If the league does indeed possess a "ledger" detailing players' payments for big plays and big hits as part of the New Orleans Saints' "bounty" program, you'd think this would be bad news for Jonathan Vilma. The linebacker received a one-season ban from the NFL for his role in the Saints' pay-for-performance scheme, and his contention that there's no evidence to tie him to "bounty" payouts plays a key role in both his suspension appeal and the defamation lawsuit he's filed against NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. And while the idea of a ledger might seem like bad news for Vilma, the veteran used his Twitter account on Saturday to laugh off the reports. "I've been asking the nfl for evidence for 2mos and got nothin but somehow a ledger gets "leaked"...and the leak was wrong! lol I love it. Source: NFL.com
the "legder leak" said that 3 payments were made for the '09 bills game... 3 bills defensive players were hurt in that game and 1 offensive player, but the ledger doesn't say who that player is, nor how they got hurt so the "leaker" then sends jason cole (Yahoo) a message that "oops we screwed up"... then they say the correct game was actually the carolina game but in that game only person got "carted off"....thomas davis, and he blew his knee out on a non-contact play when he was back-peddling. link
Vilma is probably right. The NFL went after him with no hard proof. All of this is bogus and they just randomly chose a player to make an example out of.
If Goodell hecked up and Vilma manned up and called his bluff, Goodell is in for an absolute crap storm.
i think that's exactly what happened.... 1. godell is being threatened with all these lawsuits over safety of players 2. whispers of a "pay for performance" program surface from an "unnamed source" 3. he jumps the gun and ban-hammers before solid evidence is found 4. vilma calls his bluff 5. godell craps himself
SF72 for Vilma's sake you better hope it happened from 1-5, somehow I don't think Goodell is one to leave his butt bare in the breeze, one thing for sure is he's NOT stupid and he has lawyers up the yin yang to research all this crap before penalties went down but I guess we'll find out sooner or later...
It's like taking on an Evil Empire, the NFL's arrogance makes them think it's end game. Goodell opened up this can of worms...all I know is it's given us something else to talk about besides camp rumors that really fuel's people's ire. Thank you Roger!
All Vilma can do @ this point is laugh it off...he's committed himself to a lawsuit he can't possibly win and just like Sweets stated: "I don't think Goodell is one to leave his butt bare in the breeze, one thing for sure is he's NOT stupid and he has lawyers up the yin yang to research all this crap before penalties went down" Goodell has proven he doesn't levy fines and suspension without evidence.
Goodell, for all his faults, is not a stupid man, and is surrounded by some of the best legal teams that money can buy. I highly doubt he would have moved on this bounty crap and Vilma if he didn't have the evidence backing it up and the law on his side.
Same as when all the clubs were crying about not making money but refused to open their books to prove it? They wanted us to take their word and that is it. So forgive me if I don't just take someone's word about things dealing with the NFL.
