To the surprise of no one, not even Jonathan Vilma himself, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell upheld the suspensions of Vilma and Will Smith yesterday for their role in the Saints’ bounty scandal while reducing penalties for Scott Fujita and Anthony Hargrove.
Vilma, who is recovering from a knee injury and was unlikely to play for another two weeks had he been reinstated, will sit out the entire season while Smith’s punishment remains at four games.
Vilma has been on the league’s Physically Unable to Perform list since the start of the regular season and will retain the salary he has received from the Saints for the first six games of the season that he spent while on the list. The former Jet also has filed a defamation suit against Goodell.
“Just woke up from a nap,” Vilma tweeted early last night. “This is not news to me, pride won’t let him admit he’s wrong … guy died from a roach-eating contest, now that’s news.’’
Hargrove, a free-agent defensive lineman, will face a two-game suspension once he signs with a team. He originally received an eight-game ban but that was reduced to seven with five games already served. Fujita, now with the Browns, will now miss only one game instead of three.
The players were implicated in what the NFL said was a bounty pool run by former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and paid improper cash bonuses for hits that injured opponents. The players have acknowledged a pool but denied they intended to injure anyone.
Only Smith and Fujita have played this season because an appeal panel created by the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement vacated the original suspensions on technical grounds and informed Goodell he needed to clarify the reasons for the punishment.
Goodell met with each of the players individually following the vacations of the original suspensions.
“The quality, specificity and scope of the evidence supporting the findings of conduct detrimental are far greater and more extensive than ordinarily available in such cases,” Goodell said in a memorandum to the 32 clubs obtained by the Associated Press.In my recent meetings with the players and their counsel, the players addressed the allegations and had an opportunity to tell their side of the story. In those meetings, the players confirmed many of the key facts disclosed in our investigation, most particularly that the program offered cash rewards for ‘cart-offs,’ that players were encouraged to ‘crank up the John Deere tractor’ and have their opponents carted off the field, and that rewards were offered and paid for plays that resulted in opposing players having to leave the field of play.”
The players can further delay their suspensions by appealing again through their labor contract. They also could ask a federal judge in New Orleans to revisit their earlier request for an injunction blocking the suspensions. The NFL Players Association said it would consider its options after looking closely at the NFL’s punishments.
“For more than six months, the NFL has ignored the facts, abused the process outlined in our collective bargaining agreement and failed to produce evidence that the players intended to injure anyone, ever,” the NFLPA wrote in a release. “The only evidence that exists is the League’s gross violation of fair due process, transparency and impartiality during this process. Truth and fairness have been the casualties of the league’s refusal to admit that it might have made a mistake.
“We will review this decision thoroughly and review all options to protect our players’ rights with vigilance,” the union said in a statement.