Monday, March 5, 2012

Where do you stand on "BountyGate"???

Let's talk about the biggest story of the off-season....No, not Peyton Manning and his probably divorce from longtime significant other Indianapolis Colts due to the drafting of "once in a decade" phenom Andrew Luck. Nope, not Eli Manning winning his 2nd Superbowl and possibly stepping ahead of brother Peyton for ranking in QB history or even that Eli now has twice beaten the Patriots and damaged Golden Boy Tom Brady's legacy. We are talking about Greg Williams, Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints players enacting a injury bounty for taking other teams best players out of games.

The examples being discussed are that of Kurt Warner which was hit and knocked out of the NFC championship a couple years ago against the Saints and then Brett Favre who was destroyed in his final game against the Saints on their way to the Superbowl. Favre was hit over 20 times in that game yet only 1 flag was thrown. The hits were vicious, tactile, well planned out, LEGAL HITS. In that last year Favre had played in over 250 games or something, in case you don't know, THAT'S AN INSANELY HUGE NUMBER, ESPECIALLY FOR AN NFL QUARTERBACK. Favre is prone to throw balls into tight coverage and make some spectacular plays but conversely have some dumb interceptions. The Saints did EXACTLY what 90% of other teams would do and tried to do, put pressure on Favre, that's what you do in football.

I really think this is getting blown out of proportion in some ways because of the terms being used and people not as familiar as they should be with football to voice their opinion. When you say the word "bounty" it just has a negative connotation to it. I CERTAINLY DO NOT AGREE WITH TRYING TO BE DIRTY, BREAK RULES AND END A PLAYERS CAREER OR EVEN SEASON. What i'm saying is so far today I have heard numerous football players speak out today and say they all had a system of payment and recognition in place for the defensive side of the ball. And every one of them said the same thing.....as long as it is done within the framework of the rules and game then there is NOTHING wrong with this. Did they word it wrong by saying injure players/hurt guys? Yeah, I think they did. But.....isn't that the idea in every team sport in one way or another. In baseball you want to work the count to get the starting pitcher out of the game, in basketball you want to draw fouls to get in the bonus and get the other teams better players off the court and in football.....

SO, what is your take? Is this all just disgusting and cross the line for you, or is it just part of the game?

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