Mickey Loomis says that middle linebacker Jonathan Vilma is “still
a big part of our team,” but the Saints’ latest signing would suggest that the GM is blowing smoke.

The Saints signed free agent middle linebacker Curtis Lofton to a five-year deal on Saturday night and while the financial terms have yet to be released, chances are the former Falcon is being paid like a starter. (After all, he was the defensive captain for the past four years in Atlanta.)

My point is that the Saints didn’t sign him as an insurance policy for Vilma, or for emergency starts. Some have suggested that new defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo could use Lofton on the outside, but that’s a dangerous proposition for the Saints. L0fton is a solid two-down “thumper” in the middle of a 4-3 and that’s where he needs to play in order to be successful. Granted, he has improved his coverage skills since his rookie year in ‘08, but pass defense will never be one of his strengths. Thus, to expect him to hang with tight ends and running backs as a strong-side ‘backer isn’t a realistic option. (To strengthen my point, let me point out that the Falcons have been re-signing their own players left and right this offseason and yet decided to let Lofton walk. That’s because they plan to play more nickel under new DC Mike Nolan and thus, Lofton wasn’t worth the money to essentially be a two-down run-stuffer.)

Which leads me back to Vilma. Despite what Loomis says, there’s still a very good chance that Vilma has played his final down in New Orleans. The Saints will probably wait until they know the severity of his punishment for his involvement in the team’s “bounty program” before they do anything. But I doubt we’ll see Vilma and Lofton lining up in the same linebacker corps next season.

If Vilma is suspended for half the season, the Saints could try to trade him for a late round pick. I doubt another team would bite with Lofton already on the roster, but it’s worth it for the Saints to try and see. And if he’s only suspended four games, Vilma’s trade value obviously goes up, so there’s no reason to release him now.

But either way, Lofton is the team’s long-term answer at middle linebacker. Don’t let the Saints fool you into thinking otherwise.

On Wednesday the NFL suspended New Orleans Saints’ head coach Sean Payton for one year and former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams “indefinitely” for their roles in the team’s “bounty program.” General manager Mickey Loomis was also suspended without pay for the first eight games of the 2012 NFL season, assistant head coach Joe Vitt was suspended for the first six games of next season, and the team will lose its second-round pick in 2012 and its second-round pick in 2013. Below are four key takeaways from this scandal.

Goodell was harsh because he was lied to.
Remember back in 2007 when Roger Goodell threw the book at Michael Vick after the quarterback pled guilty to federal dog fighting charges? Part of the reason why Goodell was so harsh was because Vick admitted that he provided most of the money for the gambling side of the “Bid Newz Kennels” operation. But Goodell also dropped the hammer on Vick because the quarterback lied to his face about being involved with the scandal. The same thing happened with the Saints. Head coach Sean Payton lied to Goodell, Gregg Williams lied to Goodell, and assistant head coach Joe Vitt lied to Goodell. If the commish has taught us anything since he assumed office on September 1 of 2006 it’s that the NFL his league and he will go to extreme measures to protect its integrity. I fully admit that I was surprised by the rulings but once the league had enough evidence to convict the Saints of wrongdoing, you figured Goodell was going to rule with an iron fist. And I think it’s telling that Payton’s suspension doesn’t begin until April 1 when all NFL coaches have to attend a meeting on Monday for a coaches’ breakfast with the media. Think Goodell wants to send a message to Payton by having the suspended coach have to face the media that day?

Here’s the difference between the “bounty program” and “Spygate.
Five years ago the Patriots were found to have been videotaping the signals of opposing teams. Goodell fined Bill Belichick $500,000, fined the club $250,000, took away the Patriots’ first-round pick in 2008, and then had all of the documents from the scandal destroyed. As we came to find out, Belichick had been taping opponents’ signals since his days as a head coach in Cleveland and the “only” punishment New England received was essentially the loss of $750,000 and a first-round pick. So why did Goodell come down harder on the Saints than he did on the Patriots? Well, there are a couple of reasons. One, Goodell had just taken over as commissioner of the league when he doled out the punishment for the Patriots so he was still green at that point. It’s also widely known that he and Bob Kraft are very tight, so he wasn’t going to stick it to his buddy. But the biggest difference between the two, at least in my eyes, is that “Spygate” didn’t cost the league a dime. For the past three years Goodell has tried to make the NFL a safer game. And with more and more lawsuits emerging from former players, he has to be able to walk into a courtroom and say, ‘Hey, we’ve done everything we could to make our game safe.’ That message is awfully hard to convey when one of your coaches has a program in place to reward his players for taking out certain opponents. Not only did this bounty program scandal tarnish the league’s reputation and integrity, but it also had the potential to hit the NFL’s wallet down the line…repeatedly. And Goodell simply can’t have that.

