http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...ote-last-year-about-dotting-opposing-players/ On March 2, the NFL told the world that the Saints had been using a bounty system for three straight seasons, offering players money for “cart-offs” and “knockouts.” On March 3, Jets coach Rex Ryan issued a statement claiming he has never used them. “This is something that is being handled by the NFL office,” Ryan said. “I’ve never condoned it and I’ve never coached it.” But while Ryan may not have condoned or coached the habit of offering money to players for knocking opposing players out of games (whether they leave on their own power or via a stretcher or a golf cart), Ryan has condoned — and coached — the habit of knocking opposing players out of games. We know this because Ryan said so in his 2011 book, Play Like You Mean It. From pages 16-17 of the chapter called Blunt-Force Trauma: “Each game we might also designate an opposing player with a dot. Players don’t want to be dotted by the New York Jets, because that means we want that dude knocked out of the game. Of course, it has to be legal and by the book. We don’t play dirty, and no way will we intentionally hurt a player with an illegal, cheap shot. We dot players fair and square. There are players out there who think they are badasses, and you just might see two of our players knock the hell out of him. Pow! Pow! That’s our mentality. Everything we do is aggressive and, hey, we may make a mistake, but we will go one hundred miles per hour and we will knock the hell out of you. Big hits create turnovers. You haven’t been Punked — you’ve been Dotted!” Last year, when I read Ryan’s book, I applied a Post-It note to that paragraph, but it didn’t strike me as anything scandalous or improper or worth mentioning in a separate post. In the wake of the Saints’ bounty investigation, the mentality exhibited by Ryan doesn’t seem all that different than the mentality underpinning the pool of cash that went to players for making big plays — whether interceptions or fumble recoveries or knocking “that dude” out of the game. The only difference between what the Saints did and what Ryan does is that the Saints violated the salary cap by paying players for doing things they already were being paid to do. The Saints didn’t want to injure players, notwithstanding the cartoonishly graphic urgings of former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. They simply wanted to knock players out of games. Just like Rex Ryan. But since an attempt to knock a player out of a game necessarily may inflict injury on the player, the NFL felt compelled to take severe and swift action. So why has the punishment been confined only to the Saints? The goal here isn’t to get the Jets in trouble. The goal is to illustrate that the rabbit hole goes far deeper than the NFL cares to admit. Instead, the league wants to pour cement in it, hammer the Saints in order to get everyone else’s attention, and move on. Here’s hoping that the effort includes telling Rex Ryan that it’s no longer acceptable to “dot” opposing players. I have always hated Florio. He always writes with arrogance, an agenda, failed attempts at humor, and an undeserved sense of moral superiority. He's clearly trying to stir the pot here. The most telling aspect of the story is found in the comments section, where Patriots fans say that nothing that Rex said is wrong.
Obviously Florio didn't see the Gregg Williams clip on youtube. [YOUTUBE]H3V149Nyjag[/YOUTUBE] Williams instructed the players to GO AFTER THE INJURIES. He instructed his players to GO HIT THE FUCKING HEAD PLAYS AFTER PLAYS. And take a receiver out on his knee. And take Vernon Davis out by hitting on his ankle. If he doesn't see any difference between these, and big hits, fair and square notwithstanding, then he is a moron. Oh wait. He is a moron. Never mind.
Good thing he wrote about this, and not the Giants players intentionally trying to injure that 49ers players this season. Fucking sleezeball
Florio is a gigantic douchebag who has a habit of making stories out of absolutely nothing just to promote his website.
He is the worst excuse for a sportswriter ever.. always pushing sensational stories Putting in there that he put a "post it" next to the quote in Rex's book is probably a load of bullshit to make it seem like he saw all this bounty stuff coming.
theres nothing wrong with knocking the shit out of the other team. if a guy on this defense isnt trying to break the other guys neck, hes a pussy and i dont want him
Every team puts bounties on players, and up until Spygate, filmed other teams' signals. Neither incident was news to me. Every team does/did it, just the Pats and Saints got caught.
Rex Ryan DOES say similar things, but always from a standpoint of legal hits. It is one thing to say to go after a player legally and a completely different thing to target injuries and then compensate for it,
Only thing that worried me about Williams' speech was him talking about tearing someone's ACL. Only reason for that is I've torn my ACL 3 times and would NEVER wish that horrible pain upon someone else. Other than that, seemed fine to me.
This sums it up. He pushes anything regarding the Jets to get hits on his site. He's a piece of garbage hack with a bad hairpiece.
That is absolute bullshit. There is an enormous difference between wanting to knock a guy out of the game with a great hit (that is legal) vs. advocating and paying players to injure and take out specific body parts of players. Unbelievable.
Florio is Florio. He knows where his bread is buttered. "I'm not trying to get the Jets in trouble" blah blah blah. As if he doesn't know that an investigation into the Jets would produce a lot of traffic for his site.