Jeremy Shockey
Shockey has vehemently denied that during his time with the Saints that he had anything to do with ratting about the team's controversial bounty program. Reuters

The man who first made the NFL aware of the New Orleans Saints' bounty system may have just been identified.

The NFL first investigated the Saints for having a bounty system in 2010. Late last season, the league learned that the team indeed had been paying players to put big hits on opponents.

Former defensive tackle Warren Sapp says he knows who tipped the NFL off to what the Saints had been doing. According to the current NFL Network analyst, it was Jeremy Shockey who told the league about the bounty system. Sapp tweeted that Shockey was the snitch who informed the NFL.

Shockey played for the Saints from 2008 through 2010. The bounty program was in place for Shockey's last two seasons in New Orleans.

The tight end hasn't had the best reputation since entering the league in 2002. The Giants traded him in 2008, after he was elected to four Pro Bowls in his first six seasons.

When NBA analyst Charles Barkley first heard the news, he was most angry at the player who informed the NFL of the Saints' actions, rather than the team.

You have to be a punk to snitch that out, the basketball great said. That's like giving a reporter an anonymous quote. That makes you a punk, if you do anonymous, but also, you don't bring that out x amount of years later. I mean you don't compete in it if you don't want to be in it. But I've seen at least three or four well-known NFL players say all teams have bounties. So I'm glad they came to Gregg Williams' defense. Because I'm pretty sure all teams have that.

Shockey has denied Sapp's claims, saying, I didn't even play defense.

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