David Elfin, formerly of the Washington Times and now of 106.7 The Fan, has a column up on the radio station's website that is a doozy in the wake of all that's gone on this week relating to Williams and the bounty program he ran with the New Orleans Saints.
Elfin uses two anonymous former players as sources for the following story, which allegedly took place prior to the 2006 season opener between the Redskins and Minnesota Vikings.
"Gregg came in and dropped $15,000 on the (table) and said, ‘Brad Johnson doesn’t finish this game. This is Wednesday and the money will go up later in the week. It could double or triple by the end of the week,’ "one of the players recalled. "A couple of guys kinda got excited. (Defensive line coach) Greg Blache said, ‘If you get fined, it will be taken care of.’
Elfin goes on to say that Williams offered money to Redskins players if they would knock out Seattle running back Shaun Alexander in the previous season's NFC Wild Card game, and notes that no money changed hands since the Redskins lost both the Minnesota game and the Seattle game.
The NFL has already cleared the Redskins of wrongdoing in this case (possibly for the very reason mentioned above), though Fred Smoot and Andre Carter have gone on record to say, respectively, that the players alone pooled money and that there was no bounty system at all. Of course, Carter's still an active player in the league, so he might still have something to lose if put in the crosshairs of an NFL investigation.
Whatever you think of the NFL's penalties against Williams and the Saints, this should pretty much put to rest any doubts as to whether anything was going on when Williams was in D.C. Because it seems very clear that something was.