Saints still claiming innocence. Really?

It truly seems that no matter the circumstances, New Orleans players, fans, and media have circled their wagons and refuse to acknowledge anything was ever wrong. There has been audio released that clearly depicts a coach telling players to target other players for injury. There have been players claiming to have admitted knowledge of the wrongdoings. Yet, Mike Triplett of The Times-Picayune writes the following: 

"Once again, as interim head coach Joe Vitt put it so memorably last week, the New Orleans Saints have been punished more for the spoken word than for the clenched fist."

In Triplett's questioning of why only 4 Saints players were punished when the league has mentioned on several occasions that 22 to 27 players were involved; one of Triplett's reasonings is:

"Or is it because the league didn't have enough concrete evidence to accuse players of specific wrongdoing or harmful intent on the field, especially knowing that the NFL Players Association would likely fight back through the federal court system?"

"Although the NFL insisted several times in its statement Wednesday that it had evidence of "a significant number of players" participating in the bounty/incentive program, and said it shared that list of names with the NFLPA, the league only decided to punish the players who "participated at a different and more significant level."

Ultimately, the league decided that it only had a strong enough case to punish the Saints for the "spoken word" and not for the actual "clenched fist" on the field.

And in that sense, Wednesday's decision was something of a victory. Not only for the rest of the Saints players who avoided punishment, but for all of those critics of the NFL's investigation who have been demanding to see more evidence of wrongdoing -- including the NFLPA.

That's been the one missing piece in the NFL's investigation all along: a lack of damning on-field evidence that the Saints were routinely using dirty hits or cheap shots to injure other players."

So, in a sense, Triplett is sounding the victory horn and claiming that the poor little Saints are only being punished for what someone said they did and not what they actually did. How about a different perspective. Maybe Commissioner Goodell is trying to help your team and not destroy it completely. Maybe he decided that suspending the majority of players involved would certainly sentence the overall team to a miserable, no-chance season. And just maybe, he thought the fans of New Orleans don't deserve to be punished by having to watch patch and play performances. Sometimes it serves a person well to not ask why something is happening but ask what could be happening and why it is not. You may be benefiting more than you are willing to see.