Paul Tagliabue Exonerates Saints Players Involved in Bountygate Scandal
By Josh Hill
There’s the term nostalgia, which means we like to look back on things and remember them fondly because they’ve already happened. I constantly hear people say that they wish Nirvana was still around, or that Monty Python would get back together, but really what that is, is nothing more than a plea to be young again. Paul Tagliabue coming on to the bounty-gate case seemed nostalgic at best, but for those involved, he was more a breath of fresh air and a saving grace above anything else.
After meeting with the players, assessing the evidence and gathering all the information he could, former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue came back for a one show reunion with himself as an NFL decision maker and ruled that the Saints players facing punishment for their actions in the pay-for-play scandal didn’t do enough things wrong to warrant the example that was being made out of them.
He has exonerated them of all punishment — at least we think that’s the case.
As much as the NFL wants to flex it’s muscles as being the one professional league with it’s ducks in a row, the bounty-gate scandal has been so mishandled that Bud Selig is currently the best professional sports commissioner in America.
And I don’t want to live in that world.
From the very start, the bounty-gate scandal was botched. The suspensions came to fast and too hard, the evidence wasn’t properly filed (assuming it even existed in the capacity the NFL claims it did) and the unnecessary tension created out of all that was just too much to handle. The NFL is on a crusade for player safety but in doing to they forgot to watch out for themselves.
It’s not the first time a leader who has come into power has become tyrannical. It’s historical really, guy comes into power, has really good intentions but goes about those intentions all wrong and before you know it we’re living in a Star Wars prequel movie.
And I don’t want to live in that world.
Tagliabue played Obi-Wan Kneobi in all this, and basically pandered to both sides like an elementary school principal. One the one hand, he said the NFL was way to harsh on the punishments given the evidence they had. But on the other hand he said the players involved still did something wrong and probably did have a pay-for-play system in place.
All in all, both sides are right while still being wrong and like the stupid rule book in the NFL, those penalties are offsetting, replay the previous down at the previous spot of the ball.