Defensive end Anthony Hargrove only spent one season with the Seattle Seahawks after playing the 2009 and 2010 season's with the New Orleans Saints. Now, along with three other Saints or former Saints players, Hargrove has been suspended for his participation in New Orleans' former bounty program, with Hargrove set to miss the first eight games of the 2012 season without pay for his actions.
Scott Fujita, Jonathan Vilma and Will Smith were the three other players served with a suspension, though Hargrove's was the second-harshest aside from Vilma's sentence of the whole season without pay. Vilma's absence will open up opportunity for former Seahawks linebacker David Hawthorne to get a lot of playing time, though Hargrove might be hard pressed to get any work after eight weeks on the sideline.
From the NFL's press release:
Hargrove actively participated in the program while a member of the Saints. Hargrove submitted a signed declaration to the league that established not only the existence of the program at the Saints, but also that he knew about and participated in it. The evidence showed that Hargrove told at least one player on another team that Vikings quarterback Brett Favre was a target of a large bounty during the NFC Championship Game in January of 2010. Hargrove also actively obstructed the league's 2010 investigation into the program by being untruthful to investigators.
Well that are certainly sounds pretty condemning. Could the league have gotten it wrong though? I doubt it.
In a bit of back-tracking, Hargrove released a statement about the incident back in March trying to justify some of his actions:
"I have made many mistakes in my life and have paid dearly for some of them, and the late hit and the comments [on Brett Farve] were both mistakes, in my opinion. But players all over the league do the same thing every Sunday, make late hits and say stupid things. But I can say with absolute certainty that neither the late hit nor the comment have anything whatsoever to do with the issue being so hotly discussed in the media [Bounty Scandal]."
Well Anthony, the NFL doesn't agree with you bud. Sorry.
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