Anthony Hargrove suspended 8 games

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...ion-was-submitted-to-the-league-by-the-nflpa/

Could this get anymore complicated?

I have no idea what all that stuff means. Can someone put in dummy terms?

me either.

Now back to your regularly scheduled Farve hissing contest.

For those tired about rehashing Favre and the Favre-made-mess skip this post. Here’s a brief review of the foolishness advanced by this poster. In his first post on this thread he called Hargrove’s signing Thompson’s third major mistake. According to him, the others where drafting Justin Harrell and trading his hero, Favre.

Hargrove was signed for the veteran’s minimum with no signing bonus. The Packers could waive him at any time, suspended or not. They are out of pocket not one red cent. If the Packers retain his rights, Hargrove will not count against the roster until he is activated. Thompson took absolutely no risk in signing Hargrove and Hargrove accepted that deal because he was subject to being suspended. Again, if the suspension is upheld, Hargrove can be waived at any time during the next 6 months and the Packers will owe him nothing. When he comes back to play, they will owe him his per-game salary. And that salary is based upon the veteran’s minimum. Only a Packers fan ignorant of these facts or blinded by his hatred or bias against Thompson could call this a major mistake. It’s no mistake at all. It’s all potential and no risk.

Drafting Justin Harrell with the 16th pick of the 2007 draft was a mistake. However every NFL GM who has conducted several drafts has made similar mistakes with first round picks. I certainly consider this a mistake but because the draft is a crap shoot I think it’s foolish to judge a GM based upon one pick. Thompson is widely viewed as one of the best drafters in the NFL, not only among Packers fans but among national observers as well. That’s obviously because of his overall success drafting.

The Favre-made-mess has been hashed and rehashed and rehashed again. But it was this poster who initially brought Favre up in this thread and then complained that others were unwilling to move on. I will offer just two items about it. First, which QB has the highest career regular season QB rating and which QB has the highest career playoff rating? QB rating isn’t the final word but look at how careful Rodgers is with the ball compared to Favre. More important is this: Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy were completely vindicated when they led the Packers to a title with Aaron Rodgers behind center. Had they allowed the “retired” gunslinger to return it’s likely Rodgers would have gone elsewhere once his rookie deal was done. Thompson and McCarthy were right and those who continue to blindly worship Favre were and are wrong. That’s the bottom line: This poster is just plain wrong. Thank goodness those, like this poster, who foolishly advocate for trading Rodgers are in a tiny minority among Packers fans.

To summarize, this poster is 0-3 regarding “major” mistakes made by Thompson and in fact only offered one mistake of any kind. Pity the poor Packers fans who continue to worship Favre and hate Thompson. Don’t condone the BS they post but pity them: The 13th World Championship earned by the Packers had to be bittersweet for them. And if they continue to hero-worship Favre, the next one will be too. Better to admit your mistake and put it behind you. It turns out the hero you worshiped betrayed the Packers and provided visual evidence of his lack of class and character for the entire world to see.

I saw a young qb who couldn stay in the pocket (OL fault), couldn slide, and put the ball on the ground almost every time he got hit. Other than tearing my hair out for that, he was good. Defense WAS however the reason we lost games.

Lets keep this thread on track, bumped Qb comparison thread take it there.

This seemed like a better fit in the Vilma thread but I couldn't locate it. (Not sure why that thread got axed while this one has persevered after getting derailed so people can argue with an imbecile.)

Funny satire related to the original topic: http://www.theonion.com/articles/nfl-thank-god-that-bounty-thing-is-over-and-all-fi,27648/

My apologies, sir... I guess Mel isn't the only imbecile here.

Ok.........but enough about that, who's better Favre or Rodgers? Sorry, I just couldn't resist!
Where are those trollers?!?!?!
Trapped

Doesn't really matter. They are both better than what the rest of the division put on the field during their careers.

Didn't see this posted.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...ays-williams-vitt-told-him-to-just-play-dumb/

Here's a copy of what Hargrove signed.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nfl--a...n-to-nfl-regarding-saints-bounty-scandal.html

Real class acts. I believe him. Doesn't mean he's without guilt in this whole thing, bat, man. Classy classy classy.

Excerpts from the PFT Mike Florio article linked by 13TimesChampions above (source):

Mike Florio is basically saying I was on the right track when I criticized the NFL's lack of transparency in its disciplinary process. This my obligatory "I told you so" post...

I wouldn't be surprised to see Hargrove's suspension lessened after all the facts come out.

I find it ridiculous that you get a 4-game suspension for using steriods, but 8-games for "playing dumb".

