2013 Regular Season Schedule

The 2013 Regular Season Schedule of the Washington Redskins, created by me.  Click to enlarge.

Ex-Giant Suing Redskins

For the past couple of years, one of main talks in NFL has been the whole bounty system that Gregg Williams was part of and how it impacted the NFL.  From that, there were a lot of suspensions and fines, and pretty much it had been dead.  Some of the players that were supposed targets spoke out, others dismissed it, fans reacted, and we were done with it.  Or so we thought...

Apparently one of the side effects of being a target of a bounty is a loss of memory, and it takes several years, almost 8, to regain your memory and do something about it.  That is the only reason I can think of that I am talking about this now.  An Ex-Giant, Barrett Green, who played for the Giants as a LB in 2004-2005, is bringing up the bounty scandal once again.  He is suing the Redskins, Gregg Williams, and Robert Royal for causing what turned out to be a career ending injury.

The story goes that Green had just returned from a knee injury, and Royal went after his knee with a cheap shot, which re-injured his knee.  He then was not able to return to the NFL as a regular season player, even though he was with the Texans for a short period in 2006.  He is claiming that the Redskins placed a bounty on him, and Royal, who was a TE, took a cheap shot that was so obvious that all the players reacted to it and were outraged by it.

Let me get this straight.  Royal, if I remember correctly, was a TE, which is an offensive position.  Gregg Williams, who was a defensive coach for the Redskins, supposedly had a bounty program in place for the DEFENSIVE players to take out the opposing OFFENSIVE players.  Although Green claims that Royal played defense at times, there were no reports or even rumors that offensive players were involved in these bounties.  What Green is saying, pretty much, is that he was such a high profile and great player, that with him being sidelined, the Redskins would easily be able to beat the Giants.  That he had to be one of the best LB's ever, for Gregg Williams to think him worthy enough to place a bounty on, and that Royal would risk being penalized and go for the bounty.

I am sorry, but that is a load of BS.  First off, any current and former player will tell you, if you know someone is coming back from an injury, the first thing people do is test the injury.  They want to make the returning player second guess his injury, and make him rethink coming back.  That is not a bounty thing, that is an NFL thing.

Second, if Green was such a high profile player, then why did the Lions, who drafted him in the second round, let him go after 3 years?  And as much as I try to remember, I don't recall ever hearing about him or his accomplishments, which there were none.  He only had 37 tackles the previous year with the Giants, with a total of 279 tackles for his 5 year career.  So no, he wasn't a high profile player.

Third, why wait until now, 8 years later?  Why not bring it up when the whole bounty scandal was going on, and people were talking about these things?  When people were passionate about it and would take the time to listen and perhaps even believe his story?

To me, it sounds like either he is looking to make some money, or a lawyer is trying to make a name for himself and found Green and talked him into filing the lawsuit.  I sure hope it gets thrown out with the rest of the garbage, because that is all it is.  I think the whole bounty scandal is garbage and nonsense to begin with, so you can imagine what I think of this and stories like it.