Williams audiotapes prove nothing

There has been a frenzy of coverage over my former coach Gregg Williams having to do with bounties on players. Now audio has surfaced of one of his locker room speeches when he was with the Saints.

This audio supports what I’ve been saying all along. When Williams coached me in Washington, I don’t recall payouts or blatant discussions about money for hurting players. Pay for plays has always existed and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with teams offering pots of money for big plays. That’s totally different from pots of money for hurting guys and sending them off the field on carts.

People are further outraged and disturbed by the audio that has been released, but as damming as this audio is to Williams’s credibility and character, he never once mentions paying money to hurt guys.

I’ve said that Williams wanted his players to believe he was the toughest man on the planet, and he wanted his players to follow suit. He led with an iron fist and cussed better than any sailor. The audio confirms that. He was super intelligent in how he broke down opposing offenses and how he taught us. He was very demanding of us as players and, for what it’s worth, the defense responded.

This audio doesn’t expose a bounty system; it exposes a man that was most likely chased home by bullies when he was a kid and now, as an adult, he coaches them. It’s that whole mean cop theory: The police officers that always are trying to prove something are accused of the same thing -- not being cool enough or tough enough growing up.

It is understandable to be upset by him asking players to check to see how a guy’s head is in the game after a concussion. That is wrong. To ask guys to check to see if a guy’s ACL is okay is wrong and has no place in the game. But be clear: He never said these things and added anything about collecting a pot of money for doing so.

He used lots of figurative language in his speech. If you for one second believe that Williams meant to kill the head when he said it, you are the one that needs to be examined. It’s a figure of speech, commonly used by the way. No money was ever mentioned. That seems to be conveniently missing from all of the reports coming out about this. Am I missing something?

I understand that there is suppose to be emails and other evidence that support the infractions committed by Williams, but I’m sorry this audio really doesn’t strengthen the case that he had a bounty system.

Again, all it does is expose the type of person Williams is and, as he stated in his speech, he doesn’t apologize for being the way he is.

This article was written by Lavar Arrington and appeared in the Washington Post.

Posted by Necesitamos Mas Football on 1:00 p. m.. Filed under Gregg Williams , nfc , noticias , saints . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0