New Orleans Saints bounty scandal takes another big twist - NFL News
New Orleans Saints bounty scandal took another big twist on Monday after Yahoo! Sports reporter Jason Cole revealed the entire written declaration submitted by former Saints and now Green Bay Packers defensive end, Anthony Hargrove to the National
Football League (NFL).
According to the statement submitted by Hargrove, he claims that former Saints defensive coordinator and the master mind behind the bounty scandal, Gregg Williams plus current Saints assistant coach, Joe Vitt had asked him to “play dumb” in front of league
investigators in 2010 when they questioned him regarding the bounties.
According to Hargrove, Williams told him during a meeting.
"Those [expletives] have been trying to get me for years. Stay on the same page, and this will blow over."
The declaration was provided to Yahoo! Sports by the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) who meant to show that the management was involved in the scandal and the players were just following orders.
The NFL on its part used the contents of the defensive end’s statement to give punishments to the Saints players and believes that the Hargrove’s statement proves that he had lied to league investigators.
Commissioner, Roger Goodell had last week announced punishments for Saints players involved in the bounty scandal.
Goodell suspended Saints linebacker, Jonathan Vilma for the entire 2012-13 season, Hargrove received an eight-game suspension, while Saints defensive end, Will Smith and former Saints and now Cleveland Browns linebacker, Scott Fujita both received four and
three-game suspensions respectively.
All four players are preparing to appeal the punishments.
Vilma’s lawyer, Peter Ginsberg said about the revelation of Hargrove’s statement.
"All we know from the declaration is that a couple of coaches were in trouble and hoped for support from him. Anthony's declaration in no way supports that he lied, that a bounty system existed or that players participated in any kind of inappropriate program.
It's just another reason to conclude that the NFL has no evidence to justify what it has done to the players."
The Saints were accused to have run a bounty programme for three years which paid players to severely injure targeted opponents and receive payments varying from $ 1,000 to 1,500 from an entire pool of $ 50,000 for the hits.
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