New Orleans Saints Bounty Scandal

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

And on a similar note, what's the difference between an NFL bounty and the knockout bonuses that fighters are regularly awarded for knocking out their opponents?

Only that one is ok per the rules and one is not.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

I think that if the commish does anything less than ban Williams for life, then he's not sending the correct message.  Since he (Williams) should be financially set based on the millions that he's been payed over the years, and you sit him out for only a year or half-a-year, that's more like a vacation than a punishment.   A life ban from the NFL will guarantee that it doesn't happen again.  I think Loomis and Payton should be gone for at least 1 year for allowing it to happen.  I don't think the players should be punished at all - they weren't doing anything differently from what they have been coached their whole life. 

Well Williams in indefinitely out - to be reviewed after the end of the year.  Payton is gone for a year, Loomis for 3/4s of a year.   I was close on this one.

[BridgeTroll]

The penalties at first glance are pretty shocking... But this kind of behavior needs to be stopped...cold.  While you may never be able to stop "incentives" privately agreed to amongst players... institutional approval of such activities cannot be condoned.  Ignoring the commissioner's order to stop the practice is a grave offense... as is lying to the commissioner's office during the investigation.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

The penalties at first glance are pretty shocking... But this kind of behavior needs to be stopped...cold.  While you may never be able to stop "incentives" privately agreed to amongst players... institutional approval of such activities cannot be condoned.  Ignoring the commissioner's order to stop the practice is a grave offense... as is lying to the commissioner's office during the investigation.

The penalties were in-line with what I expected because of the NFLs trending towards a 'safer' league.  They were going to be made examples of, plain & simple.  As the reports keep coming, I'm seeing that the Saints were in the top 5 of all teams over the Williams period for Unecessary Roughness, Roughing the Passer, type penalties, so as I'm on record for not being against the bounty program per se, I am also on record for being against the hits outside of the rules, which is what the league is attempting to prove.

I'm a little disappointed with the language in Williams' suspension - indefinitely.  That means there is a possibility for him to be re-instated, which I don't agree with.  I also think that I've read somewhere that the NFL can't use a lifetime suspension due to the collusion rules amongst the individual teams, so that part still has to play out. 

Based on the suspension of the coaches and management, and though I don't think it's right, I'll find myself surprised at the harshness of the suspensions for the players themselves.  IMO, they were following company policy, but I guess if the company tells you to cheat on your taxes you'll go down, too.  We'll see.

[mtraininjax]

I think they should have lost more draft picks and a heftier fine against the team.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

I think they should have lost more draft picks and a heftier fine against the team.

Why?  The team played the denial card from the get-go.  Issued a cease & desist to the coaches and then washed thier hands of it.  No knowledge of it continuing.

2 Second Round picks sound about right.

[thelakelander]

Cry me a river New Orleans.  So what , you lose your coach and some cheesy draft picks.  At least you don't have Jeff Ireland in your front office.  Will the NFL please suspend the Miami Dolphins GM for eternity due to complete incompetence?

[duvaldude08]

Cry me a river New Orleans.  So what , you lose your coach and some cheesy draft picks.  At least you don't have Jeff Ireland in your front office.  Will the NFL please suspend the Miami Dolphins GM for eternity due to complete incompetence?

HA! Simmer down Lake! Thats not nice! 

[BridgeTroll]

http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/story/2012-12-12/gregg-williams-testified-that-he-wanted-to-stop-bounties

Leaked testimony...

Gregg Williams testified that he wanted to stop bounties

Former New Orleans defensive coordinator Gregg Williams testified that he tried to shut down the team's bounty system when the NFL began investigating but was overruled by interim Saints head coach Joe Vitt, according to transcripts from appeals hearings obtained by The Associated Press.

According to the transcripts, Williams said that then-assistant Vitt responded to a suggestion that the pay-for-pain setup be abandoned with an obscenity-filled speech about how NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell "wasn't going to ... tell us to ... stop doing what won us the Super Bowl. This has been going on in the ... National Football League forever, and it will go on here forever, when they run (me) out of there, it will still go on."

Williams and Vitt were among a number of witnesses whose testimony was heard by former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who on Tuesday overturned four player suspensions in the case. Tagliabue was appointed by Goodell to handle the final round of appeals. The AP obtained transcripts of Tagliabue's closed-door hearings through a person with a role in the case.

Vitt was a Saints assistant who was banned for six games for his part in the scandal but now is filling in for head coach Sean Payton, who was suspended for the entire season. Williams was suspended indefinitely by Goodell. Others who testified included former defensive assistant Mike Cerullo, the initial whistleblower and considered a key NFL witness.

Transcripts portray the former coaching colleagues, all part of the Saints' 2010 Super Bowl championship, as bitterly disagreeing with one another and occasionally contradicting how the NFL depicted the bounty system.

