NFL commissioner Roger Goodell lowered the boom on the New Orleans earlier today, penalizing the club for Gregg Williams’ bounty scheme by suspending the current Rams defensive coordinator indefinitely and barring Saints head coach Sean Payton for a full year. In the considered view of the New Orleans Times-Picayune’s Jeff Duncan, the Saints had this coming.

It was the actions of Payton (above), Williams, Mickey Loomis and Joe Vitt – or lack thereof – that led to the unprecedented punishment meted out today. It was their lack of institutional control that resulted in the unprecedented punishment. Their cavalier attitudes and carelessness left the league with no recourse and has caused irreparable short- and long-term damage to the organization.

Any hopes the Saints had of becoming the first NFL team to play in the Super Bowl on their home field in Super Bowl XLVII disintegrated with today’s news.

When the bounty scandal first broke, numerous reports, citing NFL sources, said the penalties would be “unprecedented.”

We now know those reports were accurate.