And what do we have here... Bounties on the Saints...

Uh oh -- it just got real in New Orleans.

It all started, at least what we know about it, when the NFL announced that it had found a pattern implicating 22-27 defensive players (the equivalent of a full defensive roster) in a bounty scheme.

Now, I'll be frank: In extreme circumstances, I know I've said I'd pay a player to cripple Michael Vick, but that's after everything Michael Vick is known to have done (and probably perceived to have gotten away with!).

What we have here is a blatant attempt to subvert the game to the point where hurting people is the sole reason for the players to be out there. My brothers played football -- and they were all told to hit and hit hard. My next-oldest brother was asked repeatedly in team chants if he was "Ready to Hit?" on "The Swarm" (a nickname for the defense the one year our high school was good at football while we were there).

But this is basically players setting up a fund to hurt people. That simple.

If the league is that serious about player safety, the New Orleans Saints can forget about being a relevant team again -- probably for the better part of this decade.

The defensive coach who masterminded this will be blackballed. He was hired by the Rams, but that's not going to stick. The Commish will see to that.

Sean Payton almost certainly will be fired and he probably will never head-coach again.

ESPN editorials are already calling for the GM to be fired.

Hell, let's take a real look at how much the owners of the Saints actually knew...

But here's the real fun part: This, now, exposes the Saints and the NFL to lawsuits. The program spans three years (including the Saints' Super Bowl XLIV-winning season -- a game largely believed to be rigged by the league), and the defensive coach who masterminded this is now believed to have had this system back in Washington before he came to the Saints.

Keep an eye on this -- this has the possibility of effectively murdering the relevance of a professional sports franchise completely. This is not unlike the Joe Smith fiasco for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Yes, it could be THAT bad.

ON EDIT: Brian Tuohy makes a wonderful point on his Twitter:

"If $1500 is enough to get a $1 million NFL player to injure another, what does $10K or $100K get you? Enough to fix a game?"

And that doesn't even get in to how an illegal injury-bounty pool can fix games in and of itself!