BountyGate Timeline
 

Saw this on another forum...

By bornnraisedwhodat:lays it out pretty good!

Jan-Feb 2010: Saints win the Super bowl after steamrolling the Cardinals and Vikings. Kurt Warner got beat so bad he retired the next day. Saints beat Brett Favre so bad the media cried about how rough we played. Brad Childress packaged film clips from the NFCCG showing the illegal hits that took place. These were hits after Favre released the ball but went further than the "1 step" rule. None were egregious, but illegal none the less. Anyway, this catches the NFL's attention.

March 2010: The Saints fired defensive quality control coach Mike Cerilo. He is mad he is unable to find another job.

Early 2010: Sean Payton gets popped for stealing Viocodin, something I’m sure the league didn’t like. The case was swept under the rug after the Saints and Payton brought the lawsuit from the former head of security into arbitration. Still, I’m sure the NFL didn’t like this. Meanwhile, the NFL is bringing charges against Sean's good friend and Saints consultant, Mike Ornstein, a guy who has defrauded the league for years. The NFL, again, obviously doesn’t like this guy hanging around NFL facilities and players.

Early 2010: The NFL approaches Gregg Williams about Bounties, he denies they exist. They also approach Joe Vitt, he denies it happened. Later, Vitt does admit there was a p4p program, but said he never told Payton or Loomis. Prior to all this, Loomis let Payton know that the NFL is inquiring about a bounty program. He gathered the troops and said, "lets get our ducks in a row" as anybody would do with the big bosses come down to question them. The NFL took this as a cover up. Payton said he never asked Vitt or Williams about their interviews with the NFL, and never asked them if bounties existed. Big mistake by Payton if this is true. But my guess is they discussed by Payton was like "screw them." Loomis was made aware of the allegations, but he admitted "he didn’t do enough" ...My feeling is they probably felt it just wasn’t a big deal. Players weren’t out there literally injuring anybody, and they didn’t want the players to pull back from their aggression. We just won a Super Bowl, leave us the hell alone Goodell.

NFL closes investigation

Sept 2011: Saints allegedly put a bounty on Aaron Rogers. Mike Ornstein, who is in jail at the time, sends an email to Payton, containing "PS - Tell Gregg to put me down for $5000 on Aaron Rodgers" Obviously joking around. Payton said he never saw the email. This still proves nothing. Rodgers diced us up in that game and we barely laid a finger on him.

Jan 2012: League receives "credible" evidence that the bounties are still in place and reopens the investigation. Your guess is as good as mine to whom this info came from. Was it from Mike Cerillo, who was fired way back in 2010? Was it from the film maker Pampillon? Was it GW himself? Who knows, fact is someone came with info that was enough to get the ball rolling again.

At this time, the league finally lets Tom Benson know about this. Benson tells Loomis to make sure it’s stopped, Loomis did talk to Payton and Williams about it, but didn’t go give direct orders by his own admission.

Division 49er game: GW gives the infamous speech, and supposedly suggest in the meeting payola for good hits. This is after Loomis told him to stop. He obviously no longer cared at this point knowing his contract wasn’t going to be renewed and had a job lined up with his buddy Jeff Fisher.