Vitt, Williams and Cerullo appeared separately before Tagliabue and were questioned by lawyers for the NFL and lawyers representing the players originally suspended by Goodell: Jonathan Vilma, Will Smith, Scott Fujita and Anthony Hargrove.

Tagliabue's ruling found that "Saints' coaches and managers led a deliberate, unprecedented and effective effort to obstruct the NFL's investigation. ..."

The transcripts, which could be entered as evidence in Vilma's pending defamation case against Goodell, include numerous testy, and sometimes humorous, exchanges between witnesses and attorneys â€" and between Tagliabue and the attorneys.

Offering to take a lie detector test, Vitt challenged versions given by Williams and Cerullo. Vitt vowed to sue Cerullo and described Williams as "narcissistic." He referred to both as disgruntled former employees who were fired, even though, publicly, the Saints said Williams' departure for St. Louis was by mutual agreement. Vitt depicted Cerullo as incompetent and said he missed work numerous times and offered bizarre, fabricated excuses for his absences.

Vitt was asked whether he oversaw Cerullo's attempts to destroy evidence related to bounties, which the NFL determined the Saints sanctioned from 2009 to 2011, with thousands of dollars offered for hits that injured opponents and knocked them out of games.

"No. The answer is no," Vitt said. "Cerullo is an idiot."

Williams referred to the case as "somewhat of a witch hunt." He said he wants to coach in the NFL again, "took responsibility so that nobody else had to," and that Vilma has "been made a scapegoat."

Williams stood by his earlier sworn statement that Vilma pledged a $10,000 bounty on quarterback Brett Favre in the Saints' game against the Minnesota Vikings for the NFC championship. But Williams also said that the performance pool he ran was aimed at team bonding, not bounties, and that he saw a difference between asking players to hit hard legally, which he said he did, and asking them to purposely injure an opponent, which he said no one in the organization condoned.

"The game is about a mental toughness on top of a physical toughness," Williams testified at one point. "You know, it's not golf."

Williams, however, acknowledged he suggested Favre should be knocked out of the game.

"We want to play tough, hard-nosed football and look to get ready to play against the next guy. ... Brett is a friend of mine, and so that's just part of this business," Williams said. "You know, at no time, you know, are we looking to try to end anybody's career."

Williams described player pledges to the pool as "nominal" and said they rarely kept the money they earned, either putting it back in the pool or offering it as tips to equipment personnel. In the case of the large amounts pledged during the playoffs, Williams described it as "air" or "funny money" or "banter," adding that he never actually saw any cash collected or distributed and had no idea what would have happened to the money if Cerullo collected it.

Cerullo testified that league investigators misrepresented what he told them, and that, during the playoffs following the 2009 regular season, he kept track of large playoff pledges on note pads but didn't collect the money.

Cerullo said hits for cash started with Williams telling the staff that "Sean kind of put him in charge of bringing back a swagger to the defense ... so he wanted to brainstorm with us as coaches what we thought we could do. ... At one point in one of those meetings, Joe Vitt suggested (his previous teams) had a pay-for-play, pay-for-incentive program that the guys kind of bought into and kind of had fun with, and, you know, that was his suggestion. At that point, Gregg also admitted that other places he was at, they had the same type of thing. And at that point, Gregg kind of ran with it."

Cerullo described pregame meetings during the playoffs, when the Saints faced quarterback Kurt Warner of the Arizona Cardinals and then Favre.

He said Vitt told players Warner "should have been retired" and "we're going to end the career tomorrow of Kurt Warner." Cerullo also quoted Vitt as saying of Favre: "That old man should have retired when I was there. Is he retiring, isn't he retiring â€" that whole (thing) is over, you know, tomorrow. ... We'll end the career tomorrow. We'll force him to retire. ..."

Cerullo testified that, once word came that the NFL was investigating, Williams told him to delete computer files about bounty amounts and that Vitt checked on his progress.

Asked what motivated him to come forward as a whistleblower with an email to the league in November 2011, Cerullo replied: "I was angry for being let go from the Saints."

Later, he testified: "I was angry at Joe Vitt, and I wanted to show that I was fired for lying and I witnessed Joe Vitt lying and he still had a job. So, that was my goal of reaching out to the NFL."

The transcripts also portray Tagliabue's command of the proceedings, including his efforts to rein in the lawyers.

"I'm going to intervene much more significantly, going forward," Tagliabue interjected at one point, "because I am extremely concerned that this is getting to be cumulative, confusing and useless, and I do not preside over proceedings that are cumulative, confusing and useless."

There also were lighter moments, such as when Tagliabue announced: "I thought I was going to get through this proceeding only by drinking coffee. I'm getting to the point where I need a Bloody Mary."