Somewhere in New England, Bill Belichick must be smiling.
In the wake of the Saints’ burgeoning bounty scandal, speculation around the NFL yesterday is Roger Goodell is about to make the punishment he handed Belichick and the Patriots for the SpyGate controversy five years ago look like child’s play.
Team executives, former execs and agents say they fully expect the commissioner — already known as a hanging judge before the league revealed details of New Orleans’ disgraceful cash-for-injuries program — to level historic penalties on the team, general manager Mickey Loomis, coach Sean Payton and especially the architect of the scheme, former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams.
“They are going to get hammered,” an exec with an NFC team told The Post in an email yesterday. “Suspensions, [draft] picks, big fines. [Goodell] really doesn’t have much choice because of the concussion/player-safety situation.”
Belichick and the Patriots were fined a combined $750,000 and docked a first-round draft pick by Goodell in 2007 for videotaping opponents’ defensive signals, but the Saints appear likely to fare much worse because the bounty program was so organized and encouraged serious injury.
Because Williams and others associated with the Saints front office contributed to the money pot for bounties, New Orleans also is in violation of the collective bargaining agreement and the rules of the salary cap, as that money wasn’t counted toward the cap.
The Saints do not have a first-round pick this year — ironically, it was traded to the Patriots — but could be forced to forfeit several or perhaps even all of their seven choices later in the 2012 draft.
Also, though the maximum fine from Goodell technically is $500,000, the league has mechanisms to exceed that if the owners feel circumstances warrant it.
The reason why Goodell is expected to come down hard is simple: The NFL is under a public microscope because of the concussion issue and is currently being sued by hundreds of former players for what they say is decades of negligence when it comes to safety.
Those lawsuits are closer to going to court, and legal experts say it isn’t out of the question the league could be forced to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars in either damages or a settlement.
Williams’ and the Saints’ violations offer Goodell the ideal chance to tell the courts and the public the league is serious about increasing player safety.
As a result, Williams is considered the most vulnerable to historic punishment from Goodell, especially in the wake of a Washington Post report Friday night that quoted former players saying Williams ran a similar bounty system as defensive coordinator of the Redskins from 2004-07.
Speculation is Williams will be suspended for an entire season and perhaps even longer. Either punishment would be unprecedented for a coach in the modern era.