The Saints’ popularity is blowing up right now for all the wrong reasons. For those of you who don’t know, the Saints are being accused of maintaining a pay-for-performance bounty system from 2009 to 2011 under defensive coordinator Gregg Williams.

Fans of the Saints are trying to make sense of all the news. There are so many opinions out there right now about what the team did, who knew and who didn’t know and what the punishments are going to be.

It may seem as if all of this is not a big deal and it’s all getting blown out of proportion, but think about it for a second. The Saints, the team that made miracles possible, allegedly were paying players to intentionally hurt other players.

Probably the most famous example of this is Jonathan Vilma offering a $10,000 cash prize to whoever knocked Brett Favre out of the game.

We all remember the beating the team gave to Favre during the 2010 NFC Championship Game and at the time everyone was excited about the intensity of the defense. What was a great performance and a great story is now an incident that represents the malicious nature of the Saints organization.

Another reason this scandal is a big deal is because of the state of football today. The NFL has embarked on a campaign of player safety and is at the peak of enforcing new rules to protect players from injury. While this in itself is a topic of debate, the fact of the matter is the Saints’ bounty scandal is in direct conflict with the NFL’s stance on player safety. For that reason, the punishments are going to be severe.

I’ve heard people use the excuse that this bounty system is something that is not exclusive to New Orleans and is something that happens everywhere. That may be true, but it does not excuse the Saints from wrongdoing. Just because everyone else is playing the bully doesn’t make it okay to join in.

Furthermore, it is my opinion that this whole thing brings the Saints’ lone Super Bowl victory into question. Do we really want our team to be remembered as the team that violated the rules to win a championship?

I hope the organization is prepared for the punishment to come. Being that this incident is unprecedented, Commissioner Roger Goodell is expected to enact harsh punishments against the team which may include taking away draft picks, fines or even suspensions. To think, the team was so close to reaching another Super Bowl and now their future is in question.

What hurts the most is the perception the nation now has of our team. In a state famous for political corruption and being the place Katrina ravaged, the Saints emerged as the bright spot in New Orleans. During the Super Bowl run, the nation was behind us, but now the Saints have become infamous and they will be looked at as the bad guys.

How big is this scandal? Well, in terms of how it will change the NFL that has yet to be decided, but what has really been ruined is the image the team projected. We were the good guys that the country could rally around and now we are just another name on the list of infamous teams.