Gregg Williams returns to New Orleans and Saints run up the score on him and Rams

Gregg Williams has to have some good memories of his time in New Orleans. Sunday won’t be included in those good memories, not after Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints ran up the score on him and the Los Angeles Rams.

Williams, the Rams’ defensive coordinator, has a complicated legacy with the Saints to say the least. He was defensive coordinator when the Saints won their only Super Bowl. He also was the figure blamed for the team’s infamous bounty scandal, for which he was suspended indefinitely (the NFL reinstated him more than a year after suspending him). Larry Holder of the New Orleans Times-Picayune summed up the messy breakup in full here.

Before Sunday’s game nobody really wanted to talk about Williams’ return to New Orleans on Sunday, but Payton let his actions speak. In a 42-21 game, Payton called a trick play in the fourth quarter. Receiver Willie Snead caught a lateral, took a few steps back and fired a touchdown pass to wide-open Tim Hightower.

It probably wasn’t a coincidence that Payton dialed up a trick play in a blowout against a defense that is coached by Williams, who left the Saints amid a lot of controversy and name-calling.

Payton said he was “a little excited” to get the big win, but said the late trick-play touchdown was just based on seeing a weakness in the Rams defense.

“There are tendencies and it had been installed earlier in the week and just coming up at the right time,” Payton said, according to the Saints’ transcripts.

Sure, Sean.

And on top of giving up 555 yards and 49 points to his former team, Williams got in an animated argument on the sideline with coach Jeff Fisher.

Williams was probably happy to be on a plane headed out of New Orleans after that game.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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