2012 may have been unlike any other year, especially regarding the swift hand of justice coming down on misbehavior in football in America.   A quick look at Penn State’s unprecedented leveling of its once-revered football program sets the bar for years to come.  Intolerable behavior in real-life will not be excused, simply because the men involved are considered above-the-law by its fans.

However, the recent appellate reversal of the player suspensions related to the New Orleans Saints’ “Bountygate” scandal  is worth a double take.  As Will Smith and Jonathon Vilma were suddenly cleared to play on opening weekend, you realize that, in essence, they've really lost nothing.  Oh, they may lose some money, as Roger Goodell may have the ability to assess some financial penalties, but he apparently doesn't have the authority to punish the players for an underground hit-squad-for-pay system.

Meanwhile, Sean Payton and the rest of the Saints organization may want to consider joining a union, as all of the punishments handed down to them for encouraging (or not stopping) the bounty program are all still intact.  While Smith will be lining up on the field today, the repercussions of his actions will be felt by the franchise and their fans for several years.

But the cry from Saints fans brought back memories of the fans who defended the repeated and egregious actions of Indiana’s Bobby Knight, who could count on a legion of alumni and dedicated fans to rise up to dismiss whatever he had done.

And if you don’t believe me, just ask Mike Patton, a Yahoo! Sports Contributor who didn't waste a moment to celebrate the ability for his Saints players to be reinstated on a technicality, even though the guilt of their actions still stand in the form of the sanctions against the team itself.

As a Saints fan, I am happy to see justice prevail here, at least for now. This was the right decision for a number of reasons. It will be good to see the defense at full strength soon, and hopefully this controversy can soon be a thing of the past.   http://sports.yahoo.com/news/orleans-saints-suspended-players-cleared-play-opening-game-114000658--nfl.html

Why is all of this going through my head on this beautiful Sunday morning, when the Packers are suiting up to play their season opener?  If you didn’t grab a copy of this week’s Sports Illustrated (September 10, 2012), I highly recommend that you do exactly that, and read the story by Melissa Segura on the women caring for retired NFL players suffering early-onset dementia from the very kinds of hits that the Bountygate players were paying each other to make.

It was the story of the former Packer that affected me the most.  Perhaps you might be thinking of the man on the cover of the issue, quarterback Jim McMahon, who served as Brett Favre’s backup in 1996, bringing home a Super Bowl ring for holding a clipboard and mentoring a young Favre after his own prime had long past.  But you would be incorrect.

Let's be honest.  Most of us never liked McMahon.  Most of us tolerated his presence on the Packers roster because he shut up and didn’t try and overshadow the team.  And, after the Super Bowl, when he whined about not getting to play, we nodded our heads and said, “Yep…same old McMahon.”

But this is a far different Jim McMahon.  Segura does a masterful job taking the familiar face with the winged sunglasses and telling the story of the blank stare that likely hides behind.   Only 53, McMahon depends on his girlfriend to keep a daily journal for him, leave signal notes for him, and help him navigate what has become an increasingly smaller world since his diagnosis with dementia.

When you read the story of a man waking in a hotel room, calling for his dog to help him navigate to his bathroom, only to be told that he’s not even at home, it turns the Punky Arch-Enemy instantly into a sympathetic figure for any Packer fan.  No one wants to see Walter Payton or Mike Singletary crippled and alone in life, frightened by every shadow and invisible stalker coming to take the last of their dignity.  Yet this is now the story of McMahon.

Slipped into the article, however, was one quick mention of the Green and Gold, a reminder of one reason why he  is where he is today.

…McMahon was suffering from early-onset dementia, a condition the couple connects to his four documented concussions that McMahon suffered during his 15-year career, including a 1986 season-ending body slam by Green Bay’s Charles Martin.  That year a Chicago Sun-Times story had predicted facetiously that McMahon would one day wear the phrase BRAIN-DAMAGED on his famous headbands.  His diagnosis turned that joke into a grim reality.  [Sports Illustrated, 9/10/12, “The Other Half of the Story”, by Melissa Segura]

McMahon is never going to get better.  Someday, he is going to look at his two Super Bowl rings and not remember what they are or why he has them.  Someone will need to explain what the “Super Bowl Shuffle” is to him, or worse, who the guy with the sunglasses is in the video.

