Now it's Saints who should absorb a knockout blow

Minnesota quarterback Brett Favre gets hit by New Orleans defensive back Roman Harper, right, and linebacker Jo-Lunn Dunbar during a game in September 2010. Favre was one of the players targeted by the Saints in a program which paid bonuses to players for delivering game-ending injuries. (Larry W. Smith / EPA / September 9, 2010)

The New Orleans Saints' illicit program of paying bounties for game-ending hits and 'cart-offs' is unconscionable and warrants severe punishment by NFL, including, perhaps, a ban from postseason play.

Bill Plaschke
LA Times
4:55 PM PST, March 3, 2012

I'll never forget the sight of Brett Favre stumbling down a Superdome hallway, welts on his neck, fog in his eyes, his career essentially ended after a blatant mugging by the New Orleans Saints.

"I wonder if I can hold up, especially after a day like today," he said after his Minnesota Vikings were beaten in the 2009 NFC championship game.

At the time, we thought we were watching tough football. Turns out, we were witnessing sanctioned evil.

I'll never forget the sight of Kurt Warner lying flat on his back, motionless and mumbling into space, his career basically cooked after absorbing a furious sucker punch from the Saints' Bobby McCray.

"He hit me pretty good," Warner said after his Arizona Cardinals were beaten in the 2009 playoffs. "You get that initial wind knocked out of you there and you kind of panic. You can't move. You can't breathe."

(More here.)