Who Dat Nation: Time to offer a bounty of forgiveness

    It’s time for the Who Dat Nation to man up – and to forgive.
    Since the Bountygate scandal broke last March, Saints fans have directed their venom toward NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell with equal parts passion, pride and paranoia.
    Two facts are irrefutable:
    1. For the sake of constructing a legal defense that the NFL will utilize in future concussion lawsuits, Goodell threw the Saints under the Mercedes-Benz Superdome a la Jimmy Hoffa, who many believe was buried in cement shoulder pads beneath the 50-yard line of Giants Stadium in New Jersey. Goodell deep-sixed the Saints, especially Coach Sean Payton, and he deep-sixed them good.
    2. The Saints – read that, Payton – knew exactly what was going on and knew exactly what illegal practices he had to stop. But Payton chose not to stop the pay-for-licks system and then tried to cover it up. Great head coaches – see Jimmy Johnson, Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick – have an arrogance gene in their DNA, but Payton’s deserves a pioneering medical study all its own.
    So, to say that Goodell “overreacted” is logically incorrect. He acted very logically when you consider he is the hired gun for 32 billionaire owners who face the prospect of losing billions of dollars in legal settlements if they one day are judged to have turned a blind eye toward protecting players from brain injury.
    The only people who really are innocent victims – Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Who Dat – were left to soak up the collateral damage from a Saints-inflicted wound. Sure, every other team in the NFL has paid defensive players for big hits as a time-honored method of fraternal bonding, but no team had been warned to stop it as directly as had the Saints, who simply said: “Catch us if you can.”
    They got caught.
    And now, in a few days, “Mr. Goodell Goes to New Orleans” for Super Bowl XLVII.
    What’s a bonafide Who Dat to do?
    Some Who Dats have chosen to channel their anger in an obvious direction. Drawing on the “Wanted: Dead or Alive” posters tacked to the swinging doors of an Albuquerque saloon, The Creole Creamery on Magazine Street taped an oversized picture of the commissioner behind its ice cream counter with a cautionary message at the bottom: “Do Not Serve This Man.”
    Another shop in Metairie – MJ’s on Metairie Road – is selling dolls. Actually, they are Roger Goodell voodoo dolls, about 10 inches tall and bearing a lithographed image of the commissioner. Inserted, of course, are a variety of pins, each with a small piece of fabric bearing the name of a Saints’ player originally charged in the scandal.
    The dolls, which retail for $15.99, were the brainchild of a military veteran on leave from Afghanistan who got his mother to teach him how to sew during his return to New Orleans. I’m not making this up. They are selling like snowballs in August.
    Goodell’s Super Bowl week in New Orleans figures to be heavy on room service, which is unfortunate considering Galatoire’s and Brigsten’s don’t offer take-out.
    My advice to the Who Dat Nation is simply this: eat plenty of Creole Creamery ice cream, drop the stick-pins and forgive. Saints fans are called to be saints, right? The leader of all saints summed it up best in his Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”
    And then, if there is one, feel free to show up with your Roger Goodell dolls for the Who Dat pep rally at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 4, when You Know Who brings his unique set of genes back to Saints’ headquarters.
    Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected].