Vitt: Williams promised to reward players for injuring opposing coaches

[jtnc]

NEW ORLEANS -- The bounty scandal wrecked the Saints season. After averaging 12 wins a season from 2009-11, New Orleans stumbled to 7-9 in 2012. Coach Sean Payton was suspended for the year, former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was suspended indefinitely, and assistant head coach Joe Vitt missed six games before returning to a team that was 2-4.

Vitt has been outspoken about bountygate from the beginning including and up to his December testimony before an appeals hearing headed by former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue. The Times-Picayune obtained a copy of that testimony, and in it Vitt was blunt about Williams' role in the scandal.

Via the Picayune's Mike Triplett, Vitt alleged that Williams once promised to reward players if they knocked down or took out assistant coaches on the other team on plays near the sideline.

Vitt told Tagliabue that he made sure players understood that such behavior was unacceptable, and added that everyone understood that Williams' "schtick" and "false bravado" were such exaggerations of reality that players rarely took him seriously.

"If our players went out and performed what came out of Gregg Williams' mouth, and it went from his lips to their ears, and then it went to the performance, we would have people in jail right now ma'am," Vitt told NFL attorney Mary Jo White at the time. "We would have people in jail right now."

Williams, meanwhile, is looking to get back into the NFL, and there have been reports in recent days that the Titans are considering hiring him.

So why would Tennessee want to get involved with coach with so much baggage? For the same reasons teams take fliers on high-risk, high-reward players. Just look at the Saints' 2012 defense for proof.

http://www.cbssports...pposing-coaches

The fact he can still coach in this league is beyond ludicrous, he's such a fuging scum.

[Jase]

The new orleans media have moved from the denial stage to the anger stage, it would seem.

[TheRed]

So wait, has Williams actually been reinstated?

[Sapper]

Well that would have ruled Chud out.

[Darth Biscuit]

I have no doubt that Williams is a dirtbag... but if Vitt knew about all of this stuff, why didn't he say anything at the time?

Or are they simply trying now to lay all the blame for this on Williams so that Vitt and Payton look better?

The truth is Payton and company encouraged Williams to do this stuff because it fired up the defense and they knew it.

[CARuthless]

I guess Sean Payton being taken out was just karma...

[PhillyB]

i just hope Vitt somehow gets connected so it so Alejandro and that GL's Page dude start another rally on April Fool's Day so we can troll it into complete obliteration again

[Mr. Scot]

Joe Vitt strikes me as one of those douchebags who has absolutely no trouble standing in front of a large group of people and lying through his teeth. Big, bold lies, and the louder they're told, the better.

I'd be willing to bet that Vitt was in pretty deep in the whole bounty thing but he's got Gregg Williams to use as a scapegoat. Williams is such an asshat himself that he makes it easy.

[2jakefansinva]

i despised Williams long before he was with NO