Gregg Williams' name comes up again in Bounty scandal lawsuit

[DaveFan'51]

Same here. What's been baffling to me is that with such a stellar coaching staff, the stupid, unnecessary penalties and boneheaded decisions have continued season after season. The talent has been there but the discipline has not.

Agreed! But some of it can be blamed on youth too!

 

[kurtfaulk]

.

the funny thing is that during the year these bounties were in full force, the year they won the superbowl, the saints were one of the least penalised teams in the league. isn't that weird if the defensive players were supposedly out to hurt/injure the opposition?

.

 

[So Ram]

I've been conflicted about the hire of Williams because what he did makes me sick and I would have been fine if Goodell had just kicked him right the freak out of the league when this all happened.

It's hard to root for a piece of crap, and this guy is for sure a piece of crap.

Don't get any on you.

Got love the Rams defense & all the shit they will be this season.

 

[DaveFan'51]

.

the funny thing is that during the year these bounties were in full force, the year they won the superbowl, the saints were one of the least penalised teams in the league. isn't that weird if the defensive players were supposedly out to hurt/injure the opposition?

.

They were well Coached!

 

[ram007]

Why did Gregg Williams change his appearance? He dislikes his past now?

 

[RamFan503]

I've been conflicted about the hire of Williams because what he did makes me sick and I would have been fine if Goodell had just kicked him right the freak out of the league when this all happened.

It's hard to root for a piece of crap, and this guy is for sure a piece of crap.

Meh. I don't like the idea of intentionally injuring players but you had several retired players saying this was pretty common place when they played. You don't think Deacon tried to take the QB out every snap of every game? Players used to take a player out to dinner for knocking a star player out of the game. Williams got caught for doing something that had been going on in the league for years. It's good that they had an example to use toward ending the practice but I don't view Williams as some type of heretic.

 

[LesBaker]

Meh. I don't like the idea of intentionally injuring players but you had several retired players saying this was pretty common place when they played. You don't think Deacon tried to take the QB out every snap of every game? Players used to take a player out to dinner for knocking a star player out of the game. Williams got caught for doing something that had been going on in the league for years. It's good that they had an example to use toward ending the practice but I don't view Williams as some type of heretic.

He got told twice to stop and he didn't. Plus the extent of what he was doing was different from what has gone on. And that doesn't make it right anyway. Intentionally injuring a player is about the worst thing you can do in sports.

 

[RamFan503]

He got told twice to stop and he didn't. Plus the extent of what he was doing was different from what has gone on. And that doesn't make it right anyway. Intentionally injuring a player is about the worst thing you can do in sports.

I have seen where he wanted players out of the game, I don't recall his asking for injuries. Knock out the head and the body will die does not say give the guy a concussion - it says get in the team's heads.

 

[LesBaker]

I have seen where he wanted players out of the game, I don't recall his asking for injuries. Knock out the head and the body will die does not say give the guy a concussion - it says get in the team's heads.

He was imploring the players to hit Gore in the head every chance they got, even in the pile. Gore was ust coming back from a concussion and Williams was telling the defense to go out of their way to hit him in the head even when the play was over.

Dude that's just wrong.

 

[RamFan503]

He was imploring the players to hit Gore in the head every chance they got, even in the pile. Gore was ust coming back from a concussion and Williams was telling the defense to go out of their way to hit him in the head even when the play was over.

Dude that's just wrong.

I recall some insinuating that is what he meant. I listened to the audio. Post it again if you think that's what he was saying. I don't recall it sounding that way to me.

 

[LesBaker]

Here ya go.....and from memory any of the former athletes who actually heard the tape wasn't cool with it at all. The rah-rah stuff is one thing but calling for players to take out specific players ACL's, and ankles and shit is WAY out of bounds.

 

[jap]

The Gurley Man speaketh:

"Maybe The Fisher King has put out a contract on defensive players, and maybe I'm his #1 hitman. I plan to leave a trail of destruction throughout the entire NFL this very season and all through my career. I plan to complete every contract too!"

 

[kurtfaulk]

Here ya go.....and from memory any of the former athletes who actually heard the tape wasn't cool with it at all. The rah-rah stuff is one thing but calling for players to take out specific players ACL's, and ankles and crap is WAY out of bounds.

Haha, a blow hard speech. Did you see that game? None of the players did any such thing. And at the end they let Alex Smith Steer The Whiners for two 80 yard td drives in the last 2 minutes of the game. Each drive straight after the Saints scored a td. Then Williams got the sack.

.

 

[Mojo Ram]

I've never had the privilege of sitting in on an weekly NFL gameplan meeting, but isn't it pretty common knowledge that coaches use scouting to research existing lingering type injuries of their opponents?
And use those reports in the gameplan?
I'm not talking about trying to end careers, but if an opposing player is playing with a bruised rib...i'm telling my guys to hit him high. If an opposing player is recovering from a ankle sprain...i'm telling my guys to hit him low.

I just assume this type of thing goes on every week.

 

[DaveFan'51]

I've never had the privilege of sitting in on an weekly NFL gameplan meeting, but isn't it pretty common knowledge that coaches use scouting to research existing lingering type injuries of their opponents?
And use those reports in the gameplan?
I'm not talking about trying to end careers, but if an opposing player is playing with a bruised rib...i'm telling my guys to hit him high. If an opposing player is recovering from a ankle sprain...i'm telling my guys to hit him low.

I just assume this type of thing goes on every week.

And I for one Like it that way! You KNOW the other Team is going to game plan you that way too!!

