NEW YORK -- New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton was suspended without pay for the 2012 season by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was banned indefinitely on Wednesday because the team's players were paid bounties for big hits on opponents from 2009-11.
The NFL said it is the first time the league has suspended a head coach. The explanation for Payton's ban indicates he tried to cover up what the Saints were doing.
According to the NFL, Payton ignored instructions from the league and Saints ownership to make sure bounties weren't being paid. The league also chastised him Wednesday for choosing to "falsely deny that the program existed," and for attempting to "encourage the false denials by instructing assistants to 'make sure our ducks are in a row.'"
Handing down sweeping and serious punishment for a system that paid out thousands of dollars for knocking specific players out of games, Goodell also banned Saints general manager Mickey Loomis for the first eight regular-season games next season, and assistant coach Joe Vitt for the first six games.
In addition, Goodell fined the Saints $500,000 and took away their second-round draft picks this year and next.
Goodell called what the Saints did "particularly unusual and egregious" and "totally unacceptable."
"We are all accountable and responsible for player health and safety and the integrity of the game. We will not tolerate conduct or a culture that undermines those priorities," Goodell said in a statement released by the NFL. "No one is above the game or the rules that govern it."
After the NFL first made its investigation public on March 2, Williams admitted to — and apologized for — running the program as the Saints' defensive coordinator from 2009-11. He was hired by the St. Louis Rams this offseason.
Goodell will review Williams' status after the upcoming season and decide whether he can return to the league.
The Saints now must decide who will coach the team while Payton barred, his suspension is effective April 1, and who will make roster moves while Loomis is out. After the NFL made clear that punishments were looming, Payton and Loomis took the blame for violations that they acknowledged "happened under our watch" and said Saints owner Tom Benson "had nothing to do" with the bounty pool, which reached as much as $50,000 in 2009, the season the Saints won the Super Bowl.
The NFL said the scheme involved 22 to 27 defensive players, and that targeted opponents included quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton, Brett Favre and Kurt Warner. "Knockouts" were worth $1,500 and "cart-offs" $1,000, with payments doubled or tripled for the playoffs.
According to the league, Saints defensive captain Jonathan Vilma offered $10,000 to any player who knocked then-Vikings QB Favre out of the 2010 NFC championship game.
All payouts for specific performances in a game, including interceptions or causing fumbles, are against NFL rules. The NFL warns teams against such practices before each season, although in the aftermath of the revelations about the Saints, current and former players from various teams talked about that sort of thing happening frequently — although not on the same scale as the NFL found in New Orleans.
In a memo sent out to the NFL's 32 teams, Goodell ordered owners to make sure their clubs are not offering bounties now. Each club's principal owner and head coach must certify in writing by March 30 that no pay-for-performance system exists.
Punishment for any Saints players involved will be determined later, because the league is still reviewing the case with the NFL Players Association.
"While I will not address player conduct at this time, I am profoundly troubled by the fact that players — including leaders among the defensive players — embraced this program so enthusiastically and participated with what appears to have been a deliberate lack of concern for the well-being of their fellow players," Goodell said.
The discipline for the Saints' involvement in the bounty scheme is more far-reaching than what Goodell did in 2007, when the NFL came down on the New England Patriots for illegally videotaping an opponent. Goodell fined the Patriots $250,000, stripped a first-round draft pick, and docked their coach, Bill Belichick, $500,000 for what was known as "Spygate."
As recently as this year, Payton said he was entirely unaware of the bounties — "a claim contradicted by others," the league said. And according to the investigation, Payton received an email before the Saints' first game in 2011 that read, "PS Greg Williams put me down for $5000 on Rogers (sic)." When Payton was shown that email by NFL investigators, he acknowledged it referred to a bounty on Rodgers, whose Packers beat the Saints in Week 1.
The league said that in addition to contributing money to the bounty fund, Williams oversaw record-keeping, determined payout amounts and who got cash, and handed out envelopes with money to players. The NFL said that Williams acknowledged he intentionally misled NFL investigators when first questioned in 2010, and didn't try to stop the bounties.
Vitt was aware of the bounties and, according to the league, later admitted he had "fabricated the truth" when interviewed in 2010.
Loomis knew of the allegations about bounties no later than in February 2010, when he was told by the league to end them. But the NFL said he later admitted he didn't do enough to determine if there were bounties or to try to put an end to them.
