Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams had a bounty on Colts quarterback Peyton Manning in Super Bowl XLIV. But while it didn’t result in an injury to Manning, his former coach in Indianapolis believes it wasn’t the first time that knocking Peyton out of a game would have gotten a player paid.
Tony Dungy of NBC’s Football Night in America tells PFT that he believes the Titans had put a bounty on Manning.
“I know they had them in Tennessee,” Dungy said via text.
Williams worked for the Oilers/Titans through 2000 under coach Jeff Fisher. Dungy became coach of the Colts in 2002, when a realignment of the divisions put the Colts and Titans in the newly-created AFC South, pitting the two teams against each other twice per season.
Coincidentally, Fisher and Williams have now been reunited, in St. Louis. Which will make even more interesting a decision by Manning to sign with one of the Rams’ NFC West rivals: the Cardinals, Seahawks, or 49ers.
Even more coincidentally, Dungy explained during a 2011 preseason edition of Football Night in America that he believes a 2006 hit on Peyton Manning first caused his ongoing neck problems.
The man delivering the hit? Phillip Daniels. His team? The Redskins.
The defensive coordinator at the time? Gregg Williams.
That said, Dungy emphasized that he doesn’t know whether the Redskins were using bounties under Williams. But Dungy was clear in his belief that the Titans used such a system.