Peyton, Payton and Payton

If your name is Peyton or Payton, this past week has been one of great excitement, great shock and great sadness.

At the beginning of the week, quarterback Peyton Manning chose to bring his talents to Colorado when he agreed to sign with the Denver Broncos. This decision put to rest weeks of speculation as well as a year of whether Peyton would play football again. He will play football again, but not in Indy. Now the only thing left to speculate is whether he can return to his old form. We will need a few months before we will know the answer.

And just when we thought NFL news couldn’t get any bigger than Peyton Manning choosing a team, NFL fans received a real surprise by midweek. Commissioner Roger Goodell handed out punishment in the so-called “bounty” scandal. Effective April 1, New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton will be suspended for one year because of his involvement in and knowledge of the scandal. Sheriff Goodell didn’t stop there. Saints general manager Mickey Loomis was suspended for eight games, and Saints assistant head coach Joe Vitt was suspended for six games—all suspensions are without pay. Gregg Williams, the alleged mastermind behind the scandal, was suspended indefinitely. Williams was the Saints’ defensive coordinator from 2009 to 2011 and now holds the same position with the St. Louis Rams.

These suspensions now leave the Saints in upheaval. Before this scandal hit, the big off-season news out of New Orleans was the fact that the team was struggling to ink a deal with quarterback Drew Brees. Although the news of signing Brees becomes back-burner in comparison, the urgency of signing him is even more important if the Saints want to salvage any type of competitive season.

Finally, in a third story pertaining to Payton, the legal community lost a legend last week when lawyer John Payton, president and director–counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, died on March 22 after a brief illness. Payton was a fierce advocate for civil rights and a leader in the legal community, working on such high-profile items as the University of Michigan’s admissions case.