Re: Vitt says Benson kicked NFL security chief off the prope
Joe Vitt questioned Mike Cerullo's credibility during Paul Tagliabue's bounty hearing
Larry Holder, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
January 28, 2013 at 2:26 PM
<a class="postlink" href="http://blog.nola.com/saints_impact/print.html?entry=/2013/01/joe_vitt_testimony.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://blog.nola.com/saints_impact/prin ... imony.html</a>" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
New Orleans Saints linebackers coach Joe Vitt testified in front of former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue for more than five hours on Dec. 3, 2012 during the New Orleans portion of the appeals hearings for the four players suspended in connection to the Saints bounty scandal.
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune recently acquired a copy of the transcript of Vitt's testimony in front of Tagliabue where lawyers for both sides peppered Vitt with an array of questions concerning the alleged bounty program. This portion of the testimony focuses in on responses to questioning primarily from Peter Ginsberg, lawyer for Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma, who was twice issued a season-long suspension from current Commissioner Roger Goodell.
This isn't a complete transcript, but it's a detailed look at the questions, comments and responses that occurred during Ginsberg's questioning:
- Vitt said in his 34 years of coaching he's probably coached 12-15 great players. He named Bert Jones, Steve Largent, Jackie Slater, Jerome Bettis, Brett Favre, Willie Roaf, Will Shields, Trent Green, Priest Holmes, Drew Brees, Jonathan Vilma, Marques Colston, Will Smith.
- In what may be more relevant to how the Saints will move forward with their new 3-4 defensive scheme, Vitt recognized Vilma isn't a 3-4 linebacker and that's how the Saints convinced the Jets to trade Vilma to New Orleans in 2008 as the Jets ran a 3-4 defense under former Jets Coach Eric Mangini.
- Vitt was asked to describe Vilma: "Passionate, smart. He's - when I say 'smart,' I think he's one of the two players that I've ever coached over 34 years that I think he's got a photographic memory, the other being a guy by the name of John Harris. He played at Arizona State, lives in Miami now. I coached him in 1984.
"I could go tell Jonathan on a Wednesday, an install day, that we're going to play this game exactly like we played a game two years ago against a certain opponent, and right away he's got total recall of how we played the formation, how we played down to distances, how we played the personnel in the game."
- Ginsberg asked Vitt about an interview with NFL investigators Joe Hummel and Jeff Miller in March 2012: "Jeff Miller and Joe Hummel showed me documents, and they said that I think it was 8-10 players had testified to these documents are true and, you know, that some coaches have come in and said that these documents - corroborated these documents and there's a bounty program in place. And I was absolutely shocked. And I could remember like it was yesterday looking at Joe Hummel and Jeff Miller in the face saying, you've got two guys responsible for this. This is Mike Cerullo, and this is Gregg Williams, both disgruntled employees that have been fired at our company. They denied even knowing who Mike Cerullo was, but they agreed with me that, yeah, Gregg Williams is a little crazy. They both agreed with me on that. So I would say that it wasn't a very good meeting."
- Ginsberg asked Vitt if he was shocked because they had the documents, or were you shocked about what they were alleging? "What they were alleging," Vitt said.
- Ginsberg asked what was it that the investigators told you was being alleged about the Saints? "It was being alleged that we were paying our players to go out and hurt our opponent," Vitt said. "It was a bounty program."
- Vitt said the investigators didn't say anything about a pay-for-performance program or just a bounty. "It was just a bounty program," Vitt said.
- Ginsberg asked, "Did the Saints have a bounty program?" Vitt replied, "No."
- When asked what else did he say to the investigators when you were asked if there was a bounty program, Vitt said, "I said that under no circumstances have any of our players ever crossed the white line with the intent of injuring, maiming or taking away the career of another player in the National Football League. I tried to explain to them that it is certainly not very good business that if you want to pay a player $500 of $1,000 or whatever number figure you want to put on to go out and end a career of another player, he's going to be ostracized in the league by the players themselves in this league, because that's not what they do; and then, No. 2, there's a pretty good chance he's going to serve a four-game suspension that's going to take away a quarter of his salary. So it's just not good business. It's not the way you try to teach, motivate and inspire your players to become world champions if you're going to have a bounty system in place and you're going to do this."
