Started By
Message

re: Graphical representation of win/loss records with our rivals.

Posted on 6/1/15 at 3:33 pm to
Posted by BigBrod81
Houma
Member since Sep 2010
18966 posts
Posted on 6/1/15 at 3:33 pm to
quote:

Cerullo's handwritten documentation of alleged earnings, fines and payouts and information submitted to the league via interviews has been some of the NFL's primary evidence against the players and team officials. The information that Cerullo and Williams provided led the league to suspend the four players on two occasions, as well as Coach Sean Payton, General Manager Mickey Loomis, and linebackers/interim head coach Joe Vitt. Williams is still serving an indefinite suspension handed down by the league for his role in organizing the program. Payton is out until after Super Bowl XLVII while Loomis and Vitt have served their suspensions.

According to Cerullo's signed May 22 affidavit, Vilma asked to address the Saints before the 2009 NFC divisional game against Arizona. Cerullo said Vilma raised his hands in the air holding "two five stacks," which Cerullo interpreted as $10,000, for anyone who knocked Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner out of the game. Cerullo said he collected the money from Vilma and gave it to Williams. The money wasn't paid, though, because Warner wasn't knocked out of the game, although he was forced to leave the field following a brutal hit by defensive end Bobby McCray.

Cerullo said Vilma addressed the Saints the next week leading up to the NFC championship game and Vilma said his offer from the divisional game "still stands" for any player who knocked out Vikings quarterback Brett Favre. Cerullo said other players, including Smith and Fujita, began pledging money to the pool.

Williams told Cerullo after Super Bowl XLIV to get rid of the pay-for-performance documents from a computer and Vitt followed up to see if Cerullo deleted the files, according to the affidavit.

Cerullo said he was in a meeting where Vitt told Hargrove to deny any knowledge of the pay-for-performance program. Cerullo added that to the best of his recollection, Hargrove responded by saying, "I can lie with the best of them."

Cerullo admitted in the affidavit that Williams put him in charge of the pay-for-performance program. Cerullo also said players were paid $1,000 for "cart-off" hits and $1,500 for "knock-out" hits and the plan was to up the price during the 2009 playoffs.



quote:

The NFL responded in mid-September with a statement defending Cerullo: "Mike Cerullo should be commended for coming forward. The information and detail he provided was credible and has since been confirmed in numerous respects both by other witnesses and by supporting documents. It is unfortunate that some have sought to unfairly attack his integrity rather than give attention to the substance of his declaration."

Ginsberg included in a Oct. 29 court filing an email Cerullo sent to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello on Nov. 11, 2011:

"So I have info on Saints Joe Vitt Lying to your NFL Investigator on Bounties from 2010, along with proof!!!

"I was there, in the cover up meeting, with players and Joe, I love the NFL and want to work there again, but I am afraid if I tell thge (the) truth I will never coach again in NFL, But I was fired for a situation that the Saints encourage..

"All I want is a Job back in the NFL as a QC Coach anywhere, so If talking to you jepodizes (jeopardizes) that I will have to get back to you, but The Saints are a Dirty Organization

"Contact me

"mike c"



quote:

According to the investigation by Vilma's counsel, Cerullo twice lied to the Saints about personal leave of absences. The first instance allegedly involved an accident with his girlfriend who lived out of town and Cerullo asked Vitt to leave the Saints for a brief period of time. The second allegedly happened during the 2009 playoffs when Cerullo asked for time away after a death to someone close to Cerullo's girlfriend.

Cerullo wasn't retained after the 2009 season. He spent time on the Connecticut football staff during the 2010 and 2011 seasons, and now serves as Princeton's director of football operations.



This post was edited on 6/1/15 at 3:37 pm
Posted by BigBrod81
Houma
Member since Sep 2010
18966 posts
Posted on 6/1/15 at 3:38 pm to
Continued


quote:

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. Sean Payton 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.




Posted by BigBrod81
Houma
Member since Sep 2010
18966 posts
Posted on 6/1/15 at 3:40 pm to
quote:

- 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.


LINK


LINK

first pageprev pagePage 1 of 1Next pagelast page
refresh

Back to top
logoFollow TigerDroppings for LSU Football News
Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to get the latest updates on LSU Football and Recruiting.

FacebookTwitterInstagram