic, and ultimately pointless, when the ham-headed NCAA tries to pretend wins and awards and championships didn't happen. They did happen. The team and its fans have already celebrated; you can't erase that. Pretending they didn't happen is silly. I'm all for harsh penalties to discourage this kind of program in the future, but suspensions are the right method here, not re-writing the record books.
Saints fans have complained, understandably, that many other teams play dirty, and it's likely some of them had a similar program in place. It feels like a double standard to come down so hard on the Saints, while other teams with no proven charges against them escape punishment entirely. I appreciate that position, but the league's actions against Payton and others establish a strong deterrent against this kind of bounty system in the future, and they set a precedent for harsh punishments against anyone who dares continue or establish such a system in the future. Tough luck for the Saints and their staff, but probably the best way to handle things given the situation.
Manning Signs With Denver
A lot of teams were looking for quarterbacks this offseason, and almost all of them were interested in Peyton Manning. His choice to sign with the Denver Broncos came as quite a surprise to me. Several teams were ready to pay him top dollar, and he doesn't need the money anyway; between rich contracts and innumerable endorsements, Manning is probably the wealthiest player in the NFL already. So he needed to choose a team where he would be comfortable and where he'd have a chance to win. The Broncos, really?
A lot of things broke right for the Broncos in their trip to the playoffs last season. Now they'll face a first-place schedule in 2012, and Manning — who has always struggled with the perception that he's not a winner — steps into the capital of Tebow-mania, celebrating a player acknowledged to be of limited talent but recognized as someone who "just wins". If Denver falls short of the postseason this year, many fans and analysts will, fairly or otherwise, blame Manning and compare him unfavorably to Tebow.
The other reason this moves surprised me is that Denver has no wide receivers. The team signed Jacob Tamme and Joel Dreessen in free agency, but here are the wide receivers: Mark Dell, D'Andre Goodwin, Tyler Grisham, Jason Hill, Greg Orton, Demaryius Thomas, and Tim Toone. Those are practice squad players. Dell, Goodwin, Orton, and Toone have never played in a regular season game. Grisham has one career catch, in 2009. Thomas is a promising prospect who has struggled to stay healthy and hasn't developed as quickly as the team anticipated. Hill is the elder statesman of the group, with five seasons of experience and 76 career catches.
Altogether, the Broncos' WR corps combine for 131 career receptions. That's a year and a half for Reggie Wayne. With his pick among at least half a dozen teams, this is where Peyton wanted to play?
Mr. Tebow Goes to New York
Tim Tebow is such a polarizing figure, it's tough to avoid getting drawn into extremes. The line from his supporters that Tebow can somehow "just win" without improving his passing skills is absurd. But it also seems clear that many of Tebow's detractors have undersold his strengths while focusing on his weaknesses. He recognizes some of his own limitations, and he's adapted his game accordingly. He's an effective runner — people ask me all the time if he would be a good running back — and a leader in the huddle whose teammates respond to him positively.
Last season, Tebow did not demonstrate NFL-level skill as a passer. Denver's unconventional offense was effective for a few weeks, faced an easy schedule, and caught some lucky breaks — but over the course of a season, quarterbacks need to throw. They need to read defenses, make good decisions, get the ball out of their hands in time to beat the rush, and throw accurately. Last we saw, Tebow can't do any of those things consistently. That's not to say he can't improve. He's young, he's a hard worker, and he's obviously a good athlete. But right now, he's probably not an NFL-level quarterback, much less a starter.
The Jets didn't give up a lot to bring Tebow in, and I can see where he'd be a good fit for the team if his passing comes along. Mark Sanchez hasn't wowed anyone since being drafted in the first round in 2009, and the Jets are the kind of team that could benefit from Tebow's strengths. But this could easily become a disaster, too, precisely because Sanchez hasn't developed the way the team hoped.
When a team is visibly held back by its quarterback — like the Jets the past three seasons — fans invariably clamor for the backup. This is most true when the backup is a high draft pick or someone with lots of name recognition. Tebow is a celebrity, even among non-sports fans; he's probably one of the five most famous players in the league. Tebow-mania got Kyle Orton benched and released after two straight seasons of 3,500 yards and a passer rating of 87, with twice as many TDs (41) as interceptions (21). If Tebow can do that to an above-average quarterback in Denver, what will happen to a below-average QB in the media firestorm of New York?
Barring a sudden, significant leap in his passing skills, Tebow will be a disaster as QB. But barring a sudden, significant leap in Sanchez's quality of play, that's the direction the Jets are headed. They can't use Tebow just to run the Wildcat two or three times a game. Either he's effective, and fans demand to see more of him, or he's ineffective, and there's no point. This was a risky trade for the Jets, not so much because of what they gave up (a fourth-round pick is hardly a ransom), but because of the situation it creates for the team. There's a lot to like about Rex Ryan, but I don't think he devotes enough attention to team chemistry. The Tebow trade has some definite upside, but there are a lot more ways for it to fail than succeed.
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