But here’s the rub.  CD Angeli in 1986 was a typical 18 year-old, a freshman in college.  He watched endless amounts of professional wrestling, pointlessly punctuated his sentences with excessive profanity, and cruised for chicks.  And he watched every Packer game in a frustrating season spent in the shadow of the Bears’ Super Bowl years.

And, he watched that game where Martin body-slammed McMahon, well after the ball was gone.  It wasn’t a late hit.  It wasn’t unintentional.  It was meant to hurt him, and it did.  He reinjured an already hurt shoulder, and suffered a concussion.  In those days, we worried more about the shoulder than the concussion.

And, that 18 year-old kid watched Charles Martin walk off the field and high-five Mossy Cade (another great role model).  He watched Martin strut around with a shit-eating grin on the sideline, ejected, while the starting quarterback for the other team sat in the locker room, wondering where he was.

And that 18 year-old kid cheered.

He pumped his fist and he celebrated the knockout.  He knew it was wrong.  He knew it was cheating.  But the ends justified the means, and any victory against the Bears was worth the price.  He was a stupid teenager who still believed wrestling was real, that men could be knocked out on the mat, then somehow resummon their strength (despite being a chokehold) and come back to win the match.

Charles Martin Illegal Hit

And, after all, Martin was a Packer.  You stand by your team and its players, no matter what.  Right?

The kid has grown up now.   I visit my 93 year-old grandfather, who sits in a nursing home, suffering from Parkinson’s disease.  I've seen a once-proud man that I once idolized and respected now dependent on others for everything from feeding to clothing to toileting.  Dementia isn’t a joke.  Concussions, like the two my daughter suffered during last year’s basketball season, aren’t anything you shake off or just recover from.

Charles Martin isn’t a hero.   He passed away several years ago, but the impact of his actions live on in a ghost who is losing more and more of his identity every day.

McMahon is a part of a collective lawsuit against the NFL that hopes to charge that the league somehow knew more about concussions than they told players, that they intentionally put them back into ballgames knowing that they were putting players at greater and greater risk.

Football is inherently a violent game with tremendous risks.  Players dress in near-full suits of armor, hidden by colorful Nike uniforms, and are stronger and faster than they’ve ever been.  A legal hit is always a threat of being a career-ender for the greatest and least among the players in the league.   I’m not putting a lot of stock in the players’ suit coming out with a tremendous victory, simply because I don’t know if anyone understood the impact of concussions in 1986 like we do today.  Just like Aaron Rodgers, any player is jumping to get back in the game as soon as possible following a concussion, even in an era where we do know the long-term perils involved.

But the very idea of intentionally concussing another player, knowing what we know today, is unfathomable.  Perhaps Kenny Stills and Martin did have their own “hit list” in those days.  It doesn’t make it any less reprehensible, especially seeing the impact on one player who was crossed off the list on Martin’s towel.

Finding out that a year ago today--the season opener of the 2011 season--Aaron Rodgers was a target in the purported bounty scheme should enrage Packer fans.  After all, he had suffered two concussions and missed a start in the previous season.

Rodgers only needs one more concussion to equal McMahon’s career total.

Allowing the Bountygate players to get away with their actions without missing a game is a crime against all the players struggling to live out their lives with dementia.  Even Charles Martin was suspended for two games for his actions.

I take back my celebrations all those years ago, and apologize to McMahon for doing so.  I was a dumb kid who didn’t know any better.  But today, Saints fans should know better.  Because we all know better.

-----------------

C.D. Angeli is a Feature Writer for Cheesehead TV and a co-host of the weekly live Packer talk show Cheesehead Radio.  Contact him at [email protected]