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Roman Harper #41, Jabari Greer #33 and Jonathan Vilma #51 of the New Orleans Saints celebrate breaking up a third down pass during the third quarter of the NFC Divisional playoff game against the San Francisco 49ers at Candlestick Park on January 14, 2012 in San Francisco, California.
(January 13, 2012 – Source: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images North America)

(PhatzRadio / AP) — The hit Roger Goodell delivered on Jonathan Vilma on Wednesday was the kind he accuses Vilma of encouraging — a season-ending blow.

The NFL commissioner suspended the New Orleans Saints middle linebacker for the entire 2012 season and dinged three other players for as much as a half-season for their participation in a bounty system.

The severity of the suspensions surprised even players in other sports.

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“Wow, that’s tough,” New York Knicks forward Steve Novak said. “Point made, I guess.”

And making a point is the point: In an era when players make so much money that fines can seem as trivial as parking tickets, leagues are getting tough by issuing long-term suspensions, without pay.

“Players can pay the fines, no problem,” ESPN NFL analyst and former coach Herm Edwards said, “but when you start taking them off the field … they have to answer for it in the locker room.”

Suspensions have rocked other sports in recent weeks as well. The NHL suspended Phoenix Coyotes winger Raffi Torres for 25 games, one of the longest in NHL history, for a hit deemed high and late. And the NBA suspended Los Angeles Lakers forward Metta World Peace for seven games for a high elbow.

“Game suspensions are far more meaningful than simple monetary fines,” said Peter Finley, an assistant professor of sport and recreation management at Nova Southeastern University. “The players want to be on the field. … In terms of dollars, they brush off a lot of that.”

Torres and World Peace are repeat offenders whose latest suspensions came after taking shots at opponents’ heads. The Saints are accused of running a system where players could get paid for hits knocking opponents out of games, including blows to the head. All this comes as evidence mounts that concussions and repeated sub-concussive blows can lead to terrible health consequences later in life.

Goodell’s backers see Wednesday’s suspensions as a bold statement that player safety is paramount in the NFL. His critics say the suspensions are an unfair reaction to the more than 60 lawsuits filed by former players alleging that the NFL didn’t adequately protect its players, including a suit last month that cited the Saints’ bounty system.

“People are going to question Roger: He was too tough. He wasn’t tough enough,” said agent David Falk, most famous for representing Michael Jordan. “It’s a very difficult posture for Roger to take, but I think it’s the correct one.”

Goodell previously suspended Saints coach Sean Payton for a year and former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams indefinitely for their part in the bounty system.

“Listen, if you want to play in the NFL, you better do what a coach says,” former Saints quarterback Bobby Hebert said. “I take the approach that none of the players should have been suspended because of that.

“The reason why Roger is so concerned with player safety is he’s trying to cover the owners’ and the league’s behind. … If they truly cared about player safety, they would have done something about this 20 years ago.”

Sports USA NFL Radio analyst Ross Tucker, a former offensive lineman, questioned the length of the player penalties: “Honestly, they could cut every one of these suspensions in half and it would accomplish the same (thing). Roger always says club executives are going to be held to an even higher standard. It seems to me that the players have been held to the exact same standard.”

New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning backed Goodell: “I think he’s doing the right thing to make sure that this doesn’t happen ever again. … I think he’s been harsh to try to make a statement saying there is no place for this in the game of football.”

ESPN’s Mike Golic, who played defensive tackle in the NFL for nine seasons, said knocking quarterbacks out of games with legal hits is just football. But he also thinks suspensions are the most effective deterrents: “Everybody wants to play. Playing time is key. When you can’t be there for your team, it’s a horrible feeling.”

Increasing consequences

NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan said during the all-star break that short-term suspensions can still be effective.

“I still believe in one- or two-game suspensions,” he said. “I’ve had hearings with players where there’s been no suspension and we’ll get off the phone and say, ‘We’re never going to hear from that guy again.’ Just with a warning. I’ve also given out multi-game suspensions and we get off the phone and say, ‘We’ll see him again.’ ”

Torres is the sort of recidivist Shanahan was talking about. Last season, Torres was suspended four games for elbowing. This season, he was fined the maximum $2,500 for another elbow — and the same day he was fined, he charged Minnesota’s Nate Prosser, which earned him a two-game suspension.

Then, in the playoffs, came Torres’ devastating hit on the Blackhawks’ Marian Hossa, who was carried off on a stretcher.

NHL rules specify harsher penalties for repeat offenders. If a player has no suspensions in the previous 18 months, his lost pay is based on the number of days in the season. If there’s a second suspension within 18 months, it’s based on the number of games in the season — 82.

Here’s what that means in practice: When Edmonton Oilers defenseman Andy Sutton was suspended for five games in November for an illegal hit to the head, it cost him about $11,500 a game. When he got an eight-game suspension for charging in December, the cost was nearly $26,000 a game.

Paying and playing

Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Harrison is the poster boy for Goodell’s on-field safety enforcement. Harrison knocked out two Cleveland Browns with concussions in a game in 2010 and was fined $75,000 for one of the hits. Additional questionable hits, and additional fines, followed — including a helmet-to-helmet hit against Browns quarterback Colt McCoy last season that got him a 15-yard penalty and a one-game suspension.

“I was suspended on a hit where there was no way I could have done anything else,” Harrison said. “If you slow it down to one-tenth speed, then it looks bad, like I could have avoided it. In real time, it can’t be.

“A guy goes out and happens to make helmet-to-helmet contact? By the letter of the rule, it’s wrong. But to suspend guys and fine them these crazy amounts of money, I don’t know.”

Harrison said the suspension made him less aggressive at first. “(But) I felt like I was putting myself at risk. If you hesitate on the football field, you can get your knee blown out. You can’t play the game. … When it comes down to it, I don’t want to get hurt and I don’t want to hurt anybody else.”

Harrison did hurt Broncos receiver Eric Decker in a January playoff game when Decker sprained the medial collateral ligament in his left knee on a play over the middle.

“I could’ve hit him high, and I probably would’ve gotten fined or suspended,” Harrison said. “I hit him low, and his knee is injured. If it’s me coming across the middle (as a receiver), I want him to hit me high. Maybe I know with head injuries, in the long run it can be life-threatening. But a knee injury can be life-threatening, too.”

“And for some guys, this is all they can do. Think about a guy who’s married, with kids. How is he going to support his family?”

Suspensions of the sort Goodell meted out Wednesday have meaning beyond missed games and missed paychecks.

“It has financial ramifications in the short run, but in the long run it also impacts marketing and branding,” said David Carter, executive director of the Southern California Sports Business Institute, “and whether they ever get into the Hall of Fame.”

Colorado Rockies first baseman Todd Helton played quarterback at Tennessee and he doesn’t understand the math of a bounty system: “Say you knock somebody out and you get $5,000, but then you get fined $75,000. I’ve got to talk to my accountant, but that doesn’t make any sense to me. That should be a deterrent in itself.”

Contributing: Jarrett Bell, Mike Brehm, Robert Klemko, Michael McCarthy, Gary Mihoces, Bob Nightengale, Tom Pedulla, Jon Saraceno, Kelly Whiteside and Jeff Zillgitt.

Sports: Does the punishment stop the crime in sports? is a post from: PhatzRadio.com

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