Football, giant as it is, has become a fault line in the landscape of America’s popular culture.

And this past Friday, another shiver sent waves through the growing uneasiness that pervades the relationship between football (more specifically, the NFL) and the rest of the country that calls itself fans and amateur players.

The NFL revealed Friday that current St. Louis Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams implemented a bounty program – where players are given under-the-table monetary rewards for injuring targeted players – while he acted as defensive coordinator for the New Orleans Saints’ defense (during their Super Bowl season, no less).

“Knockout” hits earned a player $1,000, and if anyone managed to reduce an opponent to being carted off the field, they earned another $500.

There were other bonuses for non-abhorrent actions as well, like picking off passes and sacking the quarterback – clean plays that change the course of the game.

But, allegedly, Williams’s underhanded tactics didn’t begin in New Orleans, either, where he coached from 2009-11. Buffalonews.com quotes a former player claiming this practice was instituted by Williams while he was head coach of the Buffalo Bills (2001-03).

Meanwhile, The Washington Post quotes retired defensive lineman Phillip Daniels, along with four other anonymous sources, as saying Williams did the same while acting as defensive coordinator for the Washington Redskins from 2004-07.

And in the controversy that has since ensued, we’ve been subjected to sports pundits and writers alike reminding football fans that the detestable practice of bounty hunting in football is probably alive in more than a few NFL locker rooms.

All of this comes just after the alarming research on concussions sent the league into a frenzy two seasons ago, leading to a cool down on vicious hits to make the sport as safe as could be.

The fact that this story came to light on a Friday afternoon is an acknowledgement from the NFL that a scandal of this nature came at the worst possible time for the league, which is the manufacturer of arguably the most popular product in all of American television at the moment.

According to Nielsen, nine of the top 10 most watched-programs in 2011 were NFL-related. Of the top 10 regularly scheduled programs, four are NFL-related.

Despite this insane popularity, doomsayers had already settled in on the league. Over the past two years, the risks of football have drawn the sport into comparisons with boxing, where the physical and mental consequences resulted in fewer people participating in the game and a rapid decline in overall popularity followed.

And there are more than enough stories out there on the horrors that former players have been plagued with thanks to constant head-on collisions over the course of their careers.

So while the NFL enacted measures to make the game safer during the 2010-11 season, now the bounty scandal arrives. While many people are quick to label Williams’ program for what it is – a thuggish, morally reprehensible system – there’s a loud voice coming from NFLers expressing what can be summed as an indifference towards the whole thing.

Brett Favre, who had a bounty on his head during the 2010 NFC Championship Game and was a victim of cheap hits, told Sports Illustrated’s Peter King he had no grudges. If he was called to testify in court against Saints players he’d “be the wrong guy” and that “there’s a bounty of some kind on you on every play.”

There are a litter of stories popping up with former players alluding to this idea, that a bounty system hardly changes the nature of the game because it is so violent to begin with.

To an extent, they’re right. Could players be charged with battery for a hit on the field even if it’s proven the defender intended to inflict injury? That’s no easy answer. The line is decidedly blurred since there’s an extraordinary amount of consent that goes into every play in a football game.

But if something so dirty and stupid as a bounty program can only buoy up indifference from those that play the game, then lovers of the sport need to ask themselves what football is truly about.

I considered the game to be simply about physical dominance, a game of muscles pushing against one another – not a game where one simply tries to place another on a cart to be wheeled off the field via cheap shots.

Playing sports is about chasing a dream of excellence. A game of cheap shots is a dishonorable sport, and it’s a shame that some players are OK with that version of football. It’s that kind of sentimentality that will help cement football as a sport too dangerous to play. It will only help ruin America’s favorite entertainment.

Elliot Hughes is a senior majoring in journalism. What do you think about the reaction surrounding Gregg Williams’ bounty system? Let him know at [email protected] or tweet @elliothughes12.