March 18^th – March 24^th

-Sean Payton Suspended for a Full Season (March 21^st): New Orleans Saints Head Coach Sean Payton was suspended for the entirety of the 2012 NFL season. The move by the NFL brass was in response to the “bounty program” which New Orleans ran for three years, rewarding defensive players for injuring opponents. As I’ve mentioned before, the ENTIRE NFL is a bounty program, which rewards players who are particularly aggressive in physically punishing their opponents with million dollar contracts. “Clean” plays lead to injuries all the time. I still doubt that a player can consciously try to hurt someone; the game is too quick and instinctual. No one has produced evidence of any incident where a Saints player intentionally hurt someone. If this program was so overt and dangerous, wouldn’t there be some evidence? Regardless, the NFL came down hard on the Saints, taking away their second round draft picks for the next two years, fining them 500k, and removing their head coach for a complete season. Many are crying foul, claiming that regardless of how malicious the bounty program was, the punishment was much too extreme. And it’s true, the actions of the commissioner, the bull-headed Roger Goodell, are almost unprecedented. Then again, are the Saints really in that much trouble without Payton? Not a single player was punished in any way. And in the end, the players will decide how well the Saints will do come fall and the start of the season. I think it can be argued that football coaches are the least important of the sports coaches; but even if they aren’t, they certainly rely on their assistants more than the coaches of any other sport. (Maybe soccer does. I don’t know shit about soccer. I don’t want to.) Hell, most head football coaches don’t even call any plays. NFL coaches are like CEOs. They make the final call on major personnel decisions, influence the “culture” of the business, and oversee many things at once. Yet, these people are rarely ever hands on. CEOs and football coaches are closer to figureheads. The sheer volume of the people underneath them requires delegation and impersonal relations with those who do the work. When things are good, the CEO gets credit. When things are bad, the CEO gets blamed. But the day in, day out mechanics of a corporation or an NFL team are decided by a shifting network of hierarchical managers. The Saints players, save for quarterback Drew Brees, who has a very close relationship with Payton, will likely experience much the same season, even without Payton at the helm. That’s something else to be considered: there will still be a coach. I am not proposing that the quality of the coach doesn’t matter, and a shift in leadership can easily bring about problems, but because this is a temporary suspension (only one season), and everyone knows Payton will come back for the 2013 season, the Saints’ season will likely go on as usual. The interim coach will likely be tasked with keeping things status quo. The very notion that a team is doomed without their coach, regardless of the sport, is ridiculous. Do you think anyone will look at the Saints, a professional football team full of 300 pound athletes, frothing at the mouth in their monstrosity, and think they will be an easy opponent because their little white coach with the clipboard has been replaced by some other little white coach with a clipboard? I sure don’t.

-Jason Smith Hip-Checks Blake Griffin (March 22^nd): This is a pretty easy video to find. And most casual fans will look at the play in a very narrow way. After all, it’s Blake Griffin, dunk champion of the earth, one of the NBA’s golden geese, getting brutally attacked by a no-namer on a bad team. The word “goon” has been thrown around to describe Jason Smith. It seems to be one of the more disgusting stereotypes attributed to hard-nosed, less-athletic white guys: that they are willing to go after the best player on the other team (usually a black player). There is, unfortunately, some history to back this up. Bill Laimbeer comes to mind. But the image of the white bruiser going after the black superstar isn’t a singular phenomenon. Weren’t Dennis Rodman and Kurt Thomas insanely dirty in their heyday? In the heat of the moment, all sorts of players, representing all sorts of racial groups, do reprehensible things on the court. Without excusing his actions, Jason Smith’s flagrant foul should be taken in context. He was having an excellent game by his standards, 17 points and 8 rebounds, so he was probably more pumped-up than usual. He was playing on his team’s home court, feeding off the energy of the fans. Blake Griffin, who has made it his goal from the moment he stepped on the court for his first NBA game to embarrass anyone and everyone with his thunderous dunks, was out on a fast break. Further, Smith’s hapless Hornets were actually winning the game with four minutes left in the fourth. Smith committed a hard foul to assure that Griffin would not pull off another brilliant dunk and turn the momentum of the game. It wasn’t “goonlike” and it certainly had nothing to do with race. It was clearly a flagrant foul worthy of an ejection, but it wasn’t all that dangerous or outwardly malicious. Football players get knocked to the ground at full speed almost every play. Wait a minute…the Hornets are from New Orleans. The Saints. The Hornets. IT’S A BOUNTY PROGRAM! BRING ME THE HEAD OF MONTY WILLIAMS!