It is all in the intent..

Almost everyone I have talked with agrees that paying bounties for injuring opponents is unsportsmanlike. However, I had one person say they have no problem with it, because they are playing football. I have to say I partially agree with this. Watching football, I always like to see the hard hits, the intensity on defense and the intent to take down the opposing player. What I don’t like are the helmet to helmet hits, the after the play attacks (see Ndamakung Suh), and the intent to injure. Aiming to ruin someone’s career is something that should never be allowed. I have seen this happen in European soccer as well, with the leg breaking slide tackles. Arsenal have had the worst luck with these type of tackles, with both Eduardo and Ramsey suffering bad injures and missing the season because of them. Both of them are back and are still playing, although Eduardo is not with Arsenal anymore, but other players have not been so lucky. I’ve seen broken legs in baseball from players sliding into the middle infielders at 2^nd base. It’s not about if you hurt somebody, it’s what is your intent. Making a hard slide into second base is just a good baseball play. Tackling a wide receiver on a crossing route is also just a good play. These types of plays can lead to injures, but the players were only making good hard efforts. Going into that slide, or that tackle, with the intent to injure the opposing player is where it all goes wrong. The problem is how can you tell if the intent is to make a play, or to injure? The truth is you can’t. The only person that would really know is the guy making the play.

The NFL is going to come down hard on the Saints for this scandal. From what I have heard, the Saints were previously warned about this and still did not stop. My first thought is why did the NFL even give them a second chance before issuing a punishment? Why not just stop it when they first caught the Saints? It’s the job of the NFL to protect its players, and in this case, it did not do its job. By letting the Saints continue, and not stamping out this activity at the beginning, the NFL allowed the Saints to get away with attempting to injure other players. On the other hand, how many people think that the Saints are the only ones giving bounties for injuring opposing players? No one?  Exactly. Somehow, I don’t believe that this is only happening in New Orleans. There is no way the other teams are not giving similar bounties, they are probably just doing a better job of hiding it, possibly in end of year player bonuses. Sports become competitive. Sometimes you throw at a batter, or you slide tackle a player, or commit a hard foul on a guy with the intent to send a message that you won’t be pushed around, that you won’t let them get away with what they are doing, and that is completely fine. Competition breeds intensity and sometimes anger. But it’s not ok to try to injure someone. How would you feel if you injured someone, cost them their career, their job, and millions of dollars? Now how would you feel if it happened to you? It’s all about the intent.