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Odell Beckham Jr. Says Gregg Williams Told His Players To Hurt Beckham In A Preseason Game

Tom Ley
Today 5:12pm

The Browns are getting ready to play the Jets on Monday night, which means that they will be facing off against their former defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams. Even though Browns receiver Odell Beckham Jr. didn’t overlap with Williams in Cleveland, he has his own history with the Jets’ new defensive coordinator, and it is not a pleasant one.

While talking to reporters today, Beckham said that back in 2017, when his Giants took on the Browns in a preseason game, Williams ordered his players to try to hurt Beckham, and those orders resulted in Beckham leaving the game with a high ankle sprain:

Beckham said he got this scoop from players who were on the Browns in 2017, and that the high ankle sprain he suffered led to a cascade of injuries that “changed [his] life forever.” Here’s video of the hit in question:

Given that Williams was one of the lead architects of the Saints’ bounty program, and that he has never conducted himself in any way that would indicate he isn’t the type of nutjob who would ask his players to injure an opponent in the preseason, it’s pretty easy to believe Beckham’s side of the story. What’s harder to believe is that an absolute maniac like Williams keeps landing NFL gigs.

IMO he definitely will have his guys motivated and will have a good plan against Baker. It’s not ideal.

BUT, the good news is their offense should be a bit down now too

I wish I could find more about how Vrabel had his guys tweaking and taunting our guys into committing stupid penalties. GW will probably be all over that. And I've learned to never underestimate a backup when he's playing the Browns.

Good point Cal ... you know GreGG will be all over our guys with the head games.

In terms of backups ... umm, yeah our history has made many look good

Hard to get bit when you are twenty yards away.

Considering how we played Sunday and all the subplot stories with this team not to mention the points brought up about facing Gregg Williams I wouldn't be at all surprised if we lose. I really want to be wrong.

Gregg Williams is going to be Gregg Williams... he's gonna blitz his behind off, and hope to create turnovers by doing so.

His gameplan doesn't make me nervous. The teams self inflicted wounds make me more nervous than anything.

j/c

I had seen a still photo earlier this year (maybe preseason) where he had the safety legit 30 yards deep

It's interesting to note how ominous opposing coaches/players can seem to be, but when they're on YOUR sideline they turn into blundering idiots.

Fans.

Haha no doubt ... I mean, Williams got blitz happy and had antiquated defenses while he was here ... and now we see the other side of the narrative from the media

j/c:

I never liked Gregg Williams because of Bounty Gate and him having such a big mouth.

With that said, I think our fans were too harsh w/him. The guy knows football and is a good DC, no matter how much our fans try to poke fun at him. He always gets a job. His first year, the D improved a lot despite having very little talent.

I also admired how he instilled some discipline when he took over. A lot of the dumb penalties this team had under Hue's direction disappeared. The team played fundamentally sound and w/focus and discipline. Much unlike our first game w/Freddie.

I respected him for not getting caught up in Haley's BS. He never even looked at Haley when Haley gave that famous look towards him when Hue was talking about sitting guys during camp. He also never threw any of the other coaches under the bus after they were fired, much unlike Freddie.

Thus, my opinion of him has changed over the course of his time in Cleveland and this year.

Well we saw folks expose that and kill us with it. We ought to roll and dial up screens and run Chubb relentlessly. The idea of Chubby a center screen just seems juicy to me.

Knowing how emotional some of our players are, and after having 6 personal fouls last week, he will have his defense being chippy and trying to get our guys to react emotionally. OBJ is already carrying a grudge and Williams sees that in the media. Do you think Williams is the type of guy to back down when OBJ calls him out or do you think he will have his guys coming that much harder at Odell?

Umm, I’d venture to guess that OBJ will be taken out of the game (mostly) with their coverage/schemes. Williams ego will not let OBJ beat them

It was this alignment that drew people to the conclusion that Jabrill Peppers was a bad player in his rookie year.

Oh, memories.

Disagree. It was Peppers poor angles, blown coverages, missed tackles in space, and poor coverage that caused some to question exactly how good he was and that he was not worth such a high investment. Only a few--like Rasta--who said he was a bad football player.

Gregg Williams was a little cranky today.

Jc

I preferred Gregg over Freddie. But whatever, its water under the bridge by now.

I feel like our coaches probably know what he will try to do, so they can plan against it. That goes both ways.

But, no, I'm not worrying about him biting us. Gase's beady eye lasers are more scary.

