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Ex-Titan Bishop says Williams didn't have bounties in Tennessee

Gregg Williams' "pay for performance" system during the three years he spent as defensive coordinator of the New Orleans Saints wasn't the only "bounty" program revealed Friday.

The Washington Post reported that Williams ran a similar program when he was defensive coordinator of the Redskins, but members of two other teams that have employed the coach deny they had their own "bounty" system in place.

Two sources told The Florida Times-Union on Friday that Williams didn't implement a Saints-like "bounty" program in his one season on the Jacksonville Jaguars' coaching staff, and former Titans safety Blaine Bishop, responding to a comment Tony Dungy made to ProFootballTalk.com, vehemently denied there were bounties during Williams' tenure in Tennessee.

Dungy told the site he believes the Titans had a bounty on Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning and said, via a text message, that "I know they had them in Tennessee." An issue that arises with Dungy's comments, as The Tennessean points out, is that Dungy didn't coach the Colts while Williams was the Titans' defensive coordinator.

Williams coached the Titans from 1993 to 2000, and Dungy became the Colts' head coach in 2002.

Bishop, now retired, played for the Titans from 1993 to 2001 and said there never were any bounties under Williams.

"I am not going to call him (Dungy) a liar, but we never had any bounties when I played, I know that," Bishop told the Tennessean. "Gregg never had any bounties. If we did, I never got paid. But the truth is we never had them. It didn't happen with the Titans when I was there, so it didn't happen when Gregg was there. I don't know what Coach Dungy is referring to. Maybe he is getting confused with when Gregg was with the Bills, or maybe the Redskins? I don't know."

Bishop later added that he believes Williams should be punished for his actions with the Saints.

"Gregg should be fined, punished, whatever the league thinks," Bishop said. "I don't condone it, and I just don't think it's right. But I know we never had any bounties when I played in Tennessee. So what Coach Dungy is referring to, I don't know."

Former Saints safety Darren Sharper, during a Friday interview with NFL.com, didn't deny that Williams was involved in a "pay for performance" system in New Orleans, but he flatly denied the existence of a "bounty" program.

"It's ridiculous that someone is trying to say that we made bounties on knocking guys out, when basically all it was is that when a guy gets an interception, then he might get paid," Sharper said. "That's something that guys do amongst themselves."

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