SEATTLE — What a week it was in the NFL.
Locally, the Seattle Seahawks made a big splash by signing Matt Flynn, the top quarterback on the free agent market not named Peyton Manning. And speaking of the former Colts great, Manning Watch 2012 finally came to an end a day later when he picked Denver as his new home. That, of course, set off a new wave of Tebowmania as the quarterback who only two months earlier was leading his team to a playoff victory was now expendable.
On Wednesday, two days after Manning grabbed headlines, Tim Tebow was traded to the Jets. No wait, the trade hit a snag, now Tebow could end up in Jacksonville. Never mind, he’s going to New York after all. And on that same day, perhaps the biggest offseason story of all was back in the news as the NFL came down hard on the New Orleans Saints for the bounty system the defense used for years under defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, which offered bonuses to players for injuring opponents.
From Flynn to Manning to Tebow to the Saints, it was one wild week as the NFL dominated sports headlines. And ohbytheway, it’s March, otherwise known as the middle of the NFL offseason. During a time of year when the NBA and NHL are in the middle of their seasons, when major league baseball is about to begin, and when the NCAA Tournament is in full swing, the lead story on SportsCenter, the chatter on sports radio, it was all about the NFL.
And while the timing of the league’s punishment may be a coincidence, the harsh sanctions handed down are not entirely unrelated to fact that the NFL was dominating headlines even though the next meaningful games are almost six months away.
This past week was a reminder of just how massively popular the NFL has become, and commissioner Roger Goodell dropping the hammer on the Saints, their head coach Sean Payton (suspended a year), and Williams (the Rams’ defensive coordinator was suspended indefinitely) showed he will do whatever it takes to protect the money-making monster the league has become.
We’d be naive to think that bounties have never happened in the NFL, or that no other teams were doing it as recently as last season, But New Orleans was the team that got caught, and for a league that has already has a big issue on its hands with player safety, this was Goodell’s chance to make an example of the 2010 champs.
Goodell is well aware of how the NFL dominates the American sports scene, but he also knows that as we learn more about the long-term effects of head injuries, as the public hears more and more stories of former players dying young, and as more and more former players join in lawsuits against the league, the league has a dilemma on its hands.
The NFL is so popular in large part because of its violence, but the powers that be don’t want it to get too violent. Will the penalties imposed actually prevent more injuries? That’s hard to say, but probably not to a very large degree. But what it will do is remind teams that you don’t mess with the commissioner, and that you really don’t want to lie to him after the fact if you’ve been caught. If the NFL is going to stay on top for a long, long time, the league has to do everything it can to make it at least a little bit safer.
It’s a very fine line for a game that glorifies big hits, but one Goodell has been trying to walk in recent years. It’s a tough spot for the NFL. Bounties are unambiguously wrong, but with or without them, players are going to continue to suffer injuries with serious short and long-term consequences.
“You can’t stop violent hits in a violent sport!!!” Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor wrote on Twitter not long after the league handed out its punishment to the Saints.
And Chancellor of all people knows about the dilemma facing the NFL. He’s a player who is revered by Seahawks fans for his physical play, and he went to the Pro Bowl this year as a hard-hitting safety. But Chancellor was also fined twice this year for big hits that, while violent, didn’t look particularly malicious. To make matters worse, one of those hits was used in a highlight montage leading up to Seattle’s game against Philadelphia which was being shown on the NFL Network. That’s right, same league that fined Chancellor for a big hit turned around and used it to promote a game on its network.
Right or wrong, the league will continue to take a hard stance on violence. Sometimes it will be well-deserved, as is the case with the Saints, and sometimes it will leave us scratching our heads. But with the NFL being so popular that it dominates headlines even in March, Goodell isn’t taking any chances with the image of his league. He got that point across loud and clear Wednesday.
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com.
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