- Vitt said he was asked by investigators if Vilma ever put a $10,000 bounty on Favre to knock him out of the game.
Ginsberg: "Are you aware that the investigators contend that you said it was possible that Jonathan made that pledge?"
Vitt: "No."
Ginsberg: "If they had said that, would that have been truthful?"
Vitt: "No."
Ginsberg: "What did you say?"
Vitt: "No, he didn't."
Ginsberg: "Were you specific and clear that the allegations that Jonathan had put money on Brett Favre to knock him out of the game did not happen?"
Vitt: "Yes, and I stated so in front of a Federal Judge also. But, I mean, this is the same format in which I'm accused of putting a $5,000 bounty on a player, that I put $5,000 into a program. It's what I'm alleged to have done also. It's been acknowledged by the league that I certainly didn't do that, but it's still going up on every slide that I see and every bit of evidence that's out there, that Mike Cerullo hand drew in $5,000 that I gave to a bounty. I've offered to take a lie detector test, and I've offered to sign a sworn affidavit. Nobody wants to take one. So I'm in the same boat. One is for $10,000, and I'm in for $5,000. I'm in the same boat."
Ginsberg: "Who did you off to take a polygraph?"
Vitt: "The Commissioner."
Ginsberg: "Tell me how that came about."
Vitt: "I want to say around July 21, I received a phone call from Scott Fujita, one of my former players, who is now with the Cleveland Browns, who is active in the NFLPA and said, I'm just going to give you a heads up, it's on the NFLPA website or they have shared documents that says you gave $5,000 to a bounty. Now Scott said, don't worry about it, I'll take care of that. We know that you didn't do that.
"And by the way, the second time I talked to investigators - I'm sorry, I forgot about this. The investigators, Jeff Miller in particular, acknowledged that I did not give any money to a bounty because he said to me, you know, we heard that your wife is so cheap that you have a hard time getting lunch money every day. That was his comment to me. And I said, well, your wife must have a pretty good sense of humor, too, with the clothes you're wearing right now. So they acknowledged that.
"So anyway, Scott Fujita called me on or around the 21st of July. I immediately called the Commissioner the next morning and said, Commissioner, I under no circumstances did I ever give any money to any bounty for any purpose, not a pay-for-performance, not to make a tackle, knock down a ball or certainly hurt another player. Commissioner acknowledged and he said, I know you didn't. I said, I'll sign a sworn affidavit, I'll take a lie detector test today. Don't worry about it. But it's still out there. It's still out there."
- Vitt said Goodell told him that's not what the league was accusing him of, but it wasn't the last time he heard about the allegation from the league.
- Vitt reiterated how he never offered money, nor that he said he would ever offer money for a "pay-for-performance" or "bounty" pool.
- Vitt on if Miller made other flippant remarks like the ones he made about Vitt's wife: "He was down at the game two weeks ago against the Philadelphia Eagles, and he was on our sideline. And he was over with our director of security, Danny Lawless, and he started laughing at Danny a little bit and said, 'Hey, maybe I should just go up to the sideline and say hello to Joe Vitt, he'd be glad to see me.' And Danny looked at him and couldn't believe it. He thought it was so funny, I guess, because I was just coming off my second game after my seven-week suspension.
"I guess it's a joke. I guess it's just a big joke. I can tell you, there's no one in New Orleans laughing, and no one in our organization is laughing. I'll tell you who is not laughing, is our owner Mr. Benson. Because Jeff Miller took a plane ride from New York down to New Orleans, and the way he talked to our owner, what he said to our owner made me want to throw up, to the point where Mr. Benson kicked him off the property and didn't let him back on the property; the third time when I talked to Jeff Miller at the Hilton.
"This is - let me tell you something. This almost killed our owner. Our owner has done nothing but be a great owner in the National Football League the whole time he's been in the league. ... And now this guy takes a plane ride down and throws some documents in front of our owner's face, and our owner has got to kick him out of the building? That's what we're dealing with. That's fine."
Ginsberg: "Is that consistent with the approach that you felt about Mr. Miller and the approach that Mr. Miller ..."
Vitt: "I'm disappointed Mr. Miller is not here. I really am. I thought he would be here."
Ginsberg: "Why are you disappointed?"
