GP, you make it sound like tanking is illegal, when in fact it's not. You can whine and complain about the team that benefits from the crappy system, but the fact is that it's the system's design, not the team, that is the problem here. Rewarding losers incentivizes losing, ergo the Colts likely did seek to lose games once they knew Manning would be out for a while.
And where does it say, specifically in the league rules, that a team may NOT use or offer incentives to target other teams' players?
The thing is that the league can never put enough specifically worded language to anticipate the freaking unethical behavior of its franchises that those franchises might concoct in their wicked dreams every day or week or month or year. So you have language that says "Damages the integrity of the game."
The bounty system damages the integrity of the game. The game itself provides the opportunity for franchises to offer incentives for its players to push the limits of what is morally and ethically allowable, does it not? I mean, after all...they ARE supposed to hit one another out there. Right? So what is the limit on it? So WHAT if a team or a player wants, whether explicitly or implicitly, to hurt another player? How do we prove he had intent? The problems are endless with this whole debate, are they not?
So therefore why CAN'T we have the same argument about a team, such as the Colts, who for all practical purposes knew damn well they had zero chance without their superstar QB names Peyton Manning. But wait, did they actually try and improve their team in 2011? What actions did Irsay take to have a plan B for IF Manning could not come back? Is that not a viable discussion point if we're trying to absolve Irsay of wrong doing?
Morals is what is
is. Ethics is the discussion or debate of what is
should be. I have morals, but are my morals truly ethical? THAT is the question, not whether we vote on the morals or not. What should our morals BE? Our nation has very craftily, over the past 70+ years, found a way to make us believe that we are to vote on morals...give morals an up or down vote. That is not the vote to be taken. Rather, we should be looking at ethics and what is best for man. And what is best for the league is to find out if unethical behavior, by the Colts, led them to a series of decision making policies that conned their fans AND their own players out of having a season that maintained the integrity of the game.
It is not the league's fault that one of its owners LIKELY gamed the system in order to land the #1 pick so they could then choose a great QB prospect. In fact, it behooves the league's owners to carry out the integrity of the game just as the league asks the players to do the same. This is not a single game at the end of the year, this is an entire YEAR of preparation that appears to have taken place. If it was so, then it is beyond unethical in my eyes.
You're right, it's not illegal. The problem, however, is that it doesn't have to be legal or illegal to be discussed and/or worthy of punishment by a league who is touting that it wants to protect "the shield." Oh well, it's just the NFL looking one way when it hurts them and looking the other way when it helps them.
It is what it is, I suppose. But it doesn't make it right. And if any former Colts personnel come forward and offers extensive proof (emails, texts, phone conversations, testimony, etc.) it will be the biggest NFL story in history. It will dwarf Bounty Gate...and remember: None of you knew Bounty Gate was going on until it was fully revealed. Did you? I didn't. These things might not be public, not even in a "minor rumblings" way, but it could be there. It stinks to high heaven, and all it takes is one person to go off the reservation.
As it stands, I despise the Colts' owner. Their fans can't help it, they're just rooting for their team. Manning, to me, showed amazing loyalty even to the point of being overly gullible through it all. I think that even in the face of it all, if he was a bit gullible to think he stood a fair chance of remaining with the Colts beyond 2011...he still has a measure of integrity and honor that Irsay doesn't. And for that, I admire Manning more than I thought I ever would. The end.