Drew Brees and Roger Goodell far from burying the hatchet

New Orleans Saints players indicted and convicted by Commissioner Goodell had their suspensions overturned by Paul Tagliabue, who had been appointed to take another look at the BountyGate allegations.

But neither the commissioner, nor Saints quarterback Brees are backing down from the ongoing fight.

Brees chimed in shortly after Tabliabue’s ruling saying Goodell lacked credibility with players and fans for how he handled the incidents. The quarterback has been outspoken from the start about his frustration with how the allegations were handled.

Goodell responded via the Huffington Post article by saying he would not apologize for anything and indicating that he still believes the Saints employed a bounty system and that doing so was unacceptable.

I’m not sure either guy is completely right. I think Goodell has done a credible job since becoming commissioner of creating penalties for players who A) don’t conduct themselves well off the field and who B) carelessly put opposing players in danger with massive hits, etc.

But like many of his critics, I think Goodell has gone too far in appointing himself as accuser and judge. There needs to be a more equitable and fair process. And he has been less than forthcoming about any evidence that does exist against Saints players, executives and coaches.

Brees, meanwhile, has always conducted himself with respect and class. But he seems to have buried his head in the sand, at least to some respect, as far as BountyGate goes, seemingly denying that anything took place despite admissions from defensive coordinator Gregg Williams and others.

It’s understandable that Brees would be frustrated about how the season has unfolded. The 5-8 Saints are virtually out of the playoff race and he isn’t getting any younger. How many more chances he’ll have to chase a second Super Bowl is no guarantee.

But still, even if the evidence against the players wasn’t strong, penalties against Williams, Sean Payton, Joe Vitt and Mickey Loomis were warranted, whether the ones they received went overboard or not.

This is why the Dolphins lose?: Sometimes you look up and down a team’s roster during a bad season and wonder how a team with so much talent could lose so many games. Other times bad teams make clear why they aren’t winning.

Defensive tackle Tony McDaniel told the Palm Beach Post after the Dolphins lost to New England a couple weeks ago that he thought the Patriots disrespected the team … for running the same play over and over successfully.

WHAT?!?!?

New England ran a 16 play drive with 13 of those running plays. Six of the runs went through the same hole.

“It really [ticked] me off. … It was disrespectful to us to run the same play over and over and be successful,” he told the post, via FoxSports.com via Yardbarker.com. McDaniel, there is an easy answer to that one. Your teammate, Randy Starks, got it right: “It is disrespectful, but you’ve got to stop it.”

To even breathe those words out loud makes you look like a complete moron. Kudos to the Patriots’ coaches for finding a weak spot and exploiting it. What a weenie. Unreal.

McFadden’s fragility preventing elite status: Darren McFadden came back Thursday night in time to score a touchdown for Oakland in its showdown with rival Denver … and then promptly got hurt.

In doing so, the uber-talented McFadden proves once again that he is not the franchise back that he was drafted to be and that anyone playing fantasy football who takes him with a first round draft choice is out of their mind.

The ankle injury could be enough to end McFadden’s season. If it is, he finishes 2012 with nine games played just a year after finishing with only seven played. He has yet in five seasons to play 16 games and he has missed 26 of the 80 games, or fully one in three, he has been around for.

Oakland is a bad team this year and, even fully healthy, McFadden couldn’t do enough at the beginning of the season to mask those shortcomings. If I’m the Raiders, I’m thinking pretty seriously of letting this guy find his next home starting in 2013 and looking for someone a bit more reliable at not getting injured.

Football is a physical game and it’s not alarming if a guy gets hurt once in awhile, but this guy now has a five-year track record. It’s too bad. He’s a great talent and there is no indication that he isn’t a decent guy. I like to root for those types of players. But I also like to rely on guys who are going to be able to play a full season once in awhile. This guy hasn’t proven he can.

No Gronkowski, no problem: Did anyone worry that the Patriots’ season was over when Rob Gronkowski broke his arm?

The outspoken and entertaining tight end had 53 catches and 10 touchdowns when he got hurt at the tail end of a 59-24 win over Indianapolis. All New England has done in the three weeks since is destroy the New York Jets by 30, squeak by Miami on the road and then pound the Texans Monday Night by 28.

Meanwhile, while Gronkowski’s arm is healing, he’s also getting an opportunity to rest a hip problem that had been ailing him earlier in the season.

For a long time I thought the Texans were the team to beat in the AFC, but as the season’s final quarter of games winds down, it looks like the top two Super Bowl contenders from this conference are Denver and a Patriots team that should get Gronkowski back just in time for the chase. Nobody is going to want to face this team in January.

Teammate goes to bat for Russell Wilson:

We said here last week that in a normal year Russell Wilson might be in consideration for rookie of the year. Richard Sherman, a teammate of Wilson’s, says the Seahawk rookie signal caller is “a little better” than Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin.

A look at the numbers refutes that with Griffin, who has Washington at 6-6 and relevant this late in the season for the first time in years.

With Luck, the numbers are a bit closer than I would have expected. Wilson hasn’t been asked to do as much. He’s thrown for more than 1,000 yards less than Luck and he’s helped by the presence of Marshawn Lynch. But Wilson has led some late-game rallies. He seems to get better as the pressure builds, as per the Seattle Times piece. And his quarterback rating is in the 90s compared with Luck’s number in the 70s.

At the end of the day, the ROY race probably belongs to Griffin. But a testament was paid to the quality of the 2012 draft class of quarterbacks on the NFL Network last week when Heath Evans and Darren Sharper debated whether this class was better than the 1983 quarterback class on their Buy or Sell segment.

Right now I would say it’s too early to say yes. There were three Hall of Famers from the older class and 10 Super Bowl appearances. But there were also a couple of busts in that group. Ken O’Brien, Tony Eason and Todd Blackledge never lived up to their billing.

The 2012 group from top to bottom – Luck, Griffin, Wilson, Brandon Weeden, Ryan Tannehill and even a couple other guys like Nick Foles – have the potential to ultimately drop the 1983 group to number two all-time.

More Hall of Fame discussion: First, a thank you to regular commenter Morgan Wick for pointing this column out. I didn’t agree with all the conclusions, but I thought it was a well written and entertaining piece discussing this year’s semifinalists and overall issues the writer sees with respect to the Hall of Fame voting process.

Plus, in the comments section of this piece, an interesting and lively debate breaks out on the pros and cons of John Adams as one of America’s founding fathers. It’s a good read all around.

(Read Zoneblitz.com’s post on the recent Hall of Fame semifinalist announcement here.)