Sound Off: Is Roger Goodell Going Too Far?

[LIGHTNING]

I think they should eliminate the three point stance to protect the linemen and maybe even the helmet because it does NOT protect the brain and only encourages violent contact. Did you know the brain is surrounded and floats on fluid and when you just run and stop the frontal lobe will contact the skull? When a player is tackled and hit the frontal lobe can crash into skull causing injury that if not permitted to heal can lead to development of a fatal brain disease called encephalopathy, which causes Alzheimer or ALS like symptoms if the brain stem is involved. This is a serious life threatening issue. Playing football is very risky. BTW my father died from ALS in 1997 possibly caused by boxing when he was young.

The NFL should do every thing it can to reduce risk to players because there is no cure for this horrible disease.

[da ThRONe]

Quote: Originally Posted by Brandon13

I am a Saints fan so I do carry a certain level of bias, but to be clear, I do not deny that under Gregg Williams the Saints appear to have run a pay-for-performance system. There also may have been a $10,000 bounty placed upon Favre in the '09 NFCC (though it is interesting that Vilma has so vehemently denied this, up to the point of personally suing Goodell for defamation). If the latter occurred, it should be punished rather severely. But I am not convinced that Goodell possesses the mountain of evidence within his 50,000 documents that backs up his claim that Saints' players systematically participated in a bounty system throughout Williams tenure in New Orleans. And slowly, more and more people in the media are asking questions about the lack of evidence. It makes little sense to me for Goodell to ask for NFLPA input on the severity of player suspensions if his evidence is strong and backs up all of his Bountygate claims. With NFLPA support, I suspect that the players' penalties may have been less severe, and it would have allowed Goodell to close the book on Bountygate without further inquiries into the evidence. As it is, the union did not accept a plea deal with the league without any evidence of the offenses and Goodell came down harshly on Vilma and co. In addition, the league clearly misrepresented the content of Anthony Hargrove's sworn statement. Why? Why misrepresent his statement if the mountain of evidence exists, and instead choose to battle the union through the media? Those things, coupled with the lack of actual evidence that has been publicly released does give me pause, and makes me believe that Goodell may have gone too far.

Well said.

The one thing life has thought me is when people are fearful of transparency they're almost always trying to hide something.

As far as the rules of the sport mandatory padding and mouth guards are cool with me. Removing the kickoff is far to much. I think they should be looking at adding by weeks and expanding the game day rosters if they are really serious about player safety. If you had an additional 8-12 players dressing you could have guys out there solely for special teams.

[goh]

Pad etc. I'm not really sure on.

Kick-offs? No. Wasn't that long ago the Bears got to the Super Bowl on kick-off and punt returns. Giants got there last year on two that were buggered up. And of course this:



What he needs to do is start kicking out some of these thugs like James Harrision.

[Feared]

Just a gut feeling, nothing really to back this up yet, but I have a feeling that the Saints won't be the only fan base to completely despise Roger Goodell by the time his tenure is up.

I have a feeling he's going to royally screw over a few more teams in the future.

[da ThRONe]

Quote: Originally Posted by Feared

Just a gut feeling, nothing really to back this up yet, but I have a feeling that the Saints won't be the only fan base to completely despise Roger Goodell by the time his tenure is up. I have a feeling he's going to royally screw over a few more teams in the future.

Honestly I don't hate Goodell. If we are really guilty and the league can prove it I think we got away fairly easy. What I don't like is the whole hypocrisy of player safety when we know it all comes down to money. The league bascially made the players choose between player safety and money and the leagues control over the players. That's not a group that's concern with player safety.

[Feared]

Quote: Originally Posted by da ThRONe

Honestly I don't hate Goodell. If we are really guilty and the league can prove it I think we got away fairly easy. What I don't like is the whole hypocrisy of player safety when we know it all comes down to money. The league bascially made the players choose between player safety and money and the leagues control over the players. That's not a group that's concern with player safety.

Seems like the recent urgency to implement all these "Player Safety" pre-cautions, is so that the League can cover their own butt from Former Players suing over their condition of health after playing. So now they can claim they are doing everything to protect the players, but some of things they are doing is going overboard.

[da ThRONe]

Quote: Originally Posted by Feared

Seems like the recent urgency to implement all these "Player Safety" pre-cautions, is so that the League can cover their own butt from Former Players suing over their condition of health after playing. So now they can claim they are doing everything to protect the players, but some of things they are doing is going overboard.

See that's the thing that keeps getting over looked. Old players are suing because they claim the NFL purposely witheld knowledge about the long term affects of concussions. Either the league did or didn't withold vital infomation. Nothing the league does now has any barring on the lawsuit. This is more of a PR thing and they are trying to make it seem like the retired players are just suing out of spite. It's like a magician uses sleight of hand tricks.

[TheMatrix31]

Quote: Originally Posted by Feared

Just a gut feeling, nothing really to back this up yet, but I have a feeling that the Saints won't be the only fan base to completely despise Roger Goodell by the time his tenure is up. I have a feeling he's going to royally screw over a few more teams in the future.

He didn't "royally screw" anybody.

The Saints screwed themselves.