Sean Payton Appeal: Saints Coach Made Wrong Decision to Appeal

New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton has chosen to appeal the one-year suspension slapped on him by Commissioner Roger Goodell for his role in the Saints bounty scandal.

He definitely made the wrong call in doing so.

Payton needs to realize that what he was part of is a publicity nightmare for the league as a whole and his suspension is not going to be rescinded after his appeal.

Goodell threw down the hammer on this one, banning Payton for the 2012-2013 season and effectively blacklisting former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams.

What makes Payton believe that Goodell's decision is going to be changed?

The appeal serves no other purpose but to prolong the inevitable. Payton will be watching all 16 games from some place other than the field. Bill Parcells will come in as an interim head coach. The Saints will win at least 12 games.

There's no reason for Payton to push his suspension back a few months and receive the same punishment as he would have if he didn't appeal. In the worst case scenario for Payton, his trial could be pushed back a few months, and his suspension would spill over into the 2013-2014 training camp.

The Saints have something strange going on in New Orleans. There's a mystique that comes with the Payton-Brees duo. Something like the Belichick-Brady evil empire.

The best thing for Payton to do is to spend as much time with the Big Tuna as he can, let him in on all the offensive secrets, then sit back and watch his boys tear it up.

The Saints' offense could put up 40 points per game even if they had a trained monkey with a headset on the sideline calling the shots. They're an offensive juggernaut and they don't lose at home.

Payton will be appealing directly to Goodell, which is terrible news if you're Sean Payton.

As of this very moment, Goodell is having a conniption over how bad this entire situation looks for his "product."

People are already comparing football to modern-day gladiators, parents are keeping their kids out of Pop Warner, medical research shows a correlation between football and brain damage (yeah, no kidding). Now news is out that coaches were paying their players to try to hurt opponents.

That's not a good sign for the future of the league.

Payton should be thinking like the commissioner. Why would Goodell suspend him for a year, then change his mind for no particular reason?

If anything, he will delay the process, throwing the entire Saints organization into an infinite loop of instability.

Payton needs to take his lumps, sit out the 2012-2013 season, then try to rebuild his reputation, as well as the organization's.