Scrutiny on the bounties

LITTLE ROCK — THE SPORTS WIRES were burning up mid-week. And it had nothing to do with March Madness and basketball.

Proving once again that the National Football League is the king of sports in this country, the big news last week, and then bigger news, and even bigger than-that-news, came from pro football, aka American football among the European cognoscenti.

First there was Peyton Manning, probably the most sought-after free agent in sports history, picking the Denver Broncos as his next team. Which meant that Tim Tebow, another former SEC quarterback that most fans love/ hate, moved his stuff to the New York Jets’ locker room. Or maybe not. There was a snag with his contract. Tebow’s a Jet, he’s not a Jet . . . until he was a Jet after all. We’re not sure what to make of all that-that the Broncos needed Peyton Manning more than they did Mr. Prayer Man, or that Sodom-and-Gomorrah on the Hudson needed him most. The Lord works in mysterious ways, his football trades to perform.

But all that was overshadowed by Bountygate.

Even the pundits who expected the worst-best in our opinion-were surprised when the NFL’s commissioner, Roger Goodell, lowered the boom on the New Orleans Saints. It seems several players and coaches admitted running a bounty scheme in the black-and-gold locker room, which was anything but saintly. It seems they would put money in a pot and pay it out when players took out members of the opposing team. Ooooh. It hurt to even read about it. Thousands of dollars were reserved for a player who’d knock another player out of the game. Preferably on a stretcher. Which may have been worth an Extra Added Bonus. How’s that for sportsmanship?

What’s next? The Romans cheering for the lions? (The real kind, not Detroit.) THE NFL’S commissioner now has suspended the Saints’ head football coach. For a year. Also, the former defensive coordinator. Indefinitely. Also, the team was fined, lost draft picks, and that was just the beginning. The punishment for the players could be handed down any day now.

No doubt you’ve heard the line-either on sports radio or around your own kitchen table-that football ain’t for sissies. And players have helmets and pads to protect them. And in pro football the players are paid fortunes. And if they can’t play a contact sport, let ’em play Candyland. And so callously on.

Well, we’ve never bought all that jive. Remember that the commissioner’s job is to protect his league. And as Roger Goodell knows, or thinks, or suspects, it won’t be long before he and the NFL are herded into a courtroom somewhere and obliged to face a grieving widow. Her case: The NFL didn’t do enough to protect its players. And when the commissioner takes the stand, he’ll want to be able to say:

-Have you seen the rules we’ve put into play? A defensive lineman taps his helmet against a quarterback’s helmet and he’s not only going to get flagged for 15 yards, he’s going to get fined come Monday morning. Or worse. Now the commissioner can offer dozens of examples of fines and suspensions he’s handed out over the years, sometimes to much controversy.

-This isn’t your father’s NFL. In the old days, a receiver could be hammered after dropping a pass over the middle of the field. Now there are rules against hitting a defenseless player. In the old days, a quarterback could be creamed if he ran with the ball. Today a quarterback can “slide” the way they do in baseball-and the play stops.

-Did you see how we hammered the Saints in 2012?

Roger Goodell is a smart man. The NFL also has a lot of good lawyers working for it. They know that a sport like theirs is ripe for a lawsuit filed by a player-or a player’s next-of-kin. And the NFL needs to be able to say it did all it could do.

Oh, yes, and if anybody cares, it’s just not right to tolerate this kind of brutality-or worse, encourage it. Litigation or no litigation, right and wrong do still matter, don’t they? Even in the NFL.

BESIDES, do you really want to see Kyle Orton quarterbacking the Dallas Cowboys? Or J.P. Losman or Charlie Batch running Houston’s high-octane offense? You, the fan, want to be watching the best play at their best, and a bounty scheme-by any team, or name-doesn’t encourage the best. The best in players or the best in ethics.

The players in the NFL are role models, too. Whether they like it or not. There are kids all over the country wearing their favorite players’ jerseys. And not just kids. When a player goes down on a football field with a serious injury, what needs to be on that TV screen is a shot of the players on both teams looking concerned, and not just looking it. It wouldn’t hurt if they felt like Tebowing-this time in earnest prayer for an injured colleague.

The worst thing to be seen would be money exchanging hands.

It doesn’t always work out this way, but in this case the punishment may actually fit the crime. Bounties are for criminals and wild animals, not football players. The commissioner of the NFL has just offered one heck of a deterrent. And we’ll bet a lot of attention is being paid.