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Strange day indeed . . .
Friday the 13th certainly lived up to its reputation.
I’m sure you heard about the contentious Gregg Williams press conference. I think we all saw this coming.
After Odell Beckham’s comments on Thursday about Williams, did anybody expect this to go well? Beckham’s comments were in regards to a preseason ankle injury suffered by the wide receiver against the Browns (when he was with the Giants in 2017).
“I had players on this team telling me that’s what he was telling them to do: take me out of the game, and it’s preseason,” Beckham said. “So you just know who he is. That’s the man who’s calling the plays.”
Williams was the Browns DC at the time. The hit by cornerback Briean Boddy-Calhoun was 100 percent legal.
So, as expected, this brought us back to 2011’s Bountygate in New Orleans. Williams was suspended for the 2012 season for his role in Bountygate, which reportedly was the intentional targeting of opponents for bounty money.
Williams said he never would tell players to intentionally injure opponents when asked about Beckham’s comment.
“We don’t do that,” Williams said Friday. “Never done that anywhere I’ve been.”
New York Post reporter Brian Costello asked him how could he say that when he was suspended for a season for Bountygate.
Williams responded about the suspension – “Was that right or wrong?”
So you get the sense that Williams thought the league was a little too heavy-handed with that punishment.
At this point, he said he would only answer questions about the Browns, but the Beckham and intentional hit questions just kept on coming.
This press conference was a tension convention.
And you know who I blame for all this – Beckham.
The hit on Beckham was 100 percent legal. Players now often go low with hits to avoid getting fined for helmet-to-helmet contact. But by him making that comment about being targeted (on a legal hit), it opened up the Bountygate can of worms again.
I think this ugly press conference might even help the Jets against Cleveland Monday. Most of the Jets’ defensive players seem to love Williams, and the way he was attacked today, seemed to piss some of them off.
“G Dub! I luv you, coach! Got your back! tweeted Jamal Adams.
You get the sense the players are going to be fired up, not just because this is an important game, but for their coach.
And by the way, that coach has great intel on a lot of the Browns’ roster, where he served as interim coach for half of last season. He gave a lot of good info on the skill sets – strengths and weaknesses – of many players – who returned from last year’s roster – to Jets players and coaches.
Most importantly, he coached Baker Mayfield last year, as a head coach and against him in practice running the defense. Williams should have a tremendous game plan to deal with Mayfield. He knows what makes him tick as a player.
And what should also help Williams game plan is the Browns’ offensive line isn’t very good . . .
Something else a little bizarre today happened during player interviews.
Jets rookie defensive tackle Quinnen Williams and left tackle Kelvin Beachum, both dealing with ankle injuries, were asked myriad questions about the ailments by reporters, and refused to answer questions saying repeatedly we needed to “Talk to Coach Gase.”
Hey, this is understandable. Several teams disallow players from talking about injuries.
But here is what was strange about this.
Shortly after Williams and Beachum refused to talk about their injuries, per orders from a team official, linebacker C.J. Mosley addressed the media, and openly discussed his groin injury.
Clearly the message that got to Williams/Beachum didn’t get to Mosley.
You can’t have this going on.
Either it’s a rule or it’s not a rule.
Rules should not be selectively enforced.
That is bad for a football culture.
September 13, 2019
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