Vitt: "Because I wish he was here to hear all of this. I really thought he was going to be here. I didn't know who was going to be here. I thought Cerullo was going to be here. I thought Gregg was going to be here. I thought everybody was going to be here. It would have been nice to see them all."
- Vitt said he wasn't aware of any Saints player ever offering or putting up any money to entice, encourage any injury or putting any opponent out of a game.
- Vitt said he never heard Vilma offer money for a player to take Kurt Warner out of the game.
Ginsberg: "And when it comes to Brett Favre, what would you have done if you heard Jonathan or anyone say that they were offering money?"
Vitt: "Sit down and shut up."
Ginsberg: "Why is that?
Vitt: "Because this is an emotional game played by emotional people. This is a man's game. And sometimes people say things, and sometimes people do things in a state of such ready preparedness to win a game to have the opportunity to go to a world championship two weeks after that. You play your whole career to be able to play in that game, to get to that show. So I would have been very protective of our players if anyone would have stood up and done something like that. I would have told them to sit down and shut up. You know what, I've earned to right to talk to them that way, and they would have listened to me. But I never had to say that."
- Vitt said Vilma never held up $10,000 in his hands before the Cardinals game, like Cerullo and the NFL counsel claim, to knock out Warner. Vitt also said he's never seen Vilma with cash ever in any defensive meeting.
- Vitt was asked if he told NFL investigators about how Vilma never held up money before the Cardinals game or ever brought money into a defensive meeting: "Yeah, yeah. And I'll tell you, my first meeting with the NFL security was kind of an emotional one. As you can probably tell, that's the one downfall of me. I'm an emotional person. At 58 years old, though, I don't apologize for it anymore.
"Upon Jeff Miller's arrival in New Orleans when Mr. Benson kicked him off the property, our organization called the next day that the NFL was going to have a press release, and they were going to expose what they thought was a bounty system. Now, I had not talked to any investigators yet. And so I had to read a press release that was sent to me from New York that said in the press release that I gave $5,000 to a bounty and was actively involved in financing of injuring other players. I told Vicky Neumeyer, who is our team attorney, they can put in there whatever they want to, but at no point in time did that ever happen. Well, they took that sentence out.
"Four days later, Jonathan Vilma is on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and article written by Peter King, explaining in detail what this bounty system was all about. Now no one - I have never talked to the league investigators before any of this. But my name, my name was on the release that I gave $5,000 or I actively was involved in a bounty to hurt other players. I have not talked to anybody.
"So, you know, I don't know where they got that from. I do now. I do now. I know now that Mike Cerullo told them that. Now, Jeff Miller and Joe Hummel vehemently denied that they ever heard Mike Cerullo's name. Mike Cerullo is not even in this. We never heard of him. We're getting this testimony from players and coaches that worked in your facility that are corroborating this evidence. So I guess Mike Cerullo is involved with this, though. Mike Cerullo is big time."
- Vitt said the Saints did have a pay-for-performance program. Vitt said when he was in Seattle, a similar program was called "dash for cash." Vitt also said a program occurred like this one in Kansas City as well. Vitt said every team had a pay-for-performance program until the league handed Asshole Face a season-long suspension.
- When asked to elaborate on his claim that every team in the NFL had a pay-for-performance program, Vitt said, "I've get a text from Mr. Williams, if we want to see it, that he sent to me back in February, the first time that he was - the second time he was called into the league office, he says to me, 24 teams have reached out to me and asked me to take the hit on this because they all do it. Do you want to see that, Mr. Commissioner?
"Yes," Tagliabue said.
Vitt read the text: "For your information, I've had 20-plus teams reach out to me saying that I must stand firm to take the heat because all teams do this. (Expletive) me."
- Ginsberg said former Saints defensive aide Mike Cerullo said that he was in a meeting with Vitt, Williams and perhaps others when Williams first joined the team. Ginsberg said he guessed Asshole Face was there and said to Williams, 'How are we going to make or defense tougher,' and that you came up with the idea of the pay-for performance.
"Mike Cerullo is a liar," Vitt said. "We'll get some notes here from Mr. Cerullo. I'll say this to you, Commissioner, and anybody that's interested. I'm taking Mike Cerullo to court. I'm going to sue his ass for the things he said about me, the things he said about this football team. He's going to be held accountable for everything he said. I make this offer again. If we want me to take a lie detector test this afternoon, I will do so. Or if you want me to do it tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon, I will do so. Mike Cerullo is a liar. A liar. So what was the first - I brought the pay-for-performance program into the building, that's what he says?"
