On the day that members of the Saints' brass will have their appeals heard for their roles in New Orleans' bounty system, damning audio has been released of Gregg Williams, the man who orchestrated the program, instructing his players to injure San Francisco 49ers players in their wild-card playoff game last season.
Williams, the Saints' former defensive coordinator, did not appeal his indefinite suspension by the NFL. As first reported by Yahoo! Sports, documentary filmmaker Sean Pamphilon, who directed the ESPN 30 for 30 film "Run Ricky Run," has released an audio recording that he says is a speech Williams gave to Saints defensive players the night before the team lost to the 49ers in a playoff game in January.
The sample audio recording in just under 4 minutes long. The full speech is 12 minutes long, according to Pamphilon.
Pamphilon was following the Saints last season while working on a documentary featuring former Saints special teams player Steve Gleason, who is currently battling Lou Gehrig's disease.
Williams can be heard in the audio recording instructing his defensive players to injure quarterback Alex Smith, running back Frank Gore, tight end Vernon Davis and receivers Michael Crabtree and Kyle Williams.
According to Pamphilon, Gregg Williams pointed to his chin while telling his players to hit Niners quarterback Alex Smith "right there" and says "Remember me. I got the first one. I got the first one. Go get it. Go lay that m----------- out."
Williams uses one of his favorite slogans in the speech: "Kill the head and the body will die."
On Gore: "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."
On fullback Kendall Hunter: "Little 32, we're going to knock the f--- out of him."
On Smith: "Every single one of you, before you get off the pile, affect the head. Early, affect the head. Continue, touch and hit the head."
On Kyle Williams: "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. He needs to decide. He needs to f------ decide."
On Crabtree: "We need to decide whether Crabtree wants to be a fake-ass prima donna, or he wants to be a tough guy. We need to find out. He becomes human when we f------ take out that outside ACL."
There is tough talk to pump up your players especially on the defensive side of the ball but this talk is nuts. This is the first proof of him wanting to injure players and going WAY over the top. The talk of taking out Crabtree's ACL or constantly hitting Gore's head is just wrong. There is no excuse for this and it will be interesting to see if Willams ever gets work in the NFL again. Saints fans have come out in full support of the team recently but this audio has got to even make them feel that what Williams was promoting is just plain wrong and disgusting.
Shame on him.
2 comments:
Its really sad. I feel especially bad for Saints fans. Listening to the Audio, one would have to wonder if this guy has some mental issues that may extend beyond football. I wonder if any of the players listening to this in the locker room had an inclination of the wrongness of this. This should all but end his coaching career and good riddance to the biggest douche-bag coach ever.
On a lighter side, I wonder if the Bucs knew about this bounty system and decided to retaliate by placing their own bounty on Sean Payton when he was hit and broke his leg last season.
Even if the NFL were to reinstate Double G, I'm not sure any team would be willing to hire him.
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