LAST week, we were all privy to the small sacrificial ceremony whereupon current Anaheim Mighty Duck Todd Bertuzzi threw his former head coach Marc Crawford under the figurative bus, in my opinion, in order to disperse some of the blame for the Steve Moore incident and subsequent law suit.
While I was surprised to see Bertuzzi implicate his coach as part of the psychotic mechanism that triggered him to break Steve Moore's neck in 2005, as someone who has spent a good portion of more than a decade around multiple coaching personalities, Todd's allegations of his coach prompting him to action came to me as no surprise.
For as long as I have been involved in professional sports coaches have routinely advised players of unbecoming physical actions towards their opponents, but whether we choose to employ these tactics and whether these suggestions are intended for serious bodily harm or not, is another matter altogether.
There are numerous ways any member of a coaching staff can suggest a player take illegal action on the field of play.
They can infer it, hint it, or come right out and announce it.
A defensive co-ordinator in Washington, D.C. once suggested to the entire defensive roster in our initial meeting in training camp that in his system we were going to get after the quarterback to no end.
To which he added, "and if that means we have to take a few fines for a few late or illegal hits so be it, I'll pick up the tab for the first couple."
The problem with the nature of such an advisement for some confused players like Bertuzzi is that they think this is a direct order to take people out of commission when in actuality, the message says something completely different to the rest of us.
A statement by a coach like that which was made to me in that instance tells me a number of things. First, that my defensive co-ordinator has got my back if while playing on the edge, I happen to get fined or punished for hitting a quarterback late or in an illegal manner.
It also impresses upon me the fact that rushing the quarterback is one serious mandate for this coach and I should never err on the side of caution when it comes to fulfilling my responsibilities in that regard.
But after hearing such a statement by my former defensive co-ordinator in the NFL, never did I ever think to myself, "Gee, I think that means he wants me to go out and break that quarterback's arm the first chance I get."
Practically every coach I have ever played for at some point in the season has advised one player or another to "kick somebody's ass" out on the football field.
But it is almost always not a literal suggestion and assumed that it shall be done within the rules of the game or at least within the grey areas.
In the course of a game or a season, coaches often get more bent out of shape than their players do about certain transgressions that occur, since they cannot stick up for their troops or do much about it from the sideline.
So I know if I see a borderline illegal block against one of my linemates that injures him and my coach is furious and wants us to "exact some revenge," he is not actively trying to turn us into killers on the field, but showing us how much he cares for our well-being while venting about the injustice of it all.
Any professional athlete that doesn't understand that he or she is completely accountable for everything they do on the field of play -- no matter what your coach may or may not have suggested to you, is either lying or trying to escape the consequences of their own poor decision making.
For there is nothing implicit in professional sports that makes you have to follow orders like you were some soldier in a war, and nor will there ever be.
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