Ginsberg: "That's what Mr. Cerullo says."
Vitt: "What did Gregg Williams say?"
Ginsberg: "Well, I think Mr. Williams admitted it was his idea."
Vitt: "So we've got Mr. Cerullo in a lie? Interesting. Gee, that surprises me."
- Ginsberg asked Vitt what would Vitt think of someone who made the allegation that Vitt allowed any of the players under his supervision to do anything that would increase the likelihood of injuring an opponent.
"I think they're dirt," Vitt said. "I would think they are dirt, scum."
- Vitt denied telling Williams to maintain the pay-for-performance program even though Williams claimed he wanted to end it.
- Ginsberg asked Vitt if he ever heard Gregg Williams identify or talk about particular opposing players.
"Let's be candid," Vitt said. "Have we all heard the Gregg Williams tape that was played the night before the San Francisco meeting? Have we heard that, Commissioner? ... That was Gregg Williams, that was his schtick on Saturday night before the meeting. That was what he did. That was false bravado. And he's not the only coordinator in the league that does this. You are getting your players ready to play a game, and so you heard Gregg Williams on that tape the night before the San Francisco game.
"Now when you put the tape on, you know how many penalties we had in the game, the San Francisco game? Do you know how many penalties our defense had? Do you know how many penalties our team had? One. We lost in the last four seconds of the game on a 14-game season, a 14-win season. And we went home and we lost in the playoff game. But you heard Gregg. I mean, that's the way he talks. But that's not the way our players play. So I think you said it best, Commissioner. There is a big difference in saying I want to kill him or did I kill him. There's a big difference."
Ginsberg: "Joe, what do you mean by that?"
Vitt: "Gregg Williams getting up there and talking about all the bravado that he wants to - let's take this out, this ACL, let's go take out this kneecap, let's go crush this quarterback's shoulder, all that stuff. He can say what ever he wants. It never transposed over to the playing field with our players. Our players never crossed the white line with the intent of injuring, maiming or ending the career of another player. It never happened."
- Vitt on what he recalled saying at the team meeting before the Arizona game: "Well, listen, I plainly - this is nothing against the Bidwell family. I plainly, you know, clearly told our football team that the Arizona Cardinals, through the history of the organization, couldn't get out of their own way, they couldn't field a playoff game, they had poor draft choices over the years, that their ownership, the Bidwell family, chose to keep the same scouts in place, so over the years they took the same lousy players, and that's why they have the same results year after year after year. ...
"But I said to them, I said a blind squirrel every once in a while finds an acorn. And they were lucky to find Kurt Warner, and Kurt Warner is the reason that they are the real football team they are today. ... We cannot let him have a clean pocket. We've got to extend - we've got to make sure we try to make him extend down and get outside of the pocket, because he's not a movement quarterback. Don't let him stand tall in the pocket, he can't keep his feet firm."
Ginsberg: "The allegation has been made that you also said you wanted to make that game Kurt Warner's last game?"
Vitt: "Is that right?"
Ginsberg: "Did you say that?"
Vitt: "No. Again, I'm going to say this, and I've got Drew Brees sitting right here, I've got Marques Colston sitting right here, I've got Jahri Evans sitting right here, I've got Vilma, Fujita sitting right here. What goes around in this league comes around. So if you teach your team to maim an opponent, sooner or later it's going to come back and get you because it's an unforgiving league. So to answer your question in short, no."
- Vitt said he singled Favre out during a team meeting leading up to the NFC championship game, but he said he absolutely didn't say anything about ending Favre's career.
- Vitt said no one said they would put up money or give money to anyone to take out Favre. Vitt did say people were making commitments to put up money for the pay-for-performance program.
- Vitt brought up former Saints and Vikings defensive tackle Remi Ayodele when he was asked about if the Vikings had a pay-for-performance program. Vitt said he asked Ayodele if there was ever any talk in Minnesota about the supposed bounty system. "And he said, no, not much," Vitt said. "I'll tell you what, they have a better pay-for-performance than we do here in New Orleans. I said, 'That's good to know, Remi. Thank you.'"
