[macpappy]

Man! I go away for a couple of months and all this crap breaks out. As a Saint's fan, I am disgusted with the whole thing. Plain and simple, they Saints got caught doing what a lot of other teams do. Then they lied and tried to cover it up. On top of that the NFL is being sued for not protecting the players more. So to me, the way the level of repercussions is understandable. I also believe that if the Saints would have stopped the program when it started and had not lied to the commissioner, then the penalties would not have been so severe. That being said, the Saints will survive. Payton's game plans will be followed. The defense may be without Vilma for a year but I believe that's actually an upgrade. Will Smith won't be missed as much either.

As for the "allegation" of Loomis eavesdropping on other coaches - that whole thing seems to have dropped fairly quickly when the sources were revealed to be people fired from the Saints for just cause.