Seriously,
I think we all expected the New Orleans Saints to get hammered. We expected a heavy financial fines and the loss of a second day draft choice or two. We expected a couple player suspensions and perhaps a multi-game suspension of Gregg Williams and Sean Payton.
But this?
Two second round draft choices, a full year's suspension for Payton, half a season for GM Mickey Loomis, an indefinite suspension for Williams, eight games for linebacker coach Joe Vitt, half a million bucks, and player suspensions and fines still to come.
That's not just harsh.
That's as close as the NFL can get to capital punishment. Especially when you consider the penalties against Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots in 2007 when the Patriots were caught blatantly cheating and lying about it.
Belichick was fined $500,000, the team $250,000, and the Pats lost one first-round pick.
Yes, the Saints were wrong to have a bounty system in place. They were wrong when they kept it going after being warned to stop. There's no place in football for such a system, although the ugly NFL secret is that the Saints are far from the only team that has had such a system in place. Several players and former players have indicated as much.