- Vitt said he didn't feel like the Saints "got away" with any shots on Favre that they shouldn't have.
- Vitt on when the league originally came to the Saints in 2010 about hits on Favre: "I couldn't believe it. I said, 'They're doing what?' I couldn't believe it. I absolutely couldn't believe it."
Vitt expanded: "I couldn't believe that the body of work that these men had just done on the field, and they had just been crowned world champions, that someone was going to come in here and try to take away what they had done, what they had worked so hard to accomplish, based on the body of work that was placed on the playing field. So I know we got a defensive coordinator that's talking crazy in meetings. I understand that. But we're the least penalized team in football in '09 when we won the world championship. I think we were the fourth or fifth most penalized team in the National Football League.
"Now, to date, to date, OK, as we sit here right now, 2012, from 2009-2012, if you played 30 other teams in the National Football League, your chances of getting hurt are a hell of a lot more than playing us, because that's where we rank right now, 31st in the National Football League since '06 in our opponents having catastrophic or game-ending or game-ending or week-ending or multiple week-ending injuries, OK? Thirty other teams hurt their opponents more than we do. So I was kind of shocked with the way we play, the amount of penalties that we don't have, how people are getting hurt against us, why all of a sudden is this becoming an issue?
"I was even more shocked in 2011 when I thought it was over that it was brought up again before the Detroit playoff game that we're being reinvestigated. Being reinvestigated by who? What are we talking about? Never did I think about Mike Cerullo. Never did I do that. Because there's nobody in the league office, there's nobody on our officiating crews that would investigate our football team based on the body of work that's on TV, that's on the field every Sunday. Nobody. But this investigation was reopened by Mike Cerullo and our investigators, who I guess believe Cerullo, obviously believe Cerullo a hell of a lot more than they believe Asshole Face or Mickey Loomis or Joe Vitt or Jonathan Vilma, because this doesn't get opened up without Mike Cerullo.
"Mike Cerullo, who just alls he does is lie and makes things up, and I've got a pad full here, let me know when you want to go over this, of Mike Cerullo. Mike Cerullo is going to have to go to court when I send him to court to explain himself. Because Asshole Face is still sitting in Dallas right now. We can't talk to him. Nobody in the organization is allowed to talk to Sean. We have to do it on a speaker phone through a lawyer. Vilma is going to get suspended for a year, I've done seven, Mickey has done eight, because of Cerullo? Because of Mike Cerullo this happens, we open up an investigation?
"I'll say this. I may be wrong, but I thought that the first time that these investigators - when Mickey went up to New York, Mickey showed these investigators a threatening letter that he got from Mike Cerullo in the middle of the '11 season. I know for a fact somewhere along the line, and I don't know who I heard this from, whether it was my director of security or somebody, that an e-mail was sent to the league about Mike Cerullo long before these charges were brought up on our football team saying that Mike Cerullo was crazy, that Asshole Face had to have a police escort or, excuse me, police protection at his house because he was going to the owners' meeting, and he was worried about his family with Cerullo. This is the kind of guy we're dealing with, alright?
"So this whole investigation has centered abound Cerullo. It hasn't been what the investigators tols me, well, we've got 7-10 players, we've got former coaches that are corroborating all this evidence, the 50,000 pages and 18,00 documents, we have it all corroborated. So, (expletive), now I'm thinking, goddamn, Gleason has ALS, Kevin Turner's got ALS. I'm getting buyer's remorse. Maybe I'm coaching this game wrong. Maybe I'm coaching it wrong. This whole thing is because of Mike Cerullo. Our general manager is suspended, the head coach is out for a full year because of Mike Cerullo? Mike Cerullo? That's what we think. That's ..."
Former Saints defensive lineman Anthony Hargrove interjected over speaker phone saying, "Don't forget there's a player's career that's ended, too."
"Huh?" Vitt asked.
"Don't forget there's a player's career that's been ended, too, because, of Mike Cerullo," Hargrove said.
"Anthony, lemme do the talking, all right? There was a rush to judgment on this, Commissioner, or this wouldn't have happened. We truly enjoy eating our young now. This is funny. We enjoy eating out young now. We enjoy making a rush to enjoyment. Who's in charge? Who has the power? I've been given the power. OK. So how do we explain this? How do we get out of this mess where we've told the public, we've told the press, we've told the media that we've got 50,000 pages and 18,000 documents and all this testimony from players and coaches corroborating all of this, and we've got two people?
