Gregg Williams, who ran Redskins’ defenses for four seasons, is meeting today with NFL officials after reports surfaced last week that he offered his players bonuses for making bruising hits on opposing teams’ offensive stars. The Associated Press reports that Williams, recently hired as the defensive coordinator with the St. Louis Rams, will sit down with league investigators to discuss his recent admission that he ran “bounty pools” offering cash prizes for big tackles that often led to targeted players injured.
Williams’ practice of rewarding his defensive linemen and backs for major hits became news last week when the NFL announced it had been investigating his recently ended tenure as the New Orleans Saints’ defensive coordinator. In the 2009 season, which culminated with the Saints winning the Super Bowl, Williams paid out as much as $50,000 to as many as 27 players, according to an NFL press release Friday. Players received $1,000 for a “cart-off” hit and $1,500 for a “knockout,” with multipliers if those crippling hits came during the playoffs. Among the opposing players targeted while Williams was with the Saints were Kurt Warner of the Arizona Cardinals and Brett Favre of the Minnesota Vikings.
Not long after the NFL released its findings of Williams’ actions in New Orleans, The Washington Post reported that he had done the same while with the Redskins between 2004 and 2007.
“You got compensated more for a kill shot than you did other hits,” one former Redskins player told the Post.
Williams was hired in 2004 by then-head coach Joe Gibbs, who gave the defensive guru plenty of latitude. Gibbs told the Post that he was unaware of Williams’ bounty hunting, saying he “would never ask a player to hurt another player.”
Still, Williams’ style found its champions among some Redskins. Philip Daniels, a defensive lineman who is now the team’s director of player development, said Williams “never told us to go out there and break a guy’s neck or break a guy’s leg.” Daniels also told the Post that he once pocketed $1,500 for a four-sack game against the Dallas Cowboys in 2005. Sean Taylor, the safety who was murdered in 2007, was also a leading recipient of big-hit bonuses.
It is unknown just how high up in the Redskins organization knowledge of Williams’ payment system went. The team has refused requests for comment. But Williams was briefly a candidate to succeed Gibbs after the beloved head coach retired in 2008, interviewing several times with owner Dan Snyder before being fired.
Besides the Saints and the Redskins, Williams previously ran defenses for the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans, and was also head coach of the Buffalo Bills from 2001 to 2003. The AP notes that those other clubs might want to brace themselves for a inquiry from NFL investigators.
Though Williams’ scheme has its defenders, the league is not taking the news lightly. The NFL prohibits “non-contract bonuses” as well as any payouts for on-field misconduct such as personal fouls or injuries inflicted on other players. And while only Williams’ former teams seem to be at issue right now, few, it seems, would be surprised if this kind of thing is practiced more broadly. The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay mused about the NFL’s supposed commitment to player safety while it clearly emphasizes the entertainment value of a bone-rattling tackle or game-changing sack:
The NFL report claiming the Saints had an institutional, management-sanctioned “bounty” program—paying players fees to target opponents for injury—is damaging to the integrity of the New Orleans franchise and the league. This is not excessive celebration in the end zone. It’s a serious, unfunny problem.
But it’s not shocking. No way. Not in the slightest. Being surprised by these bounties is like being surprised that a cheeseburger doesn’t come from a magical cheeseburger tree.
…
But one only needs to spend a Sunday afternoon in the NFL’s company—live or on television—to know that aggression and hard contact is an ingrained part of the sport. It’s something that gets celebrated and marketed; dissected on highlight shows and pumped in advertising campaigns. Players who do it well are rewarded, not with thousand-dollar stipends but with eight-figure guarantees. Fans are on-board, too. It takes a certain amount of willful ignorance to not recognize that the helmeted bodies flying around the field at high speed can lead to serious injury, but we have all oooh’d and aaah’d at crunching hits and blind sacks with little regard for the human repercussions. It doesn’t help that the whole subject of injuries is cloaked by maddening obfuscation: Players hide injuries from their teams; teams shield injuries from opponents; coaches are loath to divulge specifics. It’s often not until players leave the game for good that we learn the extent of the damage done.
