Titans And Oilers Players Confirm Payments For Some Big Plays

When Gregg Williams was defensive coordinator with the Oilers/Titans, he promoted an aggressive style of play and encouraged big hits on opponents according to Jim Wyatt of the Tennessean. The team had a player-organized performance incentives pool to reward big plays — everything from bone-jarring hits to touchdowns to downing punts inside the 10 — with extra money. Current and former Oilers and Titans, including some who played for Williams, said the practice is common in NFL locker rooms, they said their coaches were aware of the incentive pools and didn’t discourage them, but they didn’t organize bonus programs or hand out money for deliberately injuring an opponent. “That stuff has been going on since Buddy Ryan, and long before that,” said former Oilers linebacker Al Smith, who played for Ryan (Oilers defensive coordinator in 1993) and later for Williams. “Buddy used to put it simple: If you take the other team’s best player out, your chance of winning increases dramatically. “Gregg felt the same way, but that’s the theme across the league. It was never ‘Go blow this guy’s knee out and you’ll get paid.’ It was just football. It was a defensive mentality thing.” Players said Schwartz handed out baseball bats or boxing gloves for big hits, but Schulters said teammates raised the stakes with what some of them recalled “money games.” “Guys would throw out there, ‘Hey, knock this guy out and it’s worth $1,000,’ ” Schulters said. “Let’s say when we played the Steelers, and Hines Ward was always trying to knock guys out. So if you knocked (him) out, there might be something in the pot, $100 or whatever, for a big hit on Hines — a legal, big hit. “In some of our (defensive back meeting) rooms we had money up for big hits, stuff like that. But it wasn’t dirty, or anything crazy like ‘Take this guy’s knee out and you get $5,000.’ It was just a way of keeping it interesting.”

Source: The Redzone
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