Punishments for NFL Bounty Saga Will Come Front and Center Soon

The NFL has become the ultimate reality show.

As a league spokesman tweeted yesterday afternoon, at one point after the Peyton Manning news broke every trending topic in the United States had to do with the NFL. Whether it was Manning going to Denver or the fate of Tim Tebow, the appetite for NFL news could not be quenched.

This is the kind of drama the NFL loves and has worked tirelessly to promote. The league’s offseason dominates other sports while they're in season—sometimes when those other sports are having their playoffs. The NFL is King.

There’s a downside to this insatiable public appetite, however, and we will no doubt see it thrust front and center sometime later this week.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell will soon make public his punishment for those involved in the bounty program run by former New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator and current St. Louis Rams coordinator Gregg Williams.

Williams will no doubt receive the harshest penalty, but you can bet Saints general manager Mickey Loomis and head coach Sean Payton will not escape unscathed. I would expect anywhere from eight games to a full season suspension for Williams and four to six games for Loomis and Payton.

Then, of course, there are the players who will need to be disciplined. This is a bit trickier for Goodell and the NFL. While it’s easy for the league to say Loomis, Payton and Williams should have never allowed bounties to be administered, it's another thing to punish players for doing something that goes on at many (if not most) of the other teams in the NFL.

One thing that became apparent once news of the NFL’s investigation broke—NFL players saw very little wrong with what was being reported and couldn’t see what the big deal was…because it goes on, in one form or another, in almost every NFL city.

The difference here, of course, is that the Saints got caught. Much like when the Patriots were punished for their videotaping ways after Spygate, the Saints will be made an example of for doing something that goes on league-wide.

You can expect the NFL to come down hardest on linebacker Jonathan Vilma (I would suspect anywhere from two to four games) with up to 10 or more other players being hit with one or two-game suspensions.

There’s obviously no good time for the NFL to announce this information, but I suspect you’ll see one of the league’s famous PR 101 moves late Friday afternoon as they try to lessen the impact on the image of the league as much as they can.

Unfortunately, especially in the digital age we live in, even old PR tricks can only help so much. You can bet the bounty story will take center stage shortly after the Manning drama has died down.