Gillie
Gregg Williams has been suspended indefinitely by the NFL for his part in a bounty program
What was so wrong with then New Orleans Saints Gregg Willaims’ pre-game speech prior to the divisional playoff game against the San Francisco 49ers? Not much. Apart from the ACL comment surrounding 49ers’ receiver Michael Crabtree, there wasn’t much there that doesn’t get said prior to every college and professional football game across the nation. If you think otherwise, you are sadly mistaken. The only reason the ACL comment was an issue is because Crabtree didn’t have a previous ACL injury. If there was a prior ACL injury then you want to test him out to see how tentative that player is when you get physical with him. Since there wasn’t a prior ACL injury then the comment seems to be encouragement to create one.
Let’s get one thing clear, football is NOT a contact sport, it is a collision sport. Football players are modern-day gladiators who have a goal to inflict pain on their opponents. Let me be clear, there shouldn’t be an intent to disable our maim, but there is intent to physically punish and physically deflate your opponent. We are taught to physically impose our will on our opponent. You want them to be intimidated by how hard you hit. You want them to have a slight moment of hesitation when they see you coming or line up against them. You are taught to drop the hammer. Lay the wood. Run through them at full speed. This is what football is about. To pretend otherwise is foolish.
Williams encouraged his players to hit 49ers’ QB Alex Smith in the chin. I was told to do the same thing prior to every game that I ever played in. If you are hitting the QB in the chin that means you are getting to him and burying your face mask squarely in his chest. This means the top of your helmet is banging his chin. This is a legal hit. These are also hits that make the QB get unsettled in the pocket. He loses confidence in his offensive line’s ability to protect him. He gets happy feet. He throws the ball sooner than he should which gives the defense the opportunity to intercept the ball.
Kill the head and the body will follow. Again, this is something that I heard all the time. If you take away what a teams does best, they begin to lose confidence in their scheme and there is a scramble to adjust. In this case, Williams was talking about shutting down the 49ers’ ground game led by Frank Gore. He saw Gore as the head of the 49ers offense. Shutting him down would place the 49ers in obvious passing situations and allow the Saints’ defense to do what they do best, blitz. The perception was that the 49ers couldn’t beat the Saints with their passing game.
Too much is being made of this speech when there is little there. You have former players like Warren Sapp saying that he would have stood up and said something. I highly doubt that is true. After all, he goes by the nickname the QB Killa. Does this mean that he kills QBs or his this metaphoric? Sapp is also known for his blind side hit of Green Bay Packers offensive lineman Chad Clifton. The hit ended Clifton’s 2002 season. It may have been a legal hit according to the rules but it was a hit that many football players would say he didn’t have the guts to go head up with him. Sapp’s response to the criticism was, “In the trenches, we play a different game. We play a game that none of you are familiar with. We do things to each other that only linemen are allowed to do to each other. He needed his head on a swivel. He understands that now.” Yet, he was the guy that would have stood up to Williams and called him out? Sapp embraces the violent nature of the game.
While I do not condone the bounty program that Williams was involved in, I do not see anything so outrageous in his pre-game speech outside of the ACL comment. At this point it is just a bunch of piling on. The truth is we all love the big hits and the way the players throw their bodies around with reckless abandon. This is why we watch and why we will continue to watch.
Ball So Hard 