Saints Players Shocked By Punishment Of Sean Payton

The NFL brought down the hammer on the New Orleans Saints yesterday, for their cover up of the intricate bounty system the had in place under defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. The one man who took the fall for the current Saints regime was head coach Sean Payton. While Williams is suspended indefininely, Payton has been suspended for the entire year without pay.

Seems a little harsh, no? Payton wasn’t directly involved in the situation, so why does he have to take the fall? It may not be fair, but he helped cover up the bounty system. By that account, he was an accessory. The punishment for “BountyGate” was harder than most had imagined largely in part because of the cover up, not the crime itself.

Still, a four game suspension of Payton would have been enough. No more than six games should have been handed out, but Goodell had other ideas and now the Saints are without their coach for the year. The players are beyond stunned. First, quarterback Drew Brees had this to say:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/drewbrees/status/182533171781447680″]

Now, defensive tackle Tom Johnson is not very happy with Commissioner Goodell and the punishments. Johnson went off on the Sun Herald to express his displeasure.

“This is not right,” Johnson said. “We knew there would be some type [of punishment], but not this. We didn’t think anything like this because of the type of man he is. He is our leader and the man we respect. It is going to be hard to move forward without Sean Payton for any amount of time, especially a year.”

Like many, myself included, Payton was only expecting to face a four-game suspension. When the NFL laid down the punishment, Payton was shocked and his team was shocked.

“Man, he got a whole year. That is hard to believe. I am shocked and no one on the team was expecting it to be so harsh,” Johnson said. “We don’t know what direction the team will be going in, but we have to rally around each other and support each other. We will make this work until he comes back.

“That will be a situation where the players will say what’s on the minds and hearts, I know he will be in our hearts because he is our leader. He is the one who motivates us before games and the one who supports us in the highs and the lows. He is the ‘it’ factor for this team.”

The Saints will now have to come together and rally as a team. They have had to do that before as an organization and it resulted in a Super Bowl win. While this Saints team will have more to overcome on the field, you can never count out Drew Brees and company.

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