 

[RamFan503]

I've never had the privilege of sitting in on an weekly NFL gameplan meeting, but isn't it pretty common knowledge that coaches use scouting to research existing lingering type injuries of their opponents?
And use those reports in the gameplan?
I'm not talking about trying to end careers, but if an opposing player is playing with a bruised rib...i'm telling my guys to hit him high. If an opposing player is recovering from a ankle sprain...i'm telling my guys to hit him low.

I just assume this type of thing goes on every week.

Exactly. Hell - our HS coach did that. Not saying specifically ACL or anything but telling us if we saw players limp - make them limp more. If they grabbed their shoulder or ribs, we knew to hit them there.

Here ya go.....and from memory any of the former athletes who actually heard the tape wasn't cool with it at all. The rah-rah stuff is one thing but calling for players to take out specific players ACL's, and ankles and crap is WAY out of bounds.

There is the one comment on the ACL that sounds bad but I don't hear anything else that is not similar to what I've personally heard coaches say. I know a friend of mine that played LB in college said, "Yeah - so?" when he heard that tape a couple years ago. I'm sure former players that are now on the air were just completely appalled hearing that - outwardly. It's not like they were going to go against the message the NFL was trying to send. I remember Deacon Jones saying it was nothing they hadn't heard before. I believe it was Ditka that said the same thing.

Maybe the reason he didn't heed the initial warning by the NFL was because he was thinking, "Really?"

IMO this is more a coach trying to instill bad intentions in his players. Not intention to injure but to hurt. And the fact is that none of what you are saying he was telling his players to do actually happened. You are taking this kind of speech more literal than I suspect any of the players in the room were taking it.

 

[LesBaker]

I've never had the privilege of sitting in on an weekly NFL gameplan meeting, but isn't it pretty common knowledge that coaches use scouting to research existing lingering type injuries of their opponents?
And use those reports in the gameplan?
I'm not talking about trying to end careers, but if an opposing player is playing with a bruised rib...i'm telling my guys to hit him high. If an opposing player is recovering from a ankle sprain...i'm telling my guys to hit him low.

I just assume this type of thing goes on every week.

But do you tell your players to hit guys in the head in the pile after the play is over? And do you tell your guys to take out a guys knee? I don't think so.

This is the issue..........everyone says "well other than those two things this happens all the time". Well yes, but those two or three things put it OVER the line. And he did this after being told to stop. This wasn't just headhunting which we all know happens (and it's wrong IMO) this was a system he put in place that rewarded guys for injuring players. Look at a couple of the hits put on QB's that he placed bounties on. Both were vicious and illegal. The hit on Warner was borderline criminal. There was obvious intent on that hit, the guy went out of his way and actually declined making an attempt to make a tackle in an effort to spear Warner right in the head. Warner and Favre each had 10K bounties out.

Another problem is players got a bonus if a guy got concussed and a bonus if a guy had to be carted off. Specifically for THOSE things to happen. Not "knock a player out of the game" or "knock the wind out of him" "or lay a hard hit" but to injure him enough that he had a concussion or was hurt enough they had to get carted to the locker room.

That's the stuff that was beyond the pale. Not all of the speech, and the other stuff, was out of bounds. But there was enough evidence that he was advocating injuring a player severely. That's why he was suspended. And rightfully so.

He's served his time, so I don't begrudge him, I would have been more severe. I just have a hard time rooting for a guy that I know would celebrate and pay for a player getting their knee blown out.

 

[Rmfnlt]

Meh. I don't like the idea of intentionally injuring players but you had several retired players saying this was pretty common place when they played. You don't think Deacon tried to take the QB out every snap of every game? Players used to take a player out to dinner for knocking a star player out of the game. Williams got caught for doing something that had been going on in the league for years. It's good that they had an example to use toward ending the practice but I don't view Williams as some type of heretic.

I think we can all agree that the game was less structured back when Deacon played... but we hope that as intelligent beings, we learn from our past and make positive changes.

Has it gone too far the other way (protecting QBs, for example)? Many say yes. But looking at ex-players and potential law suits says no.

I wonder... when Deacon "invented" the head slp and had that mentality (mame other players)... was it just inside of him? Or did the coaches incent him to do those things?

 

[blackbart]

I've been conflicted about the hire of Williams because what he did makes me sick and I would have been fine if Goodell had just kicked him right the freak out of the league when this all happened.

It's hard to root for a piece of crap, and this guy is for sure a piece of crap.

Really naive to think this is the only place this ws tuaght in football. We did it in high school 40 years ago.

 

[LesBaker]

Really naive to think this is the only place this ws tuaght in football. We did it in high school 40 years ago.

But it actually isn't because of all the former players who have said most of it was stuff they had heard before EXCEPT the advocating injuries which almost to a man they said was over the line. That would lead one to believe that it actually isn't taught and I doubt if you had high school coaches telling you to blow out a guys knee. Or hit a guy in the head, even in the pile after the play.

What I have found in the multiple discussions I have had on multiple message boards is that most (not all but most) of the posters that say "that shit goes on all the time in every locker room" haven't listened to the recording. The rah rah hit 'em hard stuff isn't the problem and I think people assume that's essentially what Williams was saying when it was WAY more than that.

 

[nighttrain]

That is the basic scheme of defense! Take the stars off the field. Be honest. It's football for chrissakes, not basketball or baseball.

It's NFL Football,not for sissies,hit em as hard as you can, just no cheap shots, particularly at knees, but we all know shit happens.
train