Fujita slams NFL probe

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Fujita

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS

Former Saints linebacker Scott Fujita, a union leader with a record of criticizing the NFL’s player-safety record, sees elements of a “smear campaign” in a bounty investigation that has sullied his reputation.

Some NFL players agree, and question whether Fujita’s three-game suspension has something to do with retribution.

“I’m not saying the NFL is intentionally lying,” Fujita said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’ve been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they may have just been working with the information they’ve been given, even though much of that information was inaccurate and lacked credibility.

“It’s their cavalier interpretation of everything that’s been way off. They clearly proceeded with a public smear campaign with very little regard for the truth.”

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell could rule on the appeals of Fujita and the other players suspended because of their roles in the bounty program as early as Monday.

Saints linebacker Scott Shanle finds it hard to ignore the symmetry of the NFL portraying Fujita as a hypocrite on player-safety matters after Fujita had done the same thing to the league.

“When you look at Scott, who was here for one season (of the three spanned by the bounty probe), for him to get three games, I just felt like there had to be more of a personal issue with that,” Shanle said. “When you look at how outspoken he is and a lot of the issues he tries to address, it probably doesn’t sit well with the league.”

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the NFL stands by its finding that Fujita gave “more than token amounts” of money to a pool that rewarded injury-producing hits called “cart-offs” and “knockouts.”

“Nothing that he has asserted in his various public statements undermines the findings of the investigation,” Aiello said.

Fujita, who now plays for Cleveland, was one of four current or former Saints suspended in the bounty probe. Two of them, Jonathan Vilma and Will Smith, still play for New Orleans. The other, Green Bay defensive lineman Anthony Hargrove, left New Orleans after 2010, while Fujita left after 2009, the first season covered by the investigation.

In 2010, Fujita became a member of the NFLPA executive committee, and has since echoed comments by Congresswoman Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) comparing the NFL’s 2009 position on concussions’ links to brain disease to the way the tobacco industry denied knowledge that smoking caused cancer.

Fujita said his only chance to speak with Goodell directly came in early March after the release of the initial bounty report, which did not identify players, although Fujita’s name had been leaked. Fujita said he called Goodell to explain locker room culture as it relates to tough talk and informal performance incentives.

He said Goodell told him then that “he would have no problem coming down hard on Saints coaches, but that when it comes to players, he’s not quite sure what he’s got.”