Not outraged over bounty scandal? Shame on you

I am applauding NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for the penalties he assessed the New Orleans Saints, and I am criticizing - spurning - people who say the Saints' bounty system was no big deal, or Goodell punished the Saints too severely.

Goodell, as you know, walloped the Saints with enormous penalties because the coaches paid bounties to their players to hurt opposing players and knock them out of games. I'll get back to those penalties in a moment, penalties which do not go far enough.

I want to return to the disgusting argument, the morally bankrupt argument. It goes like this: Football is a violent game in which players inevitably hurt players. So what does it matter if the Saints paid bounties?

To which I reply: Shame on you.

This may seem a quaint concept, something that went out of style with manual typewriters, but in our world there is a difference between right and wrong.

It felt so good to write that.

There really is a difference between right and wrong, and if you don't see that, I call you a moral relativist. I never want to be a moral relativist. I know in my bones it is wrong to accept payment from a coach to hurt a player, and then to run onto the field and intentionally injure that player after the play ends or in the pile or any other way. I know it's wrong, very wrong. And I'm proud I feel that way. And you should feel that way, too.

Saints quarterback Drew Brees is a moral relativist. After he learned Goodell suspended Saints coach Sean Payton a year without pay, Brees tweeted, "I am speechless. Sean Payton is a great man, coach, and mentor. I need to hear an explanation for this punishment."

Here's the explanation, Drew. Payton oversaw a criminal system in which players were paid to commit felonies. If this happened in real life, as opposed to the protected, coddled world of football, Payton and his fellow thugs, Saints general manager Mickey Loomis and former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, would be out on bail awaiting their criminal trials.

Is that a good enough explanation for you, Drew?

As far as Payton being a great man, sorry. In Brooklyn, we would have called him a bum.

Simple as that.

Why? Because he oversaw the bounty system and then lied about it to the league, covered it up. Every time he had a choice, he made miserable, immoral decisions and those decisions define him as a bad guy. Great man, indeed.

Warren Sapp went on TV and identified Jeremy Shockey as the "snitch" who informed the league about Saints' bounties. Sapp should keep his mouth shut. Talk about a snitch - and Shockey denies he was the league's source. But it wasn't wrong for someone to out the Saints. It was right. Simple as that.

I have wrestled with this issue. I believe it was wrong for Jose Canseco to snitch on his teammates about their use of performance-enhancing drugs. He never thought using steroids and other illegal drugs was wrong. He wrote his book because he wanted money and that was a quick way to get it. His motives stunk.

Whoever led the league to the Saints scandal wanted no personal gain. He wanted to do the right thing. We call someone like that a whistle-blower. We don't call him a snitch. We applaud him. I applaud him.

OK, now to the penalties. In addition to the year Payton got, Loomis is suspended the first half of next season, and Williams is suspended indefinitely, although Goodell will review his case at the end of next season. Those are stiff penalties. They're not stiff enough.

Goodell should have suspended all three for life. Simple as that.

Football is a game with specific rules. It is not a gang fight. Big difference. I hope you can see this. Payton, Loomis and Williams crossed a serious line and the league never should allow them to come back. If this judgment seems harsh, it is not nearly as harsh as the cold, calculated, premeditated paying of bounties in organized sport.

Here's how the league can correct those penalties. Although Payton is eligible to coach in the 2013 season, no team should offer him a job ever again. Every NFL team should turn its back on him and Loomis and Williams forever. The unspoken message would be - "We don't have a place for men like you."

It is a harsh message, but it is right. Simple as that.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at cohn.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn.pressdemocrat.com