Ex-Eagle Says Bounties May Have Been Offered

The case of Buddy Ryan vs. The World is now in Week 2, with Ryan talking about his Wednesday interview with Warren Welsh, the NFL’s director of security. The topic: bounties, of course; whether Ryan offered any of his Eagles cash to put a hit on some Dallas Cowboys last week.

While Ryan said Dallas Coach Jimmy Johnson will look like “a clown” for raising the allegations, one of Ryan’s former players said the NFL ought to take the Cowboys’ claims seriously.

Packers tight end John Spagnola, who played two years for Ryan in Philadelphia before getting cut before the 1988 season, said: “In this particular instance ... you have an overzealous coach who does preach to his players to hurt and get people out of the game. Whether or not money was offered remains to be seen, through the findings of the investigation. Personally, I don’t see it as being out of the realm of possibility, since I played for him.

“It’s an ugly side of football, the way the game is taught in that particular city. The fact that it surfaced is probably good in that hopefully there won’t be that kind of stuff in the future. I think Ryan will be more careful. He’s the only coach I’ve ever heard of to preach that stuff.”

Fullback Michael Haddix, another former Eagle with the Packers, said: “When I was there we had incentives to make hits and plays. Especially the guys on special teams. At the time it wasn’t directed at any player. Nobody ever said, ‘We’ve got to get this guy out of the game.’ It was directed at getting your blocks or making a big play. Guys on special teams don’t get to play a lot sometimes, and the coaches try to give you incentives to go out and feel good about that limited involvement you have in the game.”

Spagnola, a 10-year veteran, said players who have taken this bounty business literally should bear some responsibility: “The other part is the player has to take responsibility and not take everything literally. Some players would hear it and understand that there’s a message implicit; others take it literally. The older players tend not to take it quite so literally.”

Spagnola and other NFL players expressed disappointment that Cowboys kicker Luis Zendejas would tell the league the names of the “five or six” Eagles who apparently warned him that he was a target. (Quarterback Troy Aikman and punter Mike Saxon were on the hit list too, Johnson said.) Zendejas, recently cut by Philadelphia, also said Eagles special-teams coach Al Roberts tipped him off.

“That’s not going to endear those (Eagles) to Buddy,” Spagnola said. “They do (Zendejas) a service and he turns around and does them a disservice. Buddy has a long memory.”

After reviewing film of one controversial play with Welsh -- the one where Eagles linebacker Jessie Small ran over Zendejas -- Ryan said he didn’t think the league would try to punish him.

“I just talked to (Welsh),” Ryan said in a conference call to reporters Wednesday, according to the Philadelphia Daily News. “He and I just visited about it. I mean, he’s been in the league awhile too. Visited with me about 45 minutes. Showed him the film (of Small’s hit), which I couldn’t show you all. I wish they could show you all.”

Ryan got a vote of support from Giants Coach Bill Parcells, who perhaps didn’t want to stir up emotions even more before his team’s game against the Eagles for first place in the NFC East on Sunday.

“Aw, don’t get me involved in that,” Parcells said in a conference call with reporters. “That’s a bunch of bull. Really, I mean, who cares?”

The league office apparently does. Welsh has talked to both sides, and an official recommendation is expected next week, before the Dec. 10 game between the Eagles and Cowboys in Philadelphia.

Welsh “said he’d get back to me in a couple weeks,” Ryan said during the conference call. “When all the marbles are in, there will be no question who the clown is.”

Meanwhile, the Ryan-Cowboys issue has raised a larger question: Are there coaches in the league who offer monetary rewards and players who receive them for trying to injure specific players?

Former Redskins Coach George Allen had one of the most heated rivalries in football when his teams played the Dallas Cowboys in the 1970s, with both sides often trading charges of cheap shots before and after games.

Allen, reached at his home in California this week, said: “We never did anything like having a bounty on anybody. We would give some incentives for interceptions, tackles inside the 20, mostly stuff to give the special teams some recognition. We’d give a guy a clock-radio or a small appliance or something.

“But send somebody out with intent to injure an opponent? Nah. Heck no. The Over the Hill Gang was clean.

“With that situation they have now, I’d have to know more. But I’m absolutely against the idea of it.”

Several players reached this week also dismissed the notion that bounties are common in the NFL.

“Everybody talks about trying to get after somebody on some team; it’s the nature of sports,” said San Francisco all-pro safety Ronnie Lott. “You know that Michael Jordan, every time he’s on the court somebody wants to ‘get him.’ And the intensity is sometimes at a level where you do things you wouldn’t normally.

“I remember in 1984 we were playing the Steelers. I had a bad ankle and Weegie Thompson went after my ankle on every play.

A coach told me he had been told to do it. Paid to? I’ll just say this; