This offseason for the New Orleans Saints has been like the street sweepers hitting Bourbon Street at midnight on Ash Wednesday.

It’s going to be a hangover that lingers for a while.

When the history of Bountygate is written, two things will be starkly clear.

The Saints persisted in a policy of rewarding monetarily the deliberate injuring of opposing players in violation of NFL rules (governing the salary cap, no less). The timing couldn’t be worse, especially when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s biggest expressed priority is player safety.

While that is disturbing to many outside of football, it is the cover-up that will seal the Saints’ fate when it comes to punishment.

Team owner Tom Benson was made aware of the policy and ordered general manager Mickey Loomis to put a stop to it. He didn’t. Head coach Sean Payton was aware of the policy by his defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams, and let it continue.

The other point is the greatest period of Saints history — 62-34 record since 2006, a win in Super Bowl XLIV and two division titles — was mortgaged away for peanuts.

When NFL players are pulling down multimillion-dollar salaries, putting bounties on knocking an opposing quarterback or other player out of a game for a measly $10,000 qualifies as peanuts. The craziest thing about the whole scandal is if Williams had said “let’s deliberately hurt Kurt Warner” and no money was involved, the NFL wouldn’t have likely had any grounds to prove anything was amiss. It is a sport of violent collisions after all.

The Saints are facing the loss of draft picks, fines and suspensions for Payton and Loomis (and Williams too, who is now defensive coordinator for the St. Louis Rams) and several of the involved players and a black eye in the court of public opinion.

The Saints can adjust to suspensions for Payton and players, like middle linebacker Jonathan Vilma. But what really will hurt is the likely loss of draft picks, which are the lifeblood of any NFL franchise. When the salary cap forces teams to part with ways with expensive veterans, younger (and cheaper) players need to be waiting in the wings to replace them. That pipeline will dry up in a few years with disastrous consequences.

Goodell came down hard on Patriots’ coach Bill Belichick for Spygate, but the penalties for this will likely exceed those.

With the NFL facing lawsuits from retired players about football-related head injuries, Goodell will try to make an example of the Saints to show his commitment to player safety.

And he’ll be right to do so.

Even without this scandal, the Saints were already off to a less-than-stellar offseason. The front office was forced to put the franchise tag on quarterback Drew Brees since the team couldn’t reach a long-term deal. With guard Carl Nicks and wide receiver Marques Colston hitting free agency, having to put the tag on Brees keep the Saints from locking up either of the pair for a season. They’re probably gone and the loss of Nicks, who has emerged as one of the NFL’s best guards, is going to severely impede the offensive line.

The championship window for these Saints, which was still open, is starting to slam shut.

The party is over and the hangover has just begun.

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Steve Wilson is sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. You can follow him on Twitter at vpsportseditor. He can be reached at 601-636-4545, ext. 142 or at swilson@vicksburgpost.com.