Detroit Lions linebacker Stephen Tulloch doesn't deny the eye-opening nature of the penalties handed down on the people associated in the New Orleans Saints "bounty" case.
But he believes there's a lesson to be learned from the case, and the season-long and indefinite suspensions handed out to Sean Payton and Gregg Williams have put the rest of the league on notice that such behavior will not be tolerated.
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"I know the league came down on them and what not," Tulloch recently told the Detroit Free Press). "It's a tough penalty to deal with. I think it's a lesson to be told to everybody -- if they are doing it, that it's real, and I think people are listening to it."
"The commissioner has reasons for giving the penalty the way he's giving it to the team," Tulloch added, "and I'm sure ballclubs around the NFL that have done it or have thought about doing it, it'll stop there."
While Tulloch doesn't go as far as to publicly endorse the harsh penalties levied by Commissioner Roger Goodell, the stunning nature of the details from the case still has Tulloch scratching his head.
"I think it's unreal, man, to go out there and to have in your mind that you want to take somebody's career out," Tulloch said. "You've got to look at it as people are trying to feed their family, and to go out there and have the mind-set of taking them out, it's not right."
Tulloch, who signed a five-year contract with the Lions last month, spent 2006 through 2010 playing with the Tennessee Titans, another team linked to a possible "bounty" system from Williams' stint as the team's defensive coordinator in the late 1990s. Tulloch said he never participated in any such program while a Titan.
"We never did it here, and I never did it in Tennessee," Tulloch said. "That's something that I guess that's been going on that I didn't know about it, and it's now coming out to everybody else."
