New Orleans Saints bounty scandal

The New Orleans Saints bounty scandal, colloquially known as "Bountygate",^[1][2][3][4] was an illegal program in which the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL) placed bounties on opposing players. The consensus around the program was that if a targeted player was knocked out of a game, a bonus would be paid to the defensive player that made the hit. A slush fund for paying the bounties was found to have operated from the 2009 season (the year in which the Saints won Super Bowl XLIV) to the 2011–12 playoffs.

League commissioner Roger Goodell responded with some of the most severe sanctions in the league's history, and among the most severe punishments for in-game misconduct in North American professional sports history. Defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was suspended indefinitely, though this would be overturned the following year. Head coach Sean Payton was suspended for the entire 2012 season—the first time since Chuck Fairbanks in 1978 that a head coach had been suspended and the first time a head coach was suspended by the league. General manager Mickey Loomis was suspended for the first eight games of the 2012 season—the first time that a general manager was suspended by the league for any reason. Assistant head coach Joe Vitt was suspended for the first six games of the 2012 season. The Saints organization was penalized with a $500,000 fine and forced to forfeit their second-round draft selections in 2012 and 2013. In May 2012, four current and former Saints players were suspended after being named as ringleaders in the scandal, with linebacker Jonathan Vilma also being suspended for the entire 2012 season.^[5] However, former commissioner Paul Tagliabue overturned all sanctions against the players in December 2012 after finding that although the players were "very much involved," the coaches and the Saints organization were primarily responsible for the scandal.^[6]