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Christensen: Where to Draw the Line

By Todd Christensen, The Mtn. Insider
March 5, 2012

The recent revelation regarding former New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams, and the bounties he had on other players is not altogether shocking.  During my playing days before I was a starter, such financial rewards were given for special teams play: Tackles inside the 20, fumble recoveries, stripping the ball, a key block on a long return, a blocked kick, etc.  But there was never anything about hurting anyone.  Of course, I was on the offensive side of the football.  Rumors of such action swirled from team-to-team but it was all quite tacit, until now.

The question this brings up yet again is that with the nature of collision sports, to what degree do we allow "necessary violence?”  Sports like football, hockey, boxing, car racing, MMA and others make no pretense that they do not sell violence - all you have to do is look at the respective video games.  Professional football has made repeated attempts to quell unnecessary violence, but in doing so they have sanitized the game to the point that it resembles arena or flag football.  Hockey has the bizarre contradiction of penalizing players that check above the shoulders in the heat of the game but can drop the gloves at any time and slug each other in the face without repercussions.  In car racing, there is a continued trend for restrictor plates that slow down the cars, a practice that seems to irritate and alienate drivers continually.  Is anybody else besides me a little confused when watching the NBA when a player gets clotheslined and nailed flat on his back on the floor but because the player was supposedly going for the ball “it was a good, clean, hard foul"?

This is brought up because while what Williams and his cohorts did was wrong, it is difficult to sometimes discern what constitutes illegality versus gamesmanship.  I have no doubt that what Williams was trying to get to was knocking the player out for a game, not necessarily maiming someone.  But the paper trail caught up to him and the idea that 24-year-olds stoked with testosterone know the difference when a coach said, “Hurt him, but only this much," is a reach.  He needs to be made an example of and the idea of hurting someone however slight has to be eradicated from the thinking of players in any sport.

That said, it is imperative that players and management in all sports work together to agree upon what constitutes an understood risk as opposed to dirty play. 
See all of Todd Christensen's blog entries HERE.