While Roger Goodell is at it, he should vacate the New Orleans Saints’ 2010 Super Bowl title, earned while the Saints had a bounty system for deliberately injuring opposing players. It was bad enough the system existed for the last three seasons. But players and coaches also engaged in a cover-up. Goodell, the commissioner of the National Football League, said without hesitation in an interview Wednesday on the NFL Network, “We were misled, there denials throughout that period. Clearly we were lied to. We investigated this back in 2010. We were told it was not happening and it continued for another two years.”

There is plenty of precedent in college sports for vacating the performance of scandalous top teams. Many basketball teams, including the University of Massachusetts, have had Final Four appearances vacated since 1961. The University of Southern California football team had its 2004 Bowl Championship Series national title stripped and was banned two seasons from bowl games for the improper benefits to Reggie Bush. Bush was also stripped of his Heisman Trophy. In 1987, the National Collegiate Athletic Association gave Southern Methodist the “death penalty,” a complete ban from play over its play-for-pay scandal.