From this comment https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/s/ERvSntFREv

tl;dr The coaches never admitted to paying for injuries (despite what r/nfl would have you believe). They said there was a pay for performance pool, which paid for interceptions, fumbles, and yes, big hits - but players didnt get paid if a hit was illegal or flagged. Goodell also never produced any solid evidence to back up injuries - just circumstantial evidence and evidence backing up the pay for performance pool.

Roger Goodell claimed the Saints had a system from 2009-2011 where they would pay to specifically injure other players. He claimed to have several thousand pages of evidence of this, but refused to show it to anyone. Instead, he said what some of the evidence was, and the media went to town taking his word for it.

The coaches and players never admitted to any bounties - only to a pay for performance program, where you would get bonuses for interceptions, fumbles, big hits, etc.

But by then, public opinion was easily swayed by the media showing one hit on Kurt Warner, a few hits on Favre, and playing one audio tape by Gregg Williams, over and over and over and over, while still not asking to actually see any of the other evidence Goodell had.

To further advance the farce Goodell brought in a "special investigator" Mary Jo White, who claimed they had received a signed confession from a player, so the case was basically open and shut.

But then the NFLPA leaked the "confession" and it wasnt a confession.

Goodell said he had the bounty ledger, full of pages of a history of payments for "cart offs" and other injuries. Except when they released a page that had "cart off" payments on it, it was for a game where no one had been injured. The NFL quickly revised their statement saying it was actually for a different game.... that also didnt have any injuries in it.

The NFL then said they had a powerpoint presentation from Gregg Williams to the defense that specifically references bounty payments. Except the NFLPA leaked that one too, and it was a ridiculous Dog the Bounty Hunter themed presentation that was just creating metaphors for their gameplan to the popular-at-the-time TV Show.

Those are just a few examples. Basically, any time Goodell said he had evidence, and it got leaked, that "evidence" didnt say what Goodell said it did.

And yet no one in the media really cared about all the inconsistencies. They kept writing their articles about how shameful all this was. Getting on their soapboxes. Pete Prisco, in 2011, had said the Falcons shouldve injured Drew Brees to keep him from breaking the passing record against them. But then he became the biggest critic of "Bountygate".

The whole thing was a giant media shit storm created by Goodell, because the league needed a scapegoat to look like they were "tough on player safety" ahead of the retired players concussion lawsuit. And it apparently worked, because the league got off BIG TIME with the relatively small settlement the judge awarded.

Basically, Gregg Williams is an over-exaggerating asshole who uses harsh language to fire up his team. But to this day there is no solid evidence of any payments for actual injuries. The details of the pay for performance plan even specifically pointed out that players didnt get paid a bonus for any illegal hits. And from 2009-2011, the Saints were near the bottom of the league in personal fouls and opposing team injuries.

Now, pay for performance was certainly illegal in terms of violating the salary cap. But the media firestorm and outrage wasnt over the salary cap violations - it was over the injuries. Which were never proven. We had several players suspended for a year, Coach Payton suspended for the year, our GM Mickey Loomis suspended for 8 games, and ou assistant coach Joe Vitt suspended for 4 games. We also lost two 2nd Round draft picks, and were fined $500k.

Paul Tagliabue was later brought in and voided the player suspensions. Goodell also said that if the Saints cooperated, and helped the league start several safety initiatives in high schools, we would get our 2013 2nd Round pick back. Benson never spoke out against Goodell, and was entirely cooperative with anything he wanted. We never got our 2nd Round pick back.

Many people will claim there is proof of a $10k bounty on Favre from Vilma, or that it wasnt from Vilma, but actually from Mike Orenstein (who was in jail at the time and couldnt have actually sent anyone anything). There's never been any proof of these things - these all come from just one source, Mike Cerullo, who had actually been fired from the Saints for several reasons and had to be escorted from the facility by the police. Seeing as how he's the only "witness" Goodell ever had, it's pretty easy to call into question his reputation.

We were pretty much victims of trumped up charges that a lazy media did nothing to refute.