Green Bay Packers defensive end Anthony Hargrove, who has been suspended eight games by the NFL as part of the bountygate scandal, has repeatedly said he’s not the person in the NFL Films video who said, “Bobby, give me my money.”
The video was taken from the 2009 NFC Championship game and was used as evidence by the NFL as existence of the New Orleans Saints bounty program and, at least in part, to convict Hargrove.
Now the league admits they may have been wrong. In a letter to the suspended players, commissioner Roger Goodell says he’s prepared to assume the voice is not Hargrove’s, something confirmed by voice recognition analysis.
So Hargrove is off the hook then, right? Not so long as Czar Goodell is at the helm!
“The identity of the player who made the statement was immaterial to my decision on your appeals and did not affect the level of discipline imposed on Mr. Hargrove,” Goodell wrote in a letter that was attached to legal filings submitted Tuesday. The commissioner said the video nevertheless provides ample evidence of a bounty program, no matter who said the words, and that “members of the Saints defense, including Mr. Hargrove, were well aware” of it.
The NFL hasn’t produced any evidence to suggest Hargrove was well aware of anything. Now that the video has been disregarded, their claim against Hargrove is even flimsier than it already was.
The league is intent upon punishing Hargrove and it appears they’re basing the punishment on the assertation Hargrove lied to their investigators about the existence of a bounty program. Whether he actually did that or not we really have no idea and if the NFL can prove it, they haven’t done so yet.
Of course, that has no relevance when the NFL is handing out punishments.
Any one who wants to jump on the Hargrove spin band wagon needs to do a google image search using the words “Farve” and “Hargrove”. Note how Hargrove has Farve’s ankle trapped between his leg as he throws him to the ground. When Hargrove declares that his punishment is too much, he makes me puke. This lying cheat should be out of the league.
This is idiotic.
Yeah, Goodell suspended Anthony Hargrove just for the fun of it.
Who ever said that the identity of the joker in the video had any importance at all?
Grasping at straws, the NFL Network did and then Anthony Hargrove did. The NFL never said it.
Goodell said it was immaterial. He would know since he made the decision.
Read Hargrove’s asinine statement to the media once. He doesn’t deny any of it. In fact, he all but admits he was involved by accusing the NFL of “making a mountain out of a molehill.”
He spends about a 1000 words whining about the evidence and vilifying the NFL. In other words, “I am guilty as hell, but your evidence is weak.”
He should shut his mouth and take his suspension.
But he won’t. As we’ve already seen from other athletes, i.e. Barry Bonds, once you start lying, you just keep on going.
This asshole signed a confession for the league thinking he would be treated better and now claims he did nothing…what a moron. At this point I’d rather have Johnny “Sizzup” Jolly back rather than him.
He’s not suspended for the game but rather the cover-up. That goes for all those guys they obstructed the NFL’s investigation thus now paying the price for covering it up. As Dan Patrick says the cover up is always worse than the crime.
what peter said. WHOO!
The guy is a journeyman at best. This is his what – 3rd team in 4 years? Are we really counting on him making that much of a difference even if he were not suspended? I’m not. So, that I say I don’t really care.