Before each of his 187 National Football League games, Trevor Pryce said, informal, off-the-cuff offers of money to be paid for important plays circulated through the locker room.

“Five hundred for a punt-return touchdown,” someone would say, and one teammate, or five, would jump to match the offer.

“Four hundred if you make a big hit on the kickoff,” someone else would shout.

To special-teams players, those at the bottom of the NFL pay scale, that money was significant, in some cases as much as or more than their weekly paycheck.

Pryce once paid a Denver Broncos teammate $1,000 for forcing a fumble on a kickoff.

The system worked, Pryce said, so the players who made such plays also collected from their teammates. He remembered some who carried a pencil and paper with them before games.

“It’s pretty much standard operating procedure,” said Pryce, who is now retired. “It made our special teams better. I know dudes who doubled their salary from it. Trust me, it happens in some form in any locker room. It’s like a democracy, the inmates governing themselves.”

On Friday, the NFL released the results of its investigation of the New Orleans Saints, who the league said from 2009 to 2011 used a bounty system, paying cash to players who injured opponents. This system was mainly financed by Saints players, which struck Pryce as normal, but it also included detailed record keeping, which Pryce found strange, a level beyond what he understood as the common practice, because “that says the organization was in on it,” Pryce said.

In 14 NFL seasons, with three teams, Pryce said he never witnessed a teammate get paid to injure an opponent. Pryce said he never heard of any bounty systems, either, at least not one that he took seriously.

“It is said, yes, knock his helmet off, get an extra $10,000,” Pryce said. “Or $100,000 if a guy gets carted off the field. That stuff is all said in jest, in a tongue-in-cheek way. It’s like betting on the sun not coming up.

“It’s not like the Saints are playing against Holy Trinity College. They’re playing against other NFL players. I don’t think teams really mean it that way. Now, a big hit is different. Getting rewarded for a big hit, they do that in college. You get a sticker on your helmet.”

For 10 seasons with two teams, linebacker Bart Scott prided himself on playing physical defense. When Baltimore played Seattle, Scott said the scouting report reinforced that the Ravens needed to hit star running back Shaun Alexander, hit him hard, because the report said Alexander avoided contact. The New York Giants, Scott said, intended to hit New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in the Super Bowl.

Those intentions, Scott argued, are no different from the so-called bounties offered by the Saints.

“You can’t just read the words, you have to know the intent,” Scott said. “Knocking someone out doesn’t mean you’re doing something dirty. It’s no different than when the Detroit Pistons played Michael Jordan and every time he went to the hole, they were physical with him. No one was literally trying to hurt him.

“To a certain extent, the league could investigate every team and find the same exact stuff.”

The NFL, Scott said, overreacted to the word “bounty.” He said the evidence, if the Saints had purposely injured their opponents, would be on film. If a defensive player wanted to hurt an offensive player, Scott said, “it’s not hard to do.” But such malicious intention, Scott added, would be obvious, in a blow to the back of the head, or a dive at an opponent’s knees.

Scott is a defensive player, as was Pryce, which in part explains their vantage points on the issue. Scott made his early mark on special teams, where, he said, the Ravens’ veterans often collected pools of money, a few hundred dollars, a few thousand, to motivate younger players. Sometimes, Scott said, young players would use that money to buy shoes.

In 2006, as the Ravens prepared for the Saints, Scott and Reggie Bush got into a back-and-forth. Scott said then he would put some “hot sauce” on his next Bush tackle. When he did tackle Bush in the Ravens’ victory, Bush limped to the locker room and later accused Scott of taking a cheap shot.

“That wasn’t intentional,” Scott said now. “Bush was the most elusive player in the league. You’re just trying to tackle him, period.”

Other NFL players, on Twitter and in other forums, expressed similar thoughts. Some, like Pittsburgh Steelers safety Ryan Clark, suggested that whoever cooperated with the NFL investigation “should be ashamed.”

Pryce understood the outcry, even though he believed the Saints’ transgressions mattered less, ultimately, than the videotape scandal that engulfed the Patriots during the 2007 season. Because of the increased emphasis and awareness on player safety, Pryce said, the league had to “overreact.”

He said the NFL would make an example of the Saints, the way it made an example of the Patriots, who lost a first-round draft pick and paid $750,000 in fines for the so-called Spygate scandal.

Scott did not disagree, but added: “Nothing will change, man. They can get rid of every defensive coordinator, every defensive coach, in the league. It’s still football. If you hit someone legally, and they can’t play as well, or at all, that’s what you want. That’s what being physical is all about.”