The "Bounty-gate"

"Bounty-gate" is the result of three things. First, ESPN over-running their limit on how much coverage they should put on this; second, the rift between casual fans and hard-core fans regarding the ethics of putting "bounties" on players; and lastly the fact that this happens all over the NFL.

This "Bounty-gate" is getting too much hype, and I blame ESPN for this. While is it an important topic in the world of "News", a show like Sportcenter should not be spending so much time into the matter because Sportscenter should cover everything evenly, not spend a good 10 minutes covering "bounty-gate". The reason ESPN does this is to blow everything out of proportion so that you'll keep watching to see what will be said next. Here's the straight-up facts. Gregg Williams, during his tenure with the Saints, would take money collected from player fines and redistribute them to the players for their performances. Players who would knock out star offensive players would generally receive money as would players who had an outstanding performance on defense during the week. The fine money came from players being late to meetings or doing stupid things either in the game or during practice. Instead of pocketing the money, it would be redistributed to the players based on performance.

Let's move this from a football field to an office. Many offices do different things, so here's how I'll make it simple. Assume the players are the employees than you have out in the cubicles. Assume the assistant coaches are the managers that have the offices around the cubbies, and then assume that the big managers have offices either upstairs or in the corners. Let's say there is a policy to fine employees for stupid things. Let's say, there's a $50 fine for being late, $25 fine for goofing around during office hours, etc. Instead of the managers pocketing this money, they use it to reward their employees. $500 for an awesome presentation, $1000 getting a new contract for the company, $250 for sales, etc. You get the idea, it's a performance incentive. Now let's say they're competing with a rival company on getting a bid or job. Paying your employees to delay the other company from getting to a meeting or sabotaging their presentation, while unethical, and a bit disgraceful, gets them $500-$1000. While it is unethical, it is not looked down upon. In the corporate world, you are going to have to climb over people to get on top. No single person in corporate America gets to the top by playing by the rules or playing nice. It's a dirty world out there and you have to be willing to get your hands dirty to get somewhere. Everyone knows that in the NFL, as a coach, you want to be the head coach of a team someday. You want to run a team and make the big bucks. You're not going to get there by being a nice guy, you gotta earn it. Gregg Williams, while what he did is being blasted by critics, is what any person who wants to get to the top would've done. If I'm a manager, and there's a $100 million contract out there, I know I'm going to put as much effort as I can out there to get the job. Would it be wrong to pay off a tech guy to hack into the other company's server and mess with their presentation the night before? Absolutely. Would I do it if it's a ton of money riding on the table? Absolutely. To Gregg Williams, he's giving his defense incentives to do their job well so that he can succeed and receive a head coaching job somewhere.

The second issue is the ethics of what he did. Here's what I'm going to say, if you have played football, either in college or a strong high school football program, you know what this is. This isn't news to you, you get benefits all the time for performing well on game day. I personally played football for a short time in middle school until I separated my shoulder. While my middle school did not have a football team, I played for the local youth association which had a lot of it's players play for a very very good high school football program that won the state football championship in 2000 for it's division and the district has produced a participant at the state championship game every year from 2000-2007. So let me tell you how it works. You want your players to perform at their highest level to give you the best chance to win, and to get them to perform at their highest level, you give them incentives to do so. Just to give you an idea of what I've seen at the high school level (not necessarily at the high school I attended), and a bit at the college level (my college doesn't have a football team, so this is from visiting other campuses).

-Players getting free meals at restaurants, either the coaches or boosters pay for them, or the team will not have them pay and distribute the cost amongst the rest of the players
Ex: Offensive linemen getting free pancakes for having a great performance on game day, not all of them, but generally one or two on the team when the linemen go out for pancakes
-Players taken to sporting events in which their cost to attend is covered
-Coaches having a couple gifts or gift cards to give out in the locker room to their best players after a win
-Catered events
-Invitations to high-profile events

