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I mentioned this on Twitter a few times this morning, and it's worth sharing again on the mother ship here. Former St. Louis Rams fullback Mike Karney has now been named in the New Orleans Saints bounty boondoggle. Karney, a member of the Saints until joining the Rams in 2009, found his name on one of the Saints' ill-fated PowerPoint slides as a target.
According to a report from the nearly extinct Times-Picayune, Karney was pictured on a slide in a presentation by the Saints defensive coaching staff beneath a headline reading "MIKE FUCKING KARNEY" that was presented ahead of the Rams-Saints game in Week 10 during the 2009 season.
The text of the slide read:
"One game is a small sample size. Two consecutive games might be a trend. According to Mike Sando's latest post on ESPN, the Rams averaged only 1.5 yards per carry with Karney as a lead blocker in Games... and 8.6 (yards per carry) from a single-back set.
"Though St. Louis Rams fullback Mike Karney says he has 'moved on' from the insensitive timing of his release by Saints officials eight months ago, it appears the cut hasn't completely healed."
A couple takeaways, first: hey, the Saints read blogs!
Second, what's not being said is that the Saints' bounty program is kind of a joke, really, if it weren't just so goddamn serious. The Saints defense didn't get much on Karney in that game, and Steven Jackson rushed for 131 yards and a touchdown as the Rams very nearly beat the Saints.
Karney took it as a point of pride, since fullbacks rarely find themselves such a prominent target for a defense. Ultimately, the slide featuring Karney and the rest of the evidence made public reveals what was a pretty toxic culture in New Orleans, something you can be sure the league was taking note of well before the bounty stuff surfaced.
Karney spoke to that as well.
"The players weren't the problem. Sean Payton and Mickey Loomis, that was the problem. I wasn't their guy."