Bounties in the Big Easy, Part III

“Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.” –Michael Corleone, The Godfather: Part III

I’m trying hard not to blog any more about the scandal of the New Orleans Saints and the cash bonuses their defensive players received for taking out opposing players. I’ve posted about these bounties in the Big Easy twice already in the last few weeks, and I had no intention to write about it any further. Really, I didn’t. But then another golden opportunity to make another point about accepting responsibility appeared in the daily news. I got pulled back in, just like the unhappy crime boss in part three of the Godfather trilogy who mistakenly thought he’d managed to extract himself from his family’s dirty business.

The match that lit my fuse was a recording that recently surfaced, a recording of defensive coordinator Gregg Williams giving a “pep talk” to the New Orleans Saints defensive unit before their big playoff game with the San Francisco 49ers. Here are some lowlights:

“We’ve got to do everything in the world to make sure we kill [49er running back] Frank Gore’s head. We want him running sideways. We want his head sideways.”
“Kill the head and the body will die.” So, he had some instructions about what to do to 49er QB Alex Smith once they’d tackled him: “Every single one of you, before you get off the pile, affect the head. Early, affect the head. Continue, touch and hit the head.”
About a 49er receiver who had a concussions: “We need to find out in the first two series of the game, that little wide receiver, No. 10, about his concussion. We need to f****** put a lick on him right now.”
And Williams was so unashamed of all this that he said it while he knew he was being recorded by someone making a documentary film.

Accepting responsibility lessons abound. I could talk about blame-the-messenger cornerback Malcolm Jenkins who, instead of confessing shame, said it was the filmmaker who released the recording who should be ashamed of himself. He’s a coward, according to Jenkins. I could talk about the-buck-doesn’t-stop-here Head Coach Sean Payton who, after saying that as the boss he took “full responsibility” for the bounties, appealed his one-year suspension yesterday claiming that before the 49er game he told Williams to stop the bounties. Harry Truman he ain’t. No, what popped my accepting-responsibility cork was how Gregg Williams started his locker-room harangue: “You don’t f***** apologize for how we’re going to play.” And how he ended it: “Another thing we always say in this room is never apologize for the way we compete. If you’re in this room, you understand that. We don’t apologize.”

Please, please let’s stop this right here. A refusal to apologize may be a sign of misguided machismo, but it is no sign of manly courage. A real man does not attack the person who discloses the poor choices he’s made. A real man does not find someone–anyone!–on whom to shift the blame when he’s caught doing something his mother taught him never to do. A real man does not claim “it was all a big misunderstanding”. He doesn’t say “I was just following orders.” A real man does not offer up some lame excuse.

A real man will “man up”. It takes courage to say “I was wrong.” It takes guts to step up, look your victim in the eye and say “I’m sorry.” What does not take even an ounce of manly courage is to stand in front of a room full of young men barely out of their teens–men to whom you have a responsibility of leadership–and tell them to try to hurt other young men whose ability to support a wife and kids depends on their continued ability to play football.

We don’t apologize? Three short months after Gregg Williams proclaimed the no-apology rule, his bounty system was revealed, and he found himself suspended from pro football. If there’s any justice in the NFL, he’ll never be allowed to lead young men as a coach again. And Gregg Williams is now breaking his own rule. He’s apologizing.

ESPN report of Williams pep talk: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/7778005/gregg-williams-told-new-orleans-saints-hurt-san-francisco-49ers-speech

Transcript of the 4-minute released portion of Williams’ locker-room talk: http://www.wwltv.com/home/Transcript-of-Gregg-Williams-speech-before-49ers-game-146274295.html

The first two parts of my Big Easy trilogy:

https://acceptingresponsibility.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/bounties-in-the-big-easy/

https://acceptingresponsibility.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/bounties-in-the-big-easy-part-ii/