Wide Left: NFL Bounty, Sean Payton, Peyton Manning, John Elway & Tim Tebow Love

The NFL has become a year-round sport to cover, and there are few better at covering the off-field issues in the NFL than Will Brinson of the CBS Sports Eye on Football blog.

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We start our chat with the New Orleans Saints and the fallout from the NFL's investigation into the ongoing bounty program that has led to several suspensions and another enormous shoe waiting to drop at some point.

Was Sean Payton's suspension (without pay) too severe for the crime?

Brinson and I discuss why the bounty program is different than any incentive-based program for a defense recording a certain number of tackles or sacks. People aren't upset the team figured out a way to circumvent the salary cap with off-the-books bonuses, are they?

Likely, people are outraged with coaches and players handing over money to hurt other players. That, of course, leads to the conversation about the nature of the sport and whether or not small amounts of money—even thousands of dollars—would really give a player more incentive to knock out an opposing star.

If the goal is to win, and putting a star player on the bench helps you win, will a few thousand dollars really make someone try any harder to knock that player out?

Along those lines, how much does the public care about the bounty system in the NFL? Is this football's version of the steroid saga, where the league has a PR nightmare on its hands that really only a handful of fans even care about, but is kept alive by the sports media who can't stay away from the story?

Do fans actually care?

And when will that other shoe drop? This runs deeper than the Saints' coaching staff. If Gregg Williams reportedly threw down $15,000 cash on the table while in Washington to knock Brad Johnson out of a game, where did the money come from?

It was widely known in Washington that Redskins owner Dan Snyder had "bad blood" with Johnson. Are there dots to connect? (Note: We don't try to connect those dots, so please don't sue us, Mr. Snyder.)

How will that situation be handled by Roger Goodell? 

We shift gears to talk about Peyton Manning and John Elway, how Elway is running the Broncos with as much transparency as any franchise we can remember and what happens if "Plan A" doesn't work for Denver. Elway had a big smile at Manning's press conference when he joked there "is no Plan B," so what happens if he ends up needing one? 

And what about Tim Tebow? Tebow is a topic that certainly makes up the bulk of this show. We discuss his move to New York on and off the field, and talk about what it means for Tebow as a player and as a spokesman.

A large part of the Tebow conversation deals with the media's love affair with the man, leading to many sportswriters tweeting during his Jets press conference the likes of, "How can you not love this guy?"

It's one thing to respect the way in which a man carries himself in the public eye. Tebow is both affable and media savvy, controlling any room he enters. It's another thing to ignore the beliefs therein, meaning that it does seem quite possible to not "love this guy" if you actually acknowledge what the guy believes.

This is not an easy conversation to have in the context of sports, and I appreciate Brinson's willingness to have it. Rather than transcribe our thoughts (and they run on both sides as fairly as we can), it's best you listen to them.

This is a longer show than normal (run time 53:15), and it touches on some topics that are, frankly, pretty difficult to discuss solely inside the framework of sports. Having said that, we realize that Tebow transcends sports, making this conversation about an NFL player much more than the run-of-the-mill quarterback controversy.

We do our best to handle the conversation—all conversations—with as much respect and thoughtfulness as we possibly can, and we hope you listen (and comment) with that in mind.  

Thanks for listening.