Yeah, pressure sucks. Blitzing sure sucked last year when we beat Denver ON A BLITZ to end the game. Williams was a good coach for us. He did his best with what was given to him. He won more games as our head coach in half a season than Hue did his entire time here. For his effort, we ran him out of town. You BET he will have his D fired up to play. Let'see if Freddie can actually get this offense to do something to counter that... So far, I am unimpressed.

Pressure is great sometimes and not great other times. I mean, we lost at NO and OAK when we blitzed too

I liked Williams, but his defense could not stop the run and TEs ate them alive. I see this being the Chubb and Chief game.

YES.

I think personnel has a lot to do with whether or not your team can execute your game plan. We brought in two key FA's to shore up that front 7.

There's a reason for that.

On the flip side, it was up to Williams to know if he had the personnel to run his scheme or not and to make adjustments accordingly.

NO.

I never liked Gregg Williams because of Bounty Gate, and my opinion on him hasn't really changed.


He did a decent job as Head Coach, but that's not the type of guy i want as the face of our franchise. I prefer Freddie.


Some people can move on, I couldn't. That audio of him before the SF 49ers game solidified my opinion on him forever. A leopard doesn't change their spots. Guy's a scumbag, no matter what kind of coaching job he did here.

His defenses intended (and did) end Kurt Warner's career. And they attempted to do the same to Brett Favre. I remember thinking that they were gonna kill those guys.



So, yeah, my opinion on Gregg never changed. He ran a 4 man front defense and was an adequate D-Coordinator (the pluses). I really don't like him as a person (the negative). The negative outweighed the positive.



But, i remember the BBC play. And that was the fault of the times. I believe the targeting rule had just come into effect, and all the corners were planning on going low to avoid penalty. That's all BBC did. By the beginning of the season, the targeting rule's enforcement was scaled back. Although, Gregg preaches for his corners to go-low so that they don't get injured (like Denzel) i reckon

He will have them ramped up emotionally. Not convinced he has the horses to take into this war, but we are very able to cut our own throats. Put it to them and do not let them hang around. This would be a vile loss with a Williams 'insult to injury factor' prominent in the loss.

Chubb to go, please!

It’s a good game to design some good screens, counters, etc .. you know Greggy will want to make it aggressive

I agree. And pound him with basic brutality and make the Defense perform and adjust. We haven't been good enough for smash mouth, but we ought have somebody reminding Freddie to run it, ram it up their tubes. And make BM more mobile, not just counting on him to be elusive after he holds it too long. We better be a danged sight more playworthy this week.

Cleveland Browns: Can they avoid being sucked into New York drama?
Today 6:54 AM

By Terry Pluto, The Plain Dealer

TALKING ABOUT THE GAME

Just STOP!

That’s what the Browns need to do as they prepare to face the New York Jets on Monday night.

Odell Beckham’s watch...

Adam Gase vs. Jarvis Landry...

Most of the Browns vs. Gregg Williams...

Gregg Williams vs. Odell Beckham...

Perhaps the Browns will turn all the noise into action on the field before a national audience.

But it can’t the same “dumb” penalties (Myles Garrett used that word) the Browns put on display in Sunday’s 43-13 loss to the Tennessee Titans.

The Browns have shown players video clips of some of the worst penalties, such as Garrett throwing a punch and Greg Robinson kicking an opponent. But they also have shown what happened before the personal fouls.

They want the players to ask, “How did I get provoked into losing my poise?”

Then they warned them to expect more of the same from the Jets.

THE GREGG WILLIAMS STYLE

I didn’t think Williams should have been named the Browns permanent head coach, but I had tremendous respect for how he brought order to a chaotic franchise at mid-season.

The Browns were 2-5-1 when Williams became interim head coach and Freddie Kitchens was promoted to offensive coordinator. Williams allowed Kitchens to run the offense. He concentrated on infusing discipline and accountability.

As one NFL source told me, “Gregg didn’t do anything that special, just normal coaching. But it looked great after the mess he inherited.”

Another NFL source characterized the Browns as “romper room” in the final weeks of the Hue Jackson/Todd Haley regime when those coaches were verbally dueling with each other.

Williams is egotistical. One of the reasons players such as Damarious Randall can’t stand Williams is because the coach sometimes attacks his players personally with biting, profanity-fueled criticism.

That style can work in the short term, but tends to wear out. It’s part of the reason his average stay with most teams is 2-3 years. The personality of Williams is part of the reason he didn’t interview with any other teams for a head coaching job despite his 5-3 record with the Browns.

But teams looking for a quick fix to their defense are attracted to the 61-year-old Williams, who was hired by Jets coach Adam Gase after not being named the Browns head coach.

