Saints' Appeals for Bountygate Dead on Arrival After Williams Audio

There was perhaps the tiniest, slimmest of chances that the New Orleans Saints organization, general manager Micky Loomis, head coach Sean Payton and assistant coach Joe Vitt would have had their punishments for their involvement in Bountygate reduced when they met with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell later today. 

Consider that matter closed. 

There is no way any of them will be having anything reduced after this article from Yahoo! Sports' Mike Silver dropped late last night. 

Audio obtained by Yahoo! indicates Saints players would be paid if they injured players on the team the Saints were facing. It was last year's playoff game against the San Francisco 49ers. This, after the NFL warned the Saints to knock off bounties, mere days before Williams' speech.

The Saints ignored those warnings. And now they will pay the price. 

To be clear, it's not the speech that Williams gives, which is pretty much standard boilerplate stuff for many NFL coaches. It's the fact that Williams offers up his own money for "kill shots" and the fact that he repeatedly tells his guys to "affect the head" (which, as a side note, might make the NFL even more furious than the bounty stuff, what with the bevy of concussion lawsuits it has pending against it.)

The (extremely NSFW) audio can be found in its entirety here.