Gregg Williams is indefinitely suspended and may never coach in the NFL again. If his coaching career is over, many of his former Saints players say, it will be the NFL’s loss.
Although Williams has been cast as the primary villain in the Saints’ bounty scandal, Jeff Duncan of the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that in the Saints’ locker room, Williams is still a popular, well respected man.
“People are going to say I’m wrong for saying this, but he’s good for this league,” linebacker Scott Shanle said. “My concern is the NFL will be missing out on a fantastic coach if they keep him out of this league.”
Shanle also said that he doesn’t believe Williams’s conduct was outside the norm for an NFL coach.
“This is going to sound like an excuse, and people don’t want to hear an excuse — that type of language is not just Gregg Williams,” Shanle said. “It goes on in a lot of locker rooms around the league. No one took him literally. It was a way to get you to play fast, violent, nasty and together. Not every coach coaches like that, and they’ve had success. But for Gregg Williams, and his personality and what he brings to the table, it fit the identity of his defenses. I’m really hoping this isn’t held against him wherever he is.”