There's a lot of things that go on in football when it comes to getting the best out of your players, and you'll do whatever you can to earn those rewards. So here's the thing, especially on defense, your coaches want you to pretty much pitch a shutout. 0 points on the scoreboard, by whatever means necessary, does the game plan include knocking out star players? No. Is the coach happy if you do? Yes. Because it's part of the game. On defense, there is a certain pride of not letting players in the end zone. There is a lot of pride by defensive players, and the more you score on them, the more pissed off they get. Defensive players come out hitting hard because they want you to remember them when you try and do it again. So to be quite fair, ethically, it's alright for players to play as hard as they can, and if they "accidentally" take out a star player, and that helps your team win, it's your choice to reward them or not. This is all part of the game of football. People get hurt, it's a violent sport, suck it up America. Players get concussions all the time. As parents, don't tell me that you don't enjoy your kid being a star player on the football field. Fathers live vicariously through their sons. If their son is lighting up the football field, earning those freebies every week, you feel proud, you are happy. The problem is with mothers protecting their children. It's not wrong, a mother's natural instinct is to protect their children from harm. That's really where this line of division comes in, whether you as a person care about protecting your players or care about winning games. Neither side is wrong on how they feel about this. Those that want to protect their star players have every reason to feel that way because those star players give you the best chance of winning. Those on the other side that want to do whatever it takes to win games, want to do whatever it takes to win games. No fan likes to see their team lose a game or lose a star player. But both sides have to acknowledge the other and I think that a good majority of Americans are missing out on why this cash for performance is instituted in the first place, because you want to get the best out of your players. But I won't lie about these alleged "bounties". As players, there's been instances where in other sports, you want to take the other guy out. You want to hit the opposing star player as hard as you can when he's got the puck in hockey. Best case scenario if you're getting shut down by a pitcher in baseball, nail him with a come backer so that your team can hit off the next guy they put in. When it comes to basketball, you're always going to make it difficult for the other team's star player to score, whether you gotta foul him, make him shoot two free throws or take as many cheap shots as you can to rattle him, don't tell me you didn't see that in the NBA back in the late 80's to the early 2000's. A prime example is across the pond in their game of football where players will maliciously slide tackle star players to knock them out of the game or feign malicious injury to get their opponent's star player out of the game, an art known as diving. You think none of these acts have gotten players money or benefits under the table? The only thing I urge you as the reader is to think about how this happens in other sports before going crazy about "Bounty-gate"

The last thing I want to point out is that there are many teams that institute performance based incentives on game-day. Many of the best defenses in the league have a sort of performance based incentive system to get their players to play hard defense on game-day. You can look no further than some of the best defenses in the league and look at why their players play so hard, not only that, but they play with an edge, like they really want to win games regardless of who gets hurt. Just look at the teams that made the post-season this year and their players, while not all of them were necessarily fined, they're guys that play on the edge

Atlanta Falcons - Dunta Robinson, Curtis Lofton
Baltimore Ravens - Terrell Suggs, Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Haloti Ngata
Cincinnati Bengals - Manny Lawson, Chris Crocker
Denver Broncos - Elvis Dumervil, Brian Dawkins,Von Miller
Detroit Lions - Ndamakong Su, Cliff Avril,Stephen Tulloch, Nick Fairley
Green Bay Packers - Charles Woodson, Clay Matthews, A.J. Hawk, Tramon Williams
Houston Texans - Brian Cushing, J.J. Watt, Danieal Manning
New England Patriots - Andre Carter, Jerod Mayo, Rob Ninkovich, Patrick Chung
New Orleans Saints - Jonathan Vilma, Shaun Rogers, Roman Harper, Malcolm Jenkins
New York Giants - Jason Pierre-Paul, Antrel Rolle, Kenny Phillips, Justin Tuck
Pittsburgh Steelers - Troy Polamalu, James Harrison, James Farrior, Ryan Clark
San Francisco 49ers - Patrick Willis, Aldon Smith, Ahmad Brooks

These guys have players that are going to make you hurt and bring the pain, there's a reason their teams made it to the playoffs. A lot of their players go after the other team's stars, specifically the quarterback, cept for the safeties and corners teeing off on wide receivers and James Harrison just teeing off on anybody. These guys play with an edge. Patrick Willis at the end of the Giants-49ers game was going nuts trying to get to Eli Manning and every time he did, he put him in the ground. When Rex Ryan got to the Jets, they became very much a hard-hitting team. When Gregg Williams came to the Redskins, Sean Taylor, without a doubt was the most feared safety in the league. When Bill Parcells got to the Cowboys, Roy Williams, already a great rookie, became one of the most notorious hitters in the league and they even created the Horse Collar rule because of him, he wasn't just trying to bring you down, he was trying to make it hurt when he tackled you. Julius Peppers was also a feared defensive end, and you can add linebackers Brian Urlacher and DeMarcus Ware to the list. When Bill Belichek actually had good defensive players, Rodney Harrison and Richard Seymour were players no team wanted a piece of. The list goes on and on, but there are players on every team that would make those bone-crushing hits.

So in retrospect, a lot of teams, while not necessarily having a "bounty" system, make a point to hit players as hard as they could. You hit a player hard, it could cause a fumble, maybe the receiver won't catch it and it'll bounce up in the air for an interception or fall for an incomplete pass. It's how this game has been played for years and it will continue to be played that way. Goodell can try to get rid of having a "bounty" system, but players will still be getting their pocket change from big hits and game-changing plays.