"Well, I told the investigators from Day 1 that's all they had? We got Mike Cerullo, and we got Gregg Williams? Two disgruntled employees that were fired? Gregg Williams was fired. Gregg Williams was fired. He had to crawl on his stomach to keep his job with the New Orleans Saints. When do we want to talk about Mike Cerullo? Do we want to talk about Cerullo yet?
"I've done my time, Commissioner, and I'm - I could've retired last August. I'll make a decision after the season what I'm going to do with my career. This is wrong. This is wrong. This has got to end. This has got to end. I had no idea what billable hours meant until I started this process last February. Unbelievable."
- Vitt said the first 55 minutes of his first meeting with NFL security after the 2009 season was about the history of football, then the last five minutes was where he was asked about a bounty program.
- Vitt went after Miller once again when he was asked about the next time he heard that there was any kind of NFL interest in the Saints referring to Miller as "Mr. Tough Guy Jeff Miller" who "spewed all the stuff on the desk and starting berating Mr. Benson."
- Vitt on when Williams called him a week later after leaving the Saints about the league reinvestigating the bounty scandal: "When Gregg Williams was let go from our football team, we had an exit strategy here, he went to the Rams, he's up there for about a week. He calls me on the phone and says, 'They want me to fly up to New York.' ... Now I swear on the souls of my grandchildren that I had no idea why he was getting called in. ... I said, you know, here's what I think it is. There was so much publicity the two weeks prior to San Francisco that he's going to the Rams, his best buddy is Jeff Fisher, everybody knows his contract is up, I think they're calling him in with some type of tampering, if Fisher was tampering or he was tampering, or while he was under contract, he was talking to the Rams. It's the only thing I could think of.
"I get a phone call, I'm in Denver with my daughter, my wife, my two grandchildren, from Gregg. He says, 'It's Cerullo.' I said, 'What are you talking about, Cerullo?' What are you talking about? Cerullo gave him all the stuff. What stuff? What are you talking about? The stuff off the computer about the pay-for-performance. I said, 'Oh, (expletive), OK. Well what's there?' It is what it is."
- Ginsberg finally asked Vitt to describe Cerullo. Vitt cut him off and went off.
"If I took Mike Cerullo, who was sitting right here right now, and Commissioner, asked him to get up on the board and diagram 11 offensive players and 11 defensive players, No. 1, he couldn't do that," Vitt said. "He could not draw a pro offense, a slot set. He could not give me a pro set. He could not give me I split, I near, I far backs, and that's after being in this league for three years. So when we hired him in '08 at the suggestion from some coaches from Syracuse, we had him on the offensive side of the ball. Doug Marrone is a Syracuse grad. He's now the head coach at Syracuse. He kind if stuck up for Cerullo a little bit, he was going to try to show him the way. As soon as Doug Marrone left, we begged Doug Marrone to take this guy with him back to Syracuse and give him a position. Doug said, no, he's staying right there. So the offense had had enough of Mike Cerullo.
"So we brought him to the defensive side of the ball, because no matter what anybody says, you know, we're not quick to hire and slow to fire. We are slow to hire, but we are also slow to fire. We want to give people their chance to make our football team and make their contributions to the league. So now we get Cerullo to the defensive side. So my first exposure to Mike Cerullo is in '08. We're in Las Vegas. Mike Cerullo, because I'm the assistant head coach, comes to me and tells me he's got financial problems, that his father has got cancer, that he's spending a lot of money back home for his father's chemotherapy. I fix him up with Dennis Lauscha. Dennis Lauscha is our president and CEO. Dennis helps him file for bankruptcy. I think we give him a little bit of money.
"Well, the first trip that we take as a staff out to Las Vegas to see some Las Vegas shows with our wives, here comes Mike Cerullo, pulls up with two limos, and two girls get out of each limo. So he's just declared bankruptcy, but he can go buy - get two limos with a bunch of girls coming out. So as stupid as I am, and I know how dumb I am, and I'm going to be reminded in a couple of minutes how dumb I am, the red light went off for me.
"We get to the '09 season. This man missed three weeks in a 16-game schedule. ... The first time, he told us he had to go out and visit his fiancé and their kids, because there was a sickness in the family, his fiancé is an orthopedic surgeon, he had to help the kids get to school, there's some illness. Listen, we don't need him anyway, let him go out there. So he goes out there for a week early in the year.
"Midseason he comes back and tells us my sister's - excuse me, my fiance's brother has flown to Haiti to help with the Haiti Relief Fund after the earthquake. There's an aftershock, and her brother is now killed in the aftershock. She's got to get over there to identify the body, I've got to fly to Oklahoma to watch the kids. He's gone for another week. He comes to our team security guy, and he's got to go out there another week to retrieve an engagement ring that he gave to a girl that he had never met. So that's a third week.
"A week after the season ends, it's a Friday night, I'm saying not more than a week after the Super Bowl. Asshole Face calls me on a Friday night. ... He said Mike Cerullo's fiancé was just in a terrible car accident down in Oklahoma. The truck overturned, a child was thrown from the car and was drowned in a pond. Sean has got emotion in his voice, he's upset.
"I said, 'Listen to me, Sean, this never happened.' He gets pissed off at me. (Payton says) 'How can you say such a thing? This is one of your ...' I said, 'It never happened. Just relax. Give me 20 minutes. In 20 minutes, you call Cerullo back, and we'll see if this happened or not.'
"I call Mike Cerullo immediately back on the phone. I said, 'Mike, this is Coach Vitt, I am so sorry what's happened, Mike.' (Cerullo said) 'Yeah, Coach, this is bad.'
"I said, 'Well listen, here's what I know we can do right now. I've talked to Mr. Benson. His airplane is fueled. We're ready to take off in 45 minutes. I'm going to pick you up, we're flying right to Norman, Oklahoma.
"(Cerullo says) 'No, no, wait coach. Wait, coach. No, no. W-w-w-w-wait. I've got to get more details.'
"I said, 'Mike, we just got the details that your fiancé was in a fatal car accident with her child dying and drowning and your fiancé is in critical condition. Let's get out there.' (Cerullo said) 'No, no, no, well, just wait.' (Vitt said) 'Well, Mike, does your fiancé have a sister?' (Cerullo said) 'Yeah, she's got a sister.' (Vitt said) 'Do you have her number?' (Cerullo said) 'Well, I've got to get if off Facebook.'
"This goes on and on for 10 minutes. I hang up. I said, 'Listen, Mike,' before I hung up, 'you'd better call Coach Payton, he's waiting for your phone call.' So 10 minutes later he called Coach Payton. (Vitt said Cerullo told Payton) 'Coach, I don't need the plane, let me get the details, maybe we'll get out in the morning.' Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom, ba-da-bat, ba-da-boom. Sean calls back and he said, 'Well, you're right.' I said, 'Well this is the fourth. This is the fourth. He went to Haiti, he had to go babysit, he went to go get a ring and now this is the fourth. So when are we going to have an exit strategy with this young lad? When are we going to get him off the premises?'
"And when we got him off the premises, Sean felt it was necessary to have police protection at his house, because he was way to the owners' meeting, and the wife and kids are staying there. So Mike Cerullo can tell you anything he wants. Mike Cerullo is going to have to repeat it in a court of law, again, because I'm going after him. I'm going after Mike Cerullo. Enough. Enough is enough."
- Ginsberg asked Vitt about when Payton hired him on the Saints staff. Vitt said Loomis wanted to talk with Vitt about the head coaching job Payton took in New Orleans.
- Ginsberg asked Vitt about how former defensive coordinator Gary Gibbs was fired and how Payton hired Williams. Vitt said Payton's decision to fire Gibbs was the only time the two "really became at odds." Vitt said Payton wanted more pressure, while Gibbs wanted more coverage.
"Him and I didn't talk for a couple of days. ... If you're firing him, you need to fire me," Vitt said.
- Vitt said he thinks Parcells recommended Williams to Payton for Gibbs' replacement.
"And the first time we brought Gregg Williams, we said, 'Jesus Christ, this guy is nuts,'" Vitt said. "You know, I mean, talking about himself, talking about his accomplishments, talking about his money, talking about how he should - you know, the guy had a pretty bad track record in being a pretty good defensive coordinator.
"And really, he was in Jacksonville with Jack Del Rio at the time, you know, which was, you know, like sticking your nose in a fan. I mean, it's just miserable down there anyway."
