Tennessee Titans DC Jerry Gray faces league action over defence strategy rhetoric – NFL News
Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator Jerry Gray might land himself in trouble with the National Football League (NFL) over his rhetorical advice to his players to go to any extent in their defensive efforts, which some analysts see could be misconstrued
to an urge to deliberately injure oppositions’ players.
Although the coordinator has admitted the bad choice of words in emphasising strong defensive efforts by his players, he denied that he meant to ask them to deliberately injure their opponents.
He said:
"This is football, but my choice of words under the circumstances was probably bad. I don't want guys thinking about injuring people, and when you say 'Gator truck' that's probably what comes up.''
His piece of the advice was:
"If you are worrying about that, you are not going to go out and try and blow the guy up. Great football players have to put that out of their mind. You have to say, 'This is my territory between the numbers, and if you throw the football you better bring
the Gator truck.' And that's how you have to play. You can't play timid in the NFL."
Some sections of media have quoted anonymous sources claiming that the league office has been looking into these remarks by Gray to see if it finds enough evidence to pursue a formal investigation, although the office has officially neither denied nor accepted
the validity of these reports.
The office nevertheless has been rather strict when it comes to enticing the players for going rough against opponents since emergence of the bounty scandal.
The bounty programme, unearthed by the league office through a secret investigation, was in implementation at the New Orleans Saints.
Some of officials and players had constituted a fund to reward players for hitting hard and injuring their oppositions’ players. A number of them have received punishment in form of fines and suspensions, while Gray’s remarks have brought the covert bounty
operation to the limelight once again.
Some commentators see there is a little evidence that Titans coach can land himself in trouble, especially when he has acknowledged his mistake and offered regrets, but they have certainly criticised him over the poor choice of language.
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