"Playing dumb" because your boss told you to play dumb. The same boss that can terminate your employment on a whim.

Doesn't take much imagination to see the difficult position Hargrove was in back in 2010.

Here's Seifert's take: http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/post/_/id/41748/hargrove-declaration-wheres-the-beef

I disagree with Florio. Just because Hargrove doesn’t write “there was a bounty program” doesn’t mean his statement doesn’t strongly imply he knew one existed. Florio’s kind of thinking is why juries let the guilty go too often. Here’s an analogy: The jury hears a tape of a mob boss telling one of his underlings to “take care of Tony” and the next day Tony is murdered. In trial when asked what he meant by those words, the mob boss says, I meant he should pay Tony’s rent, you know, take care of him. During deliberation, Mike says, “well, the mob boss never told him to kill Tony”.

IMO the best evidence of the bounty program is the recording of Williams’ locker room speech. But Hargrove’s written statement clearly infers the bounty program existed. Why else would Williams tell him he was going to deny it and Hargrove should deny it too? IMO its common sense that if the program didn’t exist, Williams and Vitt would implore Hargrove to tell the truth, or ask him questions to see if he was aware of something they weren’t. If what Hargrove wrote is true, it’s clear to me all three men in the room knew the bounty program existed. “If we all stay on the same page about this, it will blow over”. That can’t be reconciled with three innocent people in that circumstance.

An inference is a reasoning process using evidence to proceed from premise to conclusion: As you walk into a building the sun is blocked by dark clouds and you hear thunder. You spend some time in an interior windowless room but hear the thunder and wind roar. You walk out of the building and everything is soaking wet but it’s not raining. You didn’t see it rain but…

Then Hargrove certainly confesses to lying to NFL Security personnel: “… as instructed by Coach Williams and Coach Vitt, I denied all knowledge of a bounty or bounty program”. Hey Mike, use your common sense. Why would someone explain why he told investigators something if that person had told the truth? What was the purpose of the NFLPA providing this statement to the NFL if not to offer mitigating circumstances regarding Hargrove’s lying to investigators?

I found two bits of information in the statement more interesting than the above. First, I didn’t think Williams’ reputation could be damaged more but here he is bribing a player to lie (I’ve got you plugged in…) and then reneging on his bribe. And what about Vitt?! If the league believed this statement how in the world could Hargrove’s suspension be longer than Vitt’s? If the statement is true Vitt, along with Williams, is suborning perjury and thereby participating in the coverup. If Hargrove’s suspension was longer because he lied, how could the suspension of one of the coaches that convinced him to lie be shorter? That’s just nuts IMO.

1) It's unclear how the league went about its investigation but I doubt Hargrove ever spoke directly with Goodell.
2) Is there any precedent in NFL history for the league responding to a player being cut for retaliatory reasons? -I doubt it: hardly reassuring for someone in Hargrove's position (see Seifert's blog post above).

I don't think people are suggesting that Hargrove, Williams, and Vitt are innocent of wrongdoing. Florio's point is that the statement casts doubt on the league's disciplinary process.

The significance of the Hargrove statement is twofold:
1) Reading between the lines, it is rather clear that Hargrove's professional future was being implicated when Williams and Vitt asked him to stonewall the league. This should mitigate his punishment.
2) Initially, when the NFL announced the player suspensions, its statement about Hargrove suggested more damning evidence: "Hargrove submitted a signed declaration to the league that established not only the existence of the program at the Saints, but also that he knew about and participated in it." Hargrove's statement was submitted to the NFLPA, not the league. It was clearly drafted by a lawyer and while it suggests that Hargrove knew about the bounty program, it does not confirm his participation.

I get it. It's obvious that Hargrove's hands are dirty and some sort of suspension is appropriate. But the league distorted the facts, exaggerating its evidence while ignoring mitigating factors in statements to the public. This is what happens when the disciplinary process occurs behind closed doors and players aren't given the opportunity to refute charges or present their own evidence: we must take it as a matter of faith that the league is adjudicating these things fairly but the disconnect between Hargrove's actual statement and the league's description of it casts doubt on the NFL's judgment in this episode.

Everything about the player suspensions seems arbitrary. The league has said that dozens of players were involved. Are we to seriously believe that Hargrove was the only one that denied the bounty program to league officials?

...The league also seems glaringly oblivious to the pressures that a franchise can exert on players in a league where contracts aren't guaranteed. The NFL never acknowledges the bind a player like Hargrove finds himself in when the league asks for information and the player's bosses instruct him not to provide it...