Former New Orleans Saints 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 assistant head coach Joe Vitt, according to transcripts from appeals hearings obtained by The Associated Press.
According to the transcripts, Williams said Vitt, who also was the team's linebackers coach, 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."
Vitt is serving as the Saints' interim coach during coach Sean Payton's season-long suspension as a result of the league's investigation. Williams was suspended indefinitely by Goodell. Others who testified included former defensive assistant Mike Cerullo, the initial whistleblower and considered a key NFL witness.
Partial transcripts of the hearings were also obtained by ESPN.
Williams and Vitt were among a number of witnesses whose testimony was heard by former 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.
Tagliabue said details of the hearings should not have been leaked per agreements by all parties involved.
"Mr. Tagliabue has reviewed the question regarding the release of the transcripts of the appeals hearings he conducted. He considers the transcripts to be confidential and not for public release," his attorney said in an email. "It should be noted that the transcripts contain certain information not relevant to the matters before him related to third parties who have no involvement at all in the issues here. The release of such information could be unnecessarily harmful to these third parties."
Also, the cover of each of the transcripts had a disclaimer that the information contained within wasn't for public distribution.
"BY AGREEMENT OF ALL PARTIES, both lawyer and non-lawyer, I understand that I cannot and will not share, distribute or discuss (except with my attorneys) in whole or in part the contents of the transcript that I receive," each transcript cover reads.
Goodell said Wednesday he "fundamentally disagrees" with Tagliabue's decision not to discipline players in the bounty scandal.
Speaking after an owners meeting in the Dallas area, Goodell said he respected his predecessor's decision to vacate a year-long suspension of linebacker Jonathan Vilma and shorter bans for three other current and former Saints players.
But Goodell said players deserved to be punished as much as New Orleans coaches and management. He said he held "everyone responsible."
Earlier Wednesday, Saints quarterback Drew Brees criticized Goodell for the way he handled the bounty case, claiming the commissioner was not concerned with a fair process.
Brees said Goodell has "little to no credibility" with NFL players. The six-time Pro Bowler also claimed the process has been "staged" since Tagliabue became involved.
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: 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 -- 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 2009-11, 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 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 after 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 -- 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."
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.