New Orleans Saints LB Jonathan Vilma highly confident of appeal against suspension - NFL News
New Orleans Saints defence captain and linebacker, Jonathan Vilma received the harshest sentence out of four players who were suspended by National Football League (NFL) commissioner, Roger Goodell for their involvement in the Saints bounty scandal.
Vilma was suspended for the entirety of the 2012-13 season without pay.
The linebacker will likely appeal the sentence handed down by Goodell and feels confident about his chances to overturn the commissioner’s decision.
Vilma took to Twitter on Wednesday and said.
“Big day today, one step in the right direction.”
The linebacker was referring to hearings at NFL headquarters over one of two grievances filed by the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) challenging Goodell’s authority to decide on player conduct which had taken place before the coming into effect of the new collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
Arbitrator, Shyam Das heard the arguments of NFLPA representatives for two and a half hours, however, no decision was reached over the matter nor a further hearing has been scheduled.
The grievance hearing was also attended by former Saints players, Scott Fujita and Anthony Hargrove.
Vilma received a torrent of abuse from other users on the social media website over his post and the linebacker responded by saying.
“I see the haters are up this morning. Wen I win this wat will they say then???”
The linebacker was cited in a NFL report which revealed the existence of the Saints bounty programme as one of the leaders in installing the bounty culture.
He was also alleged to have offered up $ 10,000 of his own personal money to any teammate who knocked out now retired quarterback, Brett Favre, during a 2009 National Football Conference (NFC) Championship game clash with the Minnesota Vikings.
Vilma strenuously denies all allegations and had responded to his year-long suspension by demanding that the NFL show him the evidence they used to decide player punishments.
Appeals filed by all four suspended players will be heard after the arbitrators reach their decision over the NFLPA grievances.
Another grievance filed by the NFLPA will be heard on May 30th by system arbitrator, Stephen Burbank.
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