This is only the first wave of punishment.
If you’re wondering why none of the Saints players have been suspended but their coaches and general manger did, just wait. This is more than likely just the first wave of punishments that Goodell will hand out. As the reported leader of the bounty program, Jonathan Vilma will probably receive a stiff punishment and you have to believe others will face discipline as well. It wasn’t just Vilma carrying out Williams’ “orders.”

Don’t make Shockey out to be “Deep Throat.”
As ESPN’s Pat Yasinskas points out, the NFL started investigating the Saints when they tried to take Brett Favre’s head off during the NFC title game in 2009. Tight end Jeremy Shockey, whom Warren Sapp said “snitched” to the league about the program, was playing for the Saints at the time. While Shockey may have ultimately told the NFL what he knew about the bounty program, he isn’t the reason the Saints eventually were investigated. Thus, there was no “snitch” here and for what it’s worth, Shockey has denied Sapp’s claims on his Twitter page.

ESPN’s John Clayton believes that the Saints’ “bounty program” is worse than Spygate. His colleague Ashley Fox writes that Sean Payton and Mickey Loomis deserve to be fired.

Others have stated that the program is a moral or ethical issue. They want to see Gregg Williams and Gregg Williams-types abolished from the game.

But the last time I checked, it’s not illegal to hit an opponent so hard that he gets carted off the field. It’s not illegal to put a shoulder pad into an opponents’ legs and force them from the game with an injury. Quarterbacks and ball-carriers know they’re going to be hit. It’s not like they signed up for beach volleyball and are now shocked that 6-foot-6, 280-pound defensive ends are coming to take their heads off.

It’s apparent to me that what’s wrong about the “bounty program” is the under-the-table compensation. NFL bylaws state that there are to be no non-contract bonuses and that, my friends, is the root of the issue. Everything else just makes for one dragged-through-the-mud discussion.

What’s funny is that defensive players are paid millions of dollars every year to hit, tackle, and otherwise inflict pain on opponents throughout the NFL season. Now some are up in arms because several Saints players were trying to knock Brett Favre out of the 2010 NFC championship game. If those people were being honest with themselves, they’d admit to not being upset about the act as much as they are with the monetary motivation. If the Saints didn’t have a bounty program in place and Darren Sharper came out after the game and said, ‘We were trying to take Brett Favre out. We knew we had to get to him in order to beat them,’ his comments wouldn’t be that jarring. Heck, what he said may have even been acceptable to some people who demand that the players they root for be tough and ferocious. But because there was bonus money in play, hey, now it’s an issue of ethics.

Look, I’m not trying to make light of the situation. Let me state for the record that I believe Williams’ program was wrong and that the Saints should be punished. Football is a violent game but the NFL has rules and Williams and the Saints broke one. Thus, if Roger Goodell wants to hinder other teams from using similar programs by taking away draft picks and suspending the men involved, then so be it. As a lifelong Falcons fan, I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing the Saints lose a couple of hundred draft picks over the next 10 years. (Maybe then Atlanta could finally shrink the gap between itself and New Orleans on the field.)

But if anything, this situation should be more embarrassing and ridiculous than one that needs to be sensationalized as an issue of moral fiber (or lack thereof). Think about it: the NFL and NFLPA are constantly trying to come up with new ways to make the game safer but in the meantime, their own players are putting bounties on one another. How undeniably absurd.

Furthermore, how stupid do these players have to be to participate in a program that could wind up costing them more in the long run? If I were a Saints player that saw Jonathan Vilma slap $10,000 on the table while stating “This goes to the man that takes out Brett Favre,” I would tell him thanks but no thanks. If he asked me why, I’d point out that fines for late hits range anywhere from $7,500 to $50,000. Thus, the math doesn’t add up.

Why not play the game aggressively and violently, and then let the chips fall where they may? Why even have a “bounty program?” I would think that being able to play the game legally for millions of dollars would be all the motivation that these athletes needed not to want to hurt one another. After all, isn’t the NFL supposed to be a brotherhood? I’m shocked somebody hasn’t told Williams that playing the game aggressively yet legally while trying to win was all the motivation they needed.

At the end of the day, a coach and his players decided to provide extra motivation for one another by coming up with an illegal program to reward themselves for hurting opponents in an already violent game. While other players and teams might have their own bounty programs in place, the Saints were the ones who were caught and now have to be punished. Even though the Saints wound up winning the Super Bowl, the entire thing was unnecessary and hopefully Williams sees the error in his ways.

Other than that, why inflate this situation into something bigger than what it is?