The latest scandal to rock the sports world is news that New Orleans Saint's had a bounty program. The coaches dictated that players would receive a little extra cash if they knocked players out of the game, and a little more on top of that if the players couldn't leave the field on their own power. The NFL is apoplectic, everyone expects Roger Goodell, the Commissioner of the league, to issue draconian penalties. Gregg Williams, the Defensive Coordinator, who implemented this system is disgraced, and has seen his long and successful coaching career marred by this stain.
Football is essentially a violent sport. Particularly on the defensive side, your primary goal at most times is to hit someone hard. Williams, who was thought of as one of the premier defensive coaches, merely stripped away the veneer. He codified and commodified extreme violence. But part of me wonders if the bounty system had any tangible effect. The relatively small incentive Williams was offering, pales in comparison to the average salary of a defensive player, so it seems to me that the incentive was already there. Making big hits is a way to raise your notoriety as a player, appear on Sports Center, and endear yourself to coaches across the league, you're telling me those benefits are less motivation than a couple thousand bucks. Additionally, players are routinely fined way more money for illegal hits than the Saints doled out for these bounties, so the financial incentive may have been negated.
It reminds me of the controversy over Marines peeing on dead soldiers in Afghanistan. It's a horrible and disgusting thing to do, but think about the context. These were enemy combatants who were literally just killed by these very same Marines. You're fine with these men killing these people, but peeing on them is beyond the pale? You're fine with watching a sport where people routinely dole out bone crushing hits, causing short and long term injuries, but openly acknowledging that reality is uncouth?
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