I could be wrong, but I doubt Williams ordered the Browns to injure Beckham in a 2017 preseason game. Beckham claims he did. In that game, he was injured on a low tackle by Briean Boddy-Calhoun.

Jason Lloyd of The Athletic reached Calhoun, who denied being told to injure Beckham by Williams. It doesn’t make sense to do that in a preseason game.

But Williams had a strange denial when talking to the New York media.

"We don’t do that,” Williams said. “Never done it anywhere I’ve been. We don’t do anything to hurt the team.”

But Williams was suspended for a year in the New Orleans Saints “Bountygate” scandal where players were paid for knocking opponents out of the game. Williams admitted it to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Saying "we’ve never done it anywhere I’ve been” is not true, period.

IMPACTING THE BROWNS

Having been around Williams for his two Cleveland seasons, I bet he’s enjoying all the controversy heading into the game. He knows the Jets were an underdog even before starting QB Sam Darnold came down with mono.

It will be even harder for the Jets to beat the Browns now, assuming the Browns keep their poise and play the game.

Just like Browns fans, Williams knows the Browns embarrassed themselves last weekend with 18 penalties. He knows they have some volcanic personalities such as Beckham.

And he knows if he can have a game where fingers are pointing, insults are ugly and a few fists are flying – that will benefit the Jets.

The Browns can’t fall into that trap.

GASE AND THE BROWNS

I have no doubt Gase threatened to trade some of his players to Cleveland unless they shaped up. Browns receiver Jarvis Landry said Gase told him and others that when they were together in Miami.

At least twice, Gase was contacted about coaching the Browns earlier this decade. Both times, he turned down formal interviews.

He viewed the Browns as a place where careers go to die, and that was a common opinion across the NFL. It had nothing to do with Cleveland, but everything to do with the people running the franchise.

That’s why this season is important. It’s time for Cleveland to cease being the Devil’s Island of the NFL.

General manager John Dorsey has upgraded the talent. He has brought stability to the front office. The 7-8-1 record was a major sign of progress.

But the Browns must show the maturity of a team intending to make the playoffs.

ABOUT ODELL BECKHAM

Odell Beckham wore a watch during a game. Odell Beckham ripped Gregg Williams. With Odell Beckham, it’s always going to be something to draw attention to himself – while insisting he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself.

He can be exhausting, which is a big reason the Giants traded him to the Browns.

What Browns fans want to see is Beckham playing like a Pro Bowl receiver.

Offensive coordinator Todd Monken said he didn’t see much of a timing problem between the receiver and Baker Mayfield. I thought there were times when Mayfield seemed to be fixated on Beckham. Someone who studied the tape of that game several times said I was wrong.

Beckham caught seven passes for 71 yards, three were for first downs. His longest catch was for 24 yards. He was OK.

The receiver off to the best start in the game was Rashard Higgins, who had two catches for 35 and 11 yards on the opening drive last week. Then he suffered an ankle injury.

Monken on Higgins: “The No. 1 thing is you can count on him. You can move him around, play him inside and outside.”

Higgins is a favorite target of Mayfield when the QB needs a first down. He has been limited in practice heading into the game.

Link

Players always hate the strict disciplined coaches IMHO. They get behind the soft coaches.

Yep, I agree.
You must be old school.

That’s true ... usually the hard coaches are only liked after the fact

Ehhh.............times change, but I'm not sure folks change all that much.

As a player, the coaches that got the most out of me were hard-asses. They either motivated me or I wanted to prove them wrong. The softer coaches sucked in my mind. They pretend to be your friend and then screw you over in a minute.

As a coach, I was hard on my players, but I always tried to make sure they knew I cared about them as a person. I used to have a saying....that I stole from one of my college coaches........"when I stop getting on your case, you better be scared, because the reason is I have given up on you." That motivated me and while I can't use two hands to count the number of players I gave up on in my coaching career, I am very confident that almost all of my players got my message. It's a tough game for tough people. It's not an arts and crafts class.

We shared the same quote and experience, Vers.
Often told my players like I was told that a coach stops yelling at you when he has given up on you. I would also add one from my dad that I applied in my teaching and coaching because I found a similar truth in its proof many times: "There are only two kinds of motivation for all the people you will deal with. The first is a part on the back; the second is a swift kick in the butt. We all respond to one or the other. The trick is to learn sound judgment about who needs which in every situation."
It would be hard to know which one some of our sideshow egos need, but it is worth working for the huge payoff. Don't stop caring just yet.