New Orleans Saints bounty is just a part of the game New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams ran a bounty program that targeted opposing players for injuries. In a statement, he says the program was a "terrible mistake and we knew it was wrong while we were doing it." Photograph: Bill Haber/AP National Football League players are being paid good money to maim each other. Which apparently is news. A moral crisis, even. Not because said players are receiving official league paychecks to, you know, maim each other, but rather because the maiming in question is intentional, and also being funded by the rough equivalent of an informal office bonus pool. Note: the last part is totally, totally scandalous. Confused? Nostrils tickled by a faint whiff of rank hypocrisy, emanating from the spectacle of violent men being reprimanded for violent deeds in the context of a violent game? Follow along. Last week, the NFL announced that the New Orleans Saints violated league rules by running a multi-season bounty program , run by former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, in which defenders paid into a kitty and received cash rewards for injuring opposing players: $1,000 if an opponent was carted off the field; $1,500 if he was knocked out of the game altogether; amounts doubling and tripling in the playoffs. Before the 2009 NFC title game, Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma reportedly threw $10,000 on a table and promised it to anyone who took out Minnesota's Brett Favre. Perhaps unsurprisingly, New Orleans