I am speechless. I mean, except for all that follows. Speechless. This lunatic gibbering bubbling out of the NFL front office is just….gibbering lunacy.
I seriously am starting to wonder: is this all a joke? Because it’s not funny any more, Roger. Or rather…yeah, it is. In fact, it’s fucking hilarious. I finally get it. You can’t be serious.
The fact is, we’re going to have to get Mel Gibson to play Roger in the movie, because Goodell is fucking insane. On two counts: first, for overseeing the mental afterbirth that is the league’s case against the Saints; and second, for offering it to the public, for thinking anyone outside of his media harem is going to buy into this mess.
I can say that now, because yesterday the NFL finally released the evidence it had for use at the players’ appeal, in the form of two PDFs (note: these are large files). I’ve gone through both of those, but I should have waited for Dave Cariello’s thorough and sober (I hate that word) analysis. If you have any questions regarding what’s in the PDFs, go see Dave before anything else.
Don’t do this just before driving or operating heavy machinery.
What we’re treated to here is a seemingly random selection of bad graphics, stupid sayings, and truly juvenile rhetoric that can seriously depress your opinion of professional athletes if you think for a moment that they took it seriously. But it’s more than that: it’s also tendency charts, play sheets, and miscellaneous notes on players and schemes: in other words, filler. Remember that stack of 50,000 documents? Well, these PDFs represent the 200 pages the NFL prepared for the appeal, and by my count 163 of them have NOTHING to do with the Saints’ performance pool. They are nothing but padding.
I think if this represents the best of what the NFL had to offer, the actual count isn’t 37 pages out of 200…it’s 37 out of 50,000. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those other “documents” are empty Juicy Fruit wrappers.
Still: the Saints did have a performance pool; that much is obvious. Thing is, we’ve been admitting that for months. Fine, we did it, get out the paddle. Fine us ten times the money that changed hands and let’s be done with it. Call Sean Payton back and let us get back to the business of kicking every ass in the NFL.
But no can do, because mean words. One chart shows that the Saints had something called “kill the heads.” Whatever that was. Jonathan Vilma led the team in 2010, with 62 of them. Then there were the “whacks.” Roman Harper led this category, with 15 whacks for the season. So…are these bodies on the turf? Did they all occur during commercial breaks? Is Jonathan Vilma the greatest mass murderer in Haitian history? Because I don’t think the guy is getting the proper credit, Roger. Crank up that media machine.
This brings up a very important question: why wasn’t Roman Harper suspended? All those “whacks”? Surely that’s significant. And Malcolm Jenkins, Scott Shanle, Sedrick Ellis, and Harper all had more “kill the heads” than Will Smith, who was suspended. What’s the reasoning here?
It must all boil down to evidence of actual payments for injuries, and that brings us to what will soon be known as The Infamous Transcript. This is—I am not making this up—a typewritten transcription of unreleased handwritten notes. That’s right: the notes were not released. Not even photocopies of them…just a transcript thoughtfully provided by the trustworthy folks at 330 Madison Avenue. Now I know why Jeff Duncan is all googly-eyed at Roger’s sleight of hand: he can type up his own transcript of notes from the Pulitzer committee and award himself a couple of those babies, no questions asked. Because a transcript is the same as real evidence, right?
Seriously, this is like calling a drawing of a fingerprint evidence.
Predictably enough, media whores like Jeff Duncan and Mike Freeman were duly impressed by such evidence. (If we’re blind homers, what are they? Blind homeless? This is better?) To be honest, I’m tired of donating bandwidth to them. Go read the articles if you wish, but I’m not going to waste any more time or virtual ink pointing out the abject, unreasoning pig-ignorance of these semi-anthropoids. I have more pleasurable things to do, like listening to Willow Smith, or shaving with a hayfork.
But I will enjoy casting them in the movie.
Jeez, not even a thousand words and I’ve run out of things to say. Like I told you: speechless.
SaintsW1nJune 19, 2012 at 12:25 pm
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Now that is an epic photoshop, and one that you’ll be hard-pressed to top this year. Too good :-D
The article was pretty damn good too.
The Angry Who DatJune 19, 2012 at 1:15 pm
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Yeah. Best photoshop yet, no doubt.
WhoDatNanJune 19, 2012 at 1:30 pm
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What makes you think it’s photoshop? I kinda think this is what happens when he’s not in front of a camera.
Breesus Christ SuperstarJune 19, 2012 at 2:20 pm
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You are the photoshop master.
Yeah, besides confirming that this is the biggest non scandal railroading in the history of professional sports, the released info really opened my eyes to the sad level of intellect in a Nfl locker room. I know you are supposed to speak to the level of your audience, and if that is the case in these presentations, then there might really be something to the concussion issue.
Breesus Christ SuperstarJune 19, 2012 at 2:25 pm
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Please post that photoshop around the web.
