NFL Has ‘Ledger’ Of Bounty Payments As Evidence

Yahoo Sports is reporting that the NFL is in possession of a ledger that documents payments that were made during the New Orleans Saints’ bounty program. The documentation contains detailed records of payments for hits and cart-offs and also money taken from players for “mental errors” that helped to fund the bounty scheme.

This “ledger” as it has been called constitutes a key piece of evidence in the bounty investigation and it is beyond belief that such a document should be in the hands of the NFL. Exactly how the NFL received the ledger is currently unclear but the NFLPA’s spokesperson George Attallah has acknowledged that the NFL disclosed the existence of the ledger to the union in April but that no-one with the NFLPA had seen it.

"“I guess it either qualifies as evidence, which means fair due process was violated because players didn’t get to see it before they were punished or it is not hard evidence because they didn’t get to see it and cross examine the validity of that piece of evidence.”"

Suspended Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma is the player who has led the charge against the NFL’s case and who has consistently called for the NFL’s evidence against players and coaches to be made public. With the existence of the ledger now public however Vilma is changing tack and says it’s a fake.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/JonVilma51/status/208952337945993218″]

Does anybody else feel like this statement is just a little disingenuous given how much Vilma has clamored to have evidence released? Why would you ask for evidence to be released and then at the first hint of what it is just reject it? Oh yeah – because the whole reason he wants the evidence released is so he can discredit it publicly when really all we’d have to go on in that case is his word. Let’s face it – if Vilma had any evidence to prove his innocence he’d have made it public by now.

Let’s make two things very clear – there hasn’t been any release of actual evidence here and we don’t know for certain what exactly is on this ledger. What we do know is that it does exist and is being used by the NFL to deal out punishment. What is most extraordinary to me is that we have multiple people coming out and saying that because players haven’t been allowed to see the evidence that it is fake. What will the players say when shown it? “Yep, that’s the ledger all right. You got us.” No! They’re gonna just keep up the denials that they were involved and we’re back where we started.

When it comes to this investigation, we need to be willing to allow the process to run it’s course. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has promised that evidence will be released in due time and we should just respect that and let this thing play out. I will say this though – I doubt I’m going to be believing the players on this any time soon after the way Vilma has reacted today.

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