Gregg Williams brings infamy, but also swagger, to Jets
He carries his despicable crimes against NFL humanity with him now to Florham Park, and even seven years after Bountygate, you find yourself asking:
Is Gregg Williams worth the trouble?
Adam Gase and the Jets believe he is, because Williams will be their new defensive coordinator.
But do we need to hide the women and children?
Well no, the guy isn’t a serial killer.
There will be some, of course, who will cling to the notion that Williams is a pariah and a Neanderthal who doesn’t belong anywhere near an NFL sideline.
There will be some who cannot and will not forgive him for his unsaintly orders to decapitate and maim opponents while he toiled under Sean Payton, and who probably think Roger Goodell never should have let him back in the league following his indefinite suspension.
Except the commissioner did.
Think about that: In a landscape where avoiding more concussion lawsuits and enhancing player safety is now a league mission statement, Williams was invited back to this kinder, gentler NFL.
First the Titans hired him. Then the Rams hired him. Then the Browns hired him. No Mutiny on any of those Bounties.
He did the time for the crime. As did Payton, who was suspended for a year and is now 60 minutes from a second Super Bowl.
Williams will ruffle feathers. He is a Buddy Ryan disciple. He will make Rex Ryan seem like Casper Milquetoast. He is a renegade long on game-day bellicosity and braggadocio who wants his defense feared.
Jamal Adams wanted dawgs as teammates? He now gets a dawg as his defensive coordinator.
“A horse trainer told me, ‘You got to break them before you bridle them’ and you have to do that to some players,” Williams told New Orleans Magazine once. “And I’ve broken a few. Some are self-promoting and I’ve got to bring them back to ground zero. It’s their one chance to make it. The NFL is tough and demanding.”
He is as tough and demanding as it gets, and the Jets need tough and demanding on the underachieving defensive side of the ball. He will bring attitude and swagger. The air will be filled with F-bombs.
He has a charismatic and unorthodox way of getting players — most of them — to run through a wall for him. During Williams’ 5-3 run as interim Browns head coach, this was Baker Mayfield when asked last month what he liked about him:
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“Everything. What you see is what you get. No smoke and mirrors. It’s out on the line, very open.”
Statistically, Williams’ recent defenses have had more bark than bite. But no one doubts his acumen. Jay Gruden’s Redskins wanted him, too. Former Jets coach Herm Edwards wanted to hire him once.
“He always puts players in position to fit their skill set,” Edwards told the New York Times in 2012. “He runs a wide-open defense, and players like attacking. That’s what you like about the guy. He’ll gamble at times, but players like that and he had a good rapport with them.”
A leopard can’t change his spots. And Williams probably can’t. But he knows full well that Goodell’s zero-tolerance policy for him remains in place.
“It was a terrible mistake, and we knew it was wrong while we were doing it,” Williams said seven years ago. “Instead of getting caught up in it, I should have stopped it. I take full responsibility for my role. I am truly sorry. I have learned a hard lesson and I guarantee that I will never participate in or allow this kind of activity to happen again.”
Guilty — with an explanation, your honor. Because three years later, this was Williams on KMOX Radio in St. Louis:
“One of the things was, it was on my watch, but there was nothing that hasn’t been done in the last 50 years in the sport and there was nothing done to try to hurt somebody. There was never done with anybody trying to injure somebody. I’ve said this before, I take a look at all these high school programs, Little League programs, college programs, and you see the decals on the side of the helmet and you wonder, you get those decals because you shake hands and kiss after the game or you get those decals because you rushed for 100 and you threw 17 touchdown passes and you knocked the stuffing out of somebody? … It’s just one of those things that we’re always trying to find little bitty advantages in sport and it was unfairly and uncharacteristically portrayed the wrong way.”
Did he suddenly forget that it was all on documentary filmmaker Sean Pamphilon’s audio?
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“Kill the head and the body will die,” Williams said on the recording. “We’ve got to do everything in the world to make sure we kill Frank Gore’s head. We want him running sideways. We want his head sideways.
“We need to find out in the first two series of the game … that little wide receiver, No. 10 [Kyle Williams], about his concussion. We need to [expletive] put a lick on him right now.
“[Receiver Michael Crabtree] becomes human when we take out that outside ACL.’’
Before Super Bowl XLIV, Williams said on radio that the Saints wanted to rattle Peyton Manning by delivering “remember me” shots.
Should be a fun reunion when Gase invites his pal Peyton to training camp, no?
The outlaw has joined the family of nations.
I’ll bet he is worth the trouble.
