Beyond the pale: With his system of prizes for injuring opposition players, Gregg Williams (l) deserves permanent banishment from the NFL. (AP)
The NFL hasn’t done enough in the wake of the Gregg Williams scandal.
Until a few weeks ago, most of America couldn’t tell Williams from their neighborhood pharmacist. But now the country knows him as the former defensive coordinator of the New Orleans Saints, and, more important, as the architect behind their obscene bounty system.
“Kill the head and the body will die,” Williams begged his players before their playoff game against San Francisco in January. He said it again in a speech that was caught on tape and released last week.
The “head” he was talking about belonged to Frank Gore, a 49ers running back who spent a year of his life rehabbing a surgically repaired knee.
For good measure, Williams made one last plea to his squad: “We’ve got to do everything in the world to make sure we kill Frank Gore’s head.”
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was right to lay down the hammer on the Saints. He stripped them of draft picks, levied a $500,000 fine, suspended their general manager and head coach and indefinitely suspended Williams, who had recently taken a coordinating job with the St. Louis Rams. But it can’t stop there.
The system that Williams favored featured a $1,000 bonus for each opposition player carted off; $1,500 for knocking someone out of a game. At one point, he reportedly offered a $15,000 reward for anyone who injured Vikings quarterback Brad Johnson.
In Williams’ eyes, forcing a guy off the field and into another profession was a victory.
Now it’s time for the NFL to return the favor.
Make Williams look for another line of work.
For those players who tried to dole out concussions and broken vertebrae rather than clean tackles, perhaps a lifetime ban should be in the cards, too — and for any other coaches who can be proven to have taken part.
It’s one thing to be aggressive on the field. It’s another to be a criminal.
Lifetime bans are uncommon in professional sports and most commonly doled out for gambling offenses. Baseball has a list of men banned for life, including Pete Rose and the “Eight Men Out” from the Black Sox scandal.
But when you boil it down, their sins pale in comparison to what Williams and the Saints did.
During the 2010 playoffs, Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner had just thrown an interception. As he was running to tackle the defender, he was laid out with a brutal blindside hit. It ultimately led to the concussion that forced him to retire.
At the time, some thought the hit looked dirty. Now it looks worse — since Warner was playing the Saints that day.
Over the last decade, the sports world has spent a lot of time facing the effects of concussions. Dave Duerson, a former Bears defensive back, committed suicide as a result of lingering brain damage. Debilitating mental illness is a common outcome from years of head trauma.
This isn’t Spygate, the videotaping scandal that cost the New England Patriots a first-round pick in 2007. This doesn’t even have anything to do with football.
In the first year of law school, they teach you Hackbart v. Cincinnati Bengals, Inc. — a case where a player sued after his neck was broken by an excessive hit.
Dale Hackbart, a Broncos defensive back attempting a block, was intentionally struck on the back of the neck by a Bengals player’s forearm. Ultimately, the court ruled that such hits can be deemed intentional torts, as they have no place in the realm of an athletic contest.
And that hit occurred sans premeditation.
If the NFL truly cares about concussions and injuries as it claims, there’s no reason why Williams should ever be allowed back. And that goes for anyone else involved in his sick system, as well.
On the bright side, there are many different careers they can explore instead. For starters, the world is always looking for more neurologists and physical therapists.
Andrew Clark is a law student and the author of “Bracketeering: A Layman’s Guide to Picking the Madness in March.”