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Sean Payton's New Orleans Saints Staff Gets A Cross-Country Body Blow

Sean Payton and Gregg Williams have been suspended—Payton for a year, Williams indefinitely—and the New Orleans Saints' brain trust during the years of their embarrassing bounty system has been eviscerated. Unfortunately, the St. Louis Rams now have to share in that evisceration.

Which is okay. I think it's slightly unfair that the Saints' bounty system has been singled out, because the news that leaked out in the aftermath of the Gregg Williams allegations suggest that this kind of thing is more widespread than anybody wants to admit. But I also think that if it's as widespread as it appears to be, and the Rams hired Williams without doing enough work to uncover it, they've earned their punishment.

It's a tough fine, but it needed to happen—and the more pervasive all this was, the worse it had to be. The Saints, who lose their mastermind, seem to be taking the worst of it anyway; the Rams won't even be replacing Gregg Williams, at least not immediately.

More bountygate coverage from SB Nation St. Louis: