Infamous Bountygate instigator Gregg Williams is once again being accused of behaving badly.
The current St. Louis Rams defensive coordinator and long-time NFL coach has been accused by former Buffalo Bills quarterback Rob Johnson of placing spies in opposing team’s training camps.
When Johnson played for the Bills in 2001, Williams was his head coach. Prior to that, Johnson had faced Williams when he was the defensive coordinator in Tennessee. Johnson is now claiming that while Williams was with Tennessee he sent someone to spy on the Bills during training camp. This is something that Johnson says Williams confessed to him once Williams started coaching for Buffalo.
Johnson says that the Titans defense, while under Williams, hurt him badly with numerous blitzes that were made possible because they had knowledge of the Bills’ offensive play calls.
This is what Johnson had to say about the spy situation involving Williams:
“Sometimes in training camp, you’ll have a high school coach or someone help out,” Johnson told the Buffalo News. “And Gregg Williams told me he had a coach in our training camp who knew all of our plays and all of our blocking schemes. We beat ‘em — karma — but he had someone in our training camp get all of our plays. It’s crazy. I’ve never heard of anything like that. I was sore for like three weeks after that game. I hope it doesn’t get him in trouble. He can just deny it and say I made it up. I was pissed. I said, ‘Gregg, that sucks.’ They knocked me out.”
Prior to Johnson’s report, there had been other accusations that Williams had stolen teams’ playbooks. Not surprisingly, Williams claimed these rumors were not true.
Former Tennessee Titans safety Blaine Bishop, who played when Williams was with the Titans, can’t vouch for Johnson’s allegations. That said, he wouldn’t be surprised if they were true.
“If he got some information on what Buffalo would be running, I don’t know if he told the players. He might’ve told the coaches. But I wouldn’t be shocked if he had someone do that with all the Bountygate and that craziness,” Bishop said.
Considering Williams took a huge part of the blame in Bountygate when he was the defensive coordinator for the New Orleans Saints, this allegation by Johnson is quite serious.
It could trigger an NFL investigation to look further into the matter as to whether or not Williams actually was stealing playbooks and sending spies into opposing teams’ training camps.
On a side note, we are all exhausted with “Deflategate” and Commissioner Roger Goodell needs a new task to work on aside from being obsessed with making Tom Brady pay. Perhaps this is the diversion he needs to finally move on.