Paul Hornung was suspended for a year with Alex Karras by Rozelle
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Paul Hornung faced a 1-time NFL year suspension, he knows what's in store for Sean Payton
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Jimmy Smith, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By Jimmy Smith, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
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on March 21, 2012 at 2:07 PM
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Paul Hornung, one of two men the NFL once suspended for a year - Hornung's punishment part of a gambling probe in 1963, said the penalties handed out Wednesday by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell against the New Orleans Saints and Coach Sean Payton were justifiably correct.
6213397188_5e38c3c602.jpgWire servicesPaul Hornung
Hornung, then a halfback with the Green Bay Packers, along with Detroit Lions defensive tackle Alex Karras, were banished by Commissioner Pete Rozelle on April 17, 1963, for the upcoming season for betting on NFL games and associating with undesirable persons. Both were reinstated before the 1964 season.
Hornung on Wednesday endorsed Goodell's suspension of Payton for a year, as well as the rest of the punishment meted out.
"Absolutely. Yes," Hornung said from his home in Louisville, Ky. "You can't have anything like this in the league. The game is rough enough where you don't have to start giving out incentives to take somebody out of the game for heaven's sake. Most of those hits, you come by it naturally to try to tackle somebody or block somebody. But to have that incentive in there where you're going to get paid to take somebody out, that's ridiculous.
"You and I and everybody else weren't in on all the meetings and (don't) know really what happened. Usually when something like this happens, the whole story doesn't come out. Who knows? They (the league) have been able to take care of their own in terms suspensions in the past, and I was one of them, of course."
Hornung was immediately contrite after Rozelle banished him nearly a half century ago, admitting his mistake and saying "I am truly sorry."
One season earlier, Hornung had been named the NFL's Most Valuable Player, while Karras was an all-league player from 1960-62. Both Hornung and Karras resumed their careers after their one-year exiles.
The gambling probe, which ate at the integrity of the game, determined that Hornung bet as much as $500 on NFL games from 1959-61 and placed bets with friends for $100 or $200. Karras, it was found, made at least six bets of $50 or $100.
Five other members of the Lions, Joe Schmidt, Wayne Walker, John Gordy, Gary Lowe and Sam Williams, were each fined $2,000 by Rozelle for betting on the Packers in the 1962 championship game against the New York Giants, won by Green Bay 16-7.
Hornung said Wednesday that gambling on games was routine during his era.
"You know what, looking back it just pisses you off," Hornung said. "I knew 10 other guys who bet. They didn't get them all in my day. I wasn't going to say anything, naturally. But I knew the guys who were betting. They'd brag about it and talk about it. Even back then, they didn't get everybody who was guilty.
"There was no use in me causing a stir by saying there were other guys who weren't caught that I knew were gambling. Sure, it was more of a, I don't know, a friendship deal where you'd bet $50 or $100, an insignificant amount. There was nobody betting enough money to throw a game or anything like that. That never happened."
Hornung, now 76 and for a brief time a member of the Saints in 1967 after he was left unprotected by the Packers in the expansion draft (he retired because of a chronic neck injury during the team's first training camp), said while big hits were commonplace when he played, he was unaware of any pay-for-performance schemes in what then was a 12-team league.
"I never knew of anybody who got paid to take somebody out," said Hornung, a Heisman Trophy winner at Notre Dame who was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1986 in his 11th time as a finalist. "That wasn't a part of the game as far as we were concerned. They would look out to really give you that good hit. There's no question. It's a tough game. You go out there, and it's about hitting."
After being reinstated for the 1964 season, Hornung rushed for only 914 yards his final three seasons, scoring 12 touchdowns.
Karras, after his suspension, made just one other All-Pro team. He retired after the 1970 season.
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Jimmy Smith can be reached at
jsmith@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3814.
The precedent for doing something that might or might not have affected the game was set and the guys involved were very prominent players. This relates very well to the brady* issue brady* will always be in small letters from now on and followed by an asterisk.
brady*
