The NFL has upheld its player discipline in the New Orleans Saints’ bounty case.
New Orleans linebacker Jonathan Vilma, defensive end Will Smith and former Saints Anthony Hargroveand Scott Fujita appealed their league suspensions earlier this month.
Commissioner Roger Goodell said Tuesday that none of the players provided evidence to contradict the league’s findings of a three-year pay-for-injury system orchestrated by former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams.
“Although you claimed to have been ‘wrongfully accused with insufficient evidence,’ your lawyers elected not to ask a single question of the principal investigators, both of whom were present at the hearing (as your lawyers had requested); you elected not to testify or to make any substantive statement, written or oral, in support of your appeal; you elected not to call a single witness to support your appeal; and you elected not to introduce a single exhibit addressing the merits of your appeal,” Goodell said of the players’ appeal hearings in a statement. “Instead, your lawyers raised a series of jurisdictional and procedural objections that generally ignore the CBA, in particular its provisions governing ‘conduct detrimental’ determinations … ”
Vilma has been suspended for the entire 2012 season; Hargrove for the first eight games; Smith for four games; Fujita for three games.
–ESPN