HimselfJune 19, 2012 at 2:37 pm
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Why not just post a link on CSC? Dave might even front-page it, depending on how he feels about this.
David KellyJune 19, 2012 at 3:29 pm
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I posted it on the front page at CSC. I’m pretty sure Dave won’t mind and probably would have done it himself if he had seen it. I also tweeted the post.
Goodell’s henchmen will see it and probably come after you now. Better erase your computer and shred all of your documents. It’ll be your reputation and good name they come after next.
FriarBobJune 19, 2012 at 2:35 pm
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Media harem… hah! That’s almost as good as the photoshop!
Saintskid26June 19, 2012 at 3:39 pm
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The tides are starting to turn. The media is getting angry with this buffoon.
HimselfJune 19, 2012 at 3:56 pm
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Only some of the media. There are still plenty out there with press passes and permanent refills on their antibiotics.
FriarBobJune 19, 2012 at 4:44 pm
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I know most of you probably loathe Mike Florio, but you might want to consider listening to his ProFootballTalk Live show from today. Especially in segment three in which he interviews Vilma’s lawyer… and he gives a great explanation for the “kill the head” crap, and the $35K vs $10K vs I didn’t offer anything storyline.
As for “kill the head”, he does admit that it’s unwise and offensive language. But he claims it’s not actually illegal or even flag-worthy, much less suspension-worthy. The term supposedly just means “tackle them sideways”, such that a players north-south forward momentum goes splat and they find themselves on the ground facing east-west. Which, frankly, Vilma was very good at. I can easily believe that he led the team in that statistical category in 2010. And he makes an excellent point that he was one of the least penalized players on the entire team during that season. So either he was VERY good at getting away with illegal hits despite the NFL reviewing the game-tape afterwards… or this piece of “evidence” is indeed a total joke. And a bad one at that.
And the best part of all is the so-called “two 5-stacks” claim. Supposedly this was a handwritten memo of the events in that locker room then later typed out by the NFL to protect the identity of the source. If it was Mike Cerullo, too late. Everybody knows all about him. But this “evidence” also has major flaws. Including that Charles Grant was on IR already. He couldn’t have been in that room to put money on the table, even in jest. Yet his name appears on this “ledger”. And then Ginsberg also points out that this “evidence” was supposedly written up by Cerullo after he was fired. This means that at the bare minimum months went by before he wrote up his “recollections” of what “happened” in that locker room. How many of you can recall every single word at a work meeting five days ago? Anybody? How many of you can even get the general gist of the topic of discussion correct? Some, perhaps, but not many. And that’s assuming he decided to do this shortly after he was fired. But he supposedly has blamed the Saints brass for the fact he couldn’t get another NFL job. How long did he search for another NFL job? How long before he became bitter and angry about his failure to do so? How much longer before he decided to take revenge?
If you can remember, accurately, every word of a meeting that happened three years ago, stand up and be counted. You are one of a minority so small that it could probably be counted on the thumbs of one hand.
BountyFarce is right. This whole situation is a total and complete farce.
FriarBobJune 19, 2012 at 5:09 pm
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Oops a meeting that was two years ago. Same difference though. Few enough can remember that for a meeting two hours ago.
FriarBobJune 19, 2012 at 5:06 pm
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Oh and just for kicks, Hargrove has now claimed the voice (supposedly) saying “Bobby, give me my money!” wasn’t his, despite the NFL’s claim to the contrary.
The sad thing is, even if the statement was actually made and accurately transcribed from the tape (which is also debatable), if they can’t even figure out correctly who said it that’s yet another reason to call this a total farce. Because if they can’t figure out who said it you have no idea WHY he said it, and you have no idea what that person actually MEANT by it. It could very easily simply mean Bobby was holding some cash for the other player and he wanted to go to the snack machine to buy a snack.
Better yet, we now have a clear and unambiguous claim of “not guilty” that can actually be subjected to forensic testing. Put that voice — if it even exists at all — on the computer with voice samples from Hargrove and prove whether he actually said it or not. If he didn’t, now HE has room for a defamation lawsuit against Goodell as well.
David KellyJune 19, 2012 at 5:12 pm
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I suspect Hargrove was an easy target for them considering his past troubles and the fact he was suspended for a year back in 2008 I think. Because of his past, he must be guilty, right? At least that’s what I think the league believed.
Saint-SlyJune 19, 2012 at 6:33 pm
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Hello all, this is the funniest shit I have ever seen and heard. It really took some brain power to put it all together. Three months and Stephen Spielburg’s mind was at work here to put together some of the best crap I ever seen because Gregg Williams could not have been that stupid. Well, I’m wrong………..I guess he was that stupid. Looks to me like a game that needs a app for all of us to play. Looked like fun to me………….