The New Orleans Saints Should Receive The Death Penalty

The term "Death Penalty" has been used only once in any level of football. February 25, 1987 the NCAA punished the SMU Mustangs for "pay for play". SMU was one of the best college football teams at the time. It took years for SMU to rebound from the Death Penalty. They were stripped of scholarships, and two National Championships were vacated. Now nearly 30 years after the Death Penalty was used on SMU, there comes another team that deserves the Death Penalty.

Last Friday news surfaced that the New Orleans Saints inserted a "Bounty Program". Coach (Gregg Williams) and players put money into a pool for knocking players out of the game.  In 2009 when the Saints won the Super Bowl the money that was paid for knocking players out reached $50,000. A team source familiar with the investigation told SI.com that Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma offered $10,000 to any defensive player that knocked Favre out of the 2009 NFC Championship Game. It was pretty obvious that the intent was to take Brett out of the game, and it happened the week before with Kurt Warner, too.

Football is football. There will be hits, and even bigger hits, but trying to knock a player out of the game is bush league way to go about winning a game. The bounty put on Favre shows that the Saints knew they could not beat the Vikings, so they took cheap shots on Brett to knock him out. In the NFC Championship game the Vikings beat the Saints in every category, Farve nearly had twice as many passing yards as Drew Brees, Adrian Peterson had 122 rushing yards, yet the Saints took cheap shots to slow down Favre, and we all remember what happened after that.

For Viking fans it was bad enough that the referees came out a week later, and said there were calls that should of been called, and that pass interference against Chad Greenway in Overtime should not have been called, but now we get this news that the Saints put a bounty on Favre head, that just makes it even worse. The bounty does not just end with Favre and Warner, Tony Dungy said that Peyton Manning neck injuries started when Williams was the defensive coordinator for the Washington Redskins, and Peyton sustained a late hit against the Redskins in 2007.

If Roger Goodell wants to make this story go away, he needs to lay the hammer down, and now. Why is it in the NCAA you give memorabilia to a tattoo shop, and you lose championships, and wins are vacated; and when your school pays for your parents house you lose your Heisman Trophy, and the National Championship? Goodell should vacate all the Saints wins from 2009-present, and have the Saints give back the Super Bowl Trophy, and have those banners removed from the Superdome. We will never know who should have won the 2010 Super Bowl, because clearly the best two teams were the Indianapolis Colts, and the Minnesota Vikings, but the Saints cheated there way to the top, and cheater should pay the price for that. NFL please give the Saints the Death Penalty, and remove their next five 1st round picks in the draft, and remove that Super Bowl Trophy.