THOU SHALL NOT HIT CERTAIN AREAS OF MY BODY!

THOU SHALL NOT HIT CERTAIN AREAS OF MY BODY! (Frazer Chronicle)



Man, with all the talk going around today about A.C.L. hitting, "getting whacked on the outside of the knee," head hunting, or "knocking the snot out of goofy," "I just made the goofy one up," you'd wonder if these people were talking about a game, or going to war.



I of course have heard the phrase(s) "kill the bums," or "knock the bums out of the game," but I always thought those terms were just a figure of speech, a rallying cry to voice your support for the home team. I never really thought that the words meant anything more than that.



Now come to find out, we got this crazy guy, Gregg Williams running around the New Orleans Saints locker room setting up bounty payment scales for payments to players when a hit causes an opponent to be carted off the field. Wow, that is what I call hard core, or maybe a sick puppy, or a twisted individual with some survive emotional and mental problems that might need to be under the care of a doctor and a boat load of narcotics to settle the guy down.



This latest "brew ha ha" is absolutely nothing new, unless you figure that coach Gregg Williams was the very first to set up bounty payments for hits on opponents in the National Football League. Oh sure, today, there is more realization what individual players might mean to the overall stature of the N.F.L. you know, like those players that people actually pay for to see play.



But "hurt" in the N.F.L. has been going on for a long time, let's face it, some of these huge men are capable of breaking a guy in two pieces. And the mentality of some of these men, warped by years of illicit growth, and attitude enhancing drugs, come on "give me a break," wait, no I didn't mean that.



Like the man said, "my walk is not a swagger, it's an attitude," some of these big boys that make up N.F.L. rosters do have an attitude. Many are under the care of a coach, an assistant coach, a trainer, a personality coach and a keeper. If it weren’t for football, some of these guys would be dead or in jail for unspeakable crimes.



It's what makes up the "meat" of the National Football League rosters, these 6'-5" 300 pound men-child(s) capable of snapping a spinal column at any given second. Many of these guys are kept under control by assistant coaches; they aren't mentored by them.....but kept at "arm's length" and out of trouble.



I come from an area, Traverse City, Michigan where football is God, where Friday or Saturday nights in the fall-time of the year is not a season of turning leaves, and readying one's self for the winter, but for high school football.



Since 1975, Traverse City has produced 9 state football champions, 3 at the public school, 6 at the parochial school and 3 runner ups. These amazing won-lost records from a city that cites its population of around 15,000, bearing witness that in the fall, football is spoken there.



What does the Traverse City Trojans or the St. Francis Gladiators have to do with the New Orleans Saints or defensive coordinator Gregg Williams or head coach Sean Payton.....well, for one, they expect better from those people that they look up to. No cheating, no dirty play and for damn sure, no twisting the head off a running back or a wide receiver.



Good clean football, with hard tough tackling or blocking, but not with the idea that the play will cause injury or worse when after the play, players help one another up, and glad hand one another after the game.



There is no hate in football, just achiving goals through a "team concept," with the ultimate goal of winning for.....your team.



Winning isn't the only thing to be learned from the game of football, comradeship, fair sportsmanship, the joy of winning, with grace and also how to deal with losing.....with grace. Football sure as hell will teach you about how far you can go.....that extra mile to achieve.



Now that we have all that Pop Warner and high school crap done, we can get down to the real issues of why some people are so upset with Greg Williams and Sean Payton. They let the proverbial "cat out of the bag," unless you think that Mike Ditka, or Bill Parcels, or John Gruden, or a slew of other N.F.L. coaches haven't done the same thing with their approach to football.



Sunday N.F.L. football is the "show," it's about winning at any and all costs, it's about ratings, television "face" and the playoffs and the Super Bowl. Some guys will tear their arms off, or better yet, an opponents, to get to their goal.



Nobody should be surprised when he hears about a stupid coach saying things like Williams did, the surprise is that he got caught. The surprise is that he had to say anything to any of his players, remember Ndamuking Suh and his stomping of a Green Bay Packer player last season. Or was that a young man just losing control.


Sundays across America are like the Romans throwing Greeks to the lions in the Coliseum and waiting for the crowd cheering for their "champion" to slay whatever the enemy for the day is, shame on us all for expecting better from our fellow humans.