NFL commissioner Roger Goodell upheld the player suspensions handed out for the Saints’ bounty program, the league announced Tuesday.

Saints LB Jonathan Vilma is suspended for the 2012 season. Former Saints DE Anthony Hargrove, now with Green Bay, received an eight-game ban. Saints DE Will Smith will miss four games, while ex-Saints and current Browns LB Scott Fujita will be suspended for three games.

Goodell wrote the following in a letter to the players:

“Throughout this entire process, including your appeals, and despite repeated invitations and encouragement to do so, none of you has offered any evidence that would warrant reconsideration of your suspensions. Instead, you elected not to participate meaningfully in the appeal process…”

“Although you claimed to have been ‘wrongfully accused with insufficient evidence,’ your lawyers elected not to ask a single question of the principal investigators, both of whom were present at the hearing (as your lawyers had requested); you elected not to testify or to make any substantive statement, written or oral, in support of your appeal; you elected not to call a single witness to support your appeal; and you elected not to introduce a single exhibit addressing the merits of your appeal. Instead, your lawyers raised a series of jurisdictional and procedural objections that generally ignore the CBA, in particular its provisions governing ‘conduct detrimental’ determinations…”