Who is Jonathan Vilma Kidding?

December 26, 2011; New Orleans, LA, USA; New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma (51) against the Atlanta Falcons during a game at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. The Saints defeated the Falcons 45-16. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-US PRESSWIRE

Jonathan Vilma and his lawyer are out of their collective minds.

For those who don’t know, the Bounty scandal is back in the news. The NFL has a copy of a ledger detailing weekly bounty earnings of Saints players, CBSSports.com’s Mike Freeman has confirmed. The ledger shows both money earned from “cart-offs” ($1,000 payouts) and “whacks” ($400), as well as deductions for “mental errors” ($100). The following is an excerpt from a report on Yahoo! Sports:

“The players clearly knew what was going on each week with the payments,” a source told Yahoo! Sports. In fact, multiple sources admitted that Saints defensive players would regularly encourage teammates to put money earned from the bounty system back into the pool. It’s unclear if that was to increase the potential winnings or eventually use the money for some other purpose.

Jonathan Vilma, who is suing the NFL for defamation of character, has fired back regarding this ledger. He says that the ledger shows no proof of bounties being paid to players.

What?

Here is an excerpt from a report from what Vilma’s lawyer, Peter Ginsberg, had to say:

Ginsberg says the commissioner interviewed the person who kept the ledger, and knows that “the `whacks’ and `cart-off,’ though regrettably named, were descriptions of good, clean, legal plays, and that any dirty or penalized play resulted in fines.”

Who are these people kidding???

Read that quote, the plays on the sheet are regrettably named, but good legal plays.

OK. That’s not the point.

Nobody ever said that the Bounties were for illegal plays. Hello? If the players kept making illegal plays, there would be penalties, the other team would score more often, and the players would have less of a chance to score these bounties.

Duh!

Ginsberg didn’t say, however, that payments were not made for cart-offs, and/or whacks. Who cares if they are clean? You can still knocks someone off the field for a long time on a clean play.

Who are these people kidding?

Nobody said that the bounties were offered for illegal plays, they said it was offered to injure people. I think “cart-offs” and “whacks” pretty much confirm that, and your proclamations of innocence are nothing by misleading.

We are not stupid. Good luck with that suit Vilma. You are going to need it.