- Ginsberg asked Vitt why Payton fired Williams.
"So we're in the draft that spring, and we're all told as coaches there's no cell phones in the draft room," Vitt said. "It's a - it's what we're all told. I mean, you don't - there's no phones down there. Well, Gregg would continually take his down there. He took it the first two years. And, you know, Sean is not a confrontational guy. But on this particular year in (2011), Gregg started texting our draft picks to the media about four or five minutes before we made the pick. Sean watched him do this from across the room. So he had the first two draft picks right. So Sean told me, and Sean was livid. And I didn't want to believe it. I really didn't want to believe it. So Sean says, well, watch this, I'll show you the next round. The next round, he goes up to Gregg, and he goes, hey, we're going to draft this offensive lineman out of Oklahoma and takes Gregg's cell phone and covers it over with a piece of paper or a hat or whatever so Gregg can't get to his cell phone - or excuse me.
"We're going to take this guy from Oklahoma. Gregg texts this guy from Oklahoma to Jeff Duncan, puts his phone down, and Sean comes over and covers his phone with a hat and changes the draft pick. Duncan reports about this kid from Oklahoma on the offense. So we had - at that point in time, Sean had had enough. And an exit strategy was in place to move on from - to move on from Gregg.
"Now, I think the biggest thing that everybody gets tired of with Gregg is just day after day, week after week of the bull(expletive), the crazy stories. I mean, I'm going to give you my texts. I'll show you that all the time he's got this insatiable desire to talk about himself. He's got this insatiable desire to talk about how good he is and his family is. And in the course of all of the bull(expletive) stories, you've got to work your way through it, you've got to - you know, you've got to try to get the meat and the potatoes of what's true and not true. But after a while, that just gets to you. It just gets to you.
"I would say the final straw was the last two weeks of the season - of the Detroit, San Francisco (games), you know, Gregg kept coming to Sean every day and wanted his contract extension and wanted his extension done. And Sean said, well, we'll talk about it at the end of the season, well knowing what direction Sean was going in. And the last week of the season, it's all in the papers, you know, Gregg has gone to St. Louis, it's his best friend Jeff Fisher, you know, ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, trying to squeeze Sean, trying to squeeze Mickey to get his contract. And the day after the playoff game that we lost against San Francisco, he went into Sean's office and says I need to know right now, I need my contract, I've got to let Jeff know what I'm doing. And Sean said, you're not going to get a contract here. I think it's best go to St. Louis with your friend Jeff. And that was it. ... It didn't end pretty. It didn't end nice. I'm sure that Gregg has a lot of animosity towards me now."
- Vitt said he could never remember a meeting where it was just him, Williams and Cerullo alone in a room together.
- Ginsberg asked Vitt if it was true what Goodell and the NFL counsel have both said publicly that you were involved in the destruction of documents. "Well that's a lie," Vitt said. "That's a lie. I never destroyed a document."
Ginsberg then asked, "Mike Cerullo has already testified that you told him, you ordered him to destroy documents. Is this true?"
Vitt: "So I - so what documents am I asking Mike Cerullo to destroy? I don't understand. What are we, shredding them? Is that what we do, we shred documents? I don't know what we do. Mike Cerullo - let's cut to the chase. Mike Cerullo is a liar. Mike Cerullo is wrong."
Ginsberg: "Did you ever tell him in any way to destroy or get rid of any documents relating to the pay-for-performance program or any other documents?"
Vitt: "Yeah. You know, I felt such strong trust with Mike Cerullo, especially after the last four weeks he missed work, that I could really trust in him, that I could tell him the deep down secrets of my heart, let's destroy these documents. Mike, just me and you because we're tight. No. The answer is Cerullo. Cerullo is an idiot."
Ginsberg: "Cerullo also said that you stood over him as he was destroying documents. Is that true?"
Vitt: "Everybody stands over Cerullo, but no. The answer is no."
Ginsberg: "To the best of your knowledge, were any documents destroyed?"
Vitt: "Not to my knowledge. I mean, what are we missing? The NFL told me that they have everything that they needed to prosecute us, and there was 7-10 players that were going to corroborate and ex-coaches that were corroborating 50,000 pages and 18,000 documents. So what could we possibly be missing?"
