Bucs coach Greg Schiano, fresh out of Rutgers, has made a name for himself just three games into his NFL coaching career. And not in a good way.
After his team blew a 14-point fourth-quarter lead against the Giants, Schiano had his team fire out on Eli Manning and the rest of the Giants offense when New York was kneeling down to kill the remaining seconds on the clock. Manning was knocked down and a scrum involving some pushing and maybe some punches ensued.
In the NFL, there is an unspoken agreement that teams take it easy in such situations in the interest of safety. Schiano said that his team will have a “play through the final whistle” mentality and won’t honor that agreement. (Some suggested that it would have been a better idea for Schiano to have his team play defense in the first 14 and a half minutes of the fourth quarter.)
His philosophy earned him a tongue lashing from Giants coach Tom Coughlin during the postgame handshake and scorn from many corners of the NFL world.
That did not deter Schiano, who used the same tactic when the Cowboys were killing the clock in Tampa Bays 16-10 loss to the Cowboys last week.
This week, it is the Redskins who are hoping to be in a position to take a knee in victory formation. They will be ready for it.
“That’s who he [Schiano] is so you can’t be upset with him when you know what somebody’s going to do,” said Lorenzo Alexander.
“I really don’t understand it,” said Stephen Bowen. “It’s usually just an honor system. The game’s over, there’s no point in really doing anything.”
Bowen and Alexander, of course, are not in a position where they will have to deal with a victory-formation play from an offensive standpoint. That task will fall primarily to the offensive line.
Will Montgomery was very matter of fact about the possibility of Schiano’s tactics.
“If that’s the way they do that, that’s fine and we’ll be ready for it,” said the center.
Guard Kory Lichtensteiger was a bit more expansive on the subject, suggesting that two can play the unexpected roughness game.
“We know there’s no brother in law treatment in victory formation from those guys,” he said. “We’ve just got to be ready to attack it like it’s a goal line play, not being the ones pushed back, take the tempo to them.
“It’s just a college mentality, I guess. Maybe he’ll learn to adjust later on. It’s kind of setting yourself up for bad things.”
It was then that Lichtensteiger suggested that the Redskins might bring on some of those “bad things”.
“That’s why they invented the cut block right? So they can expect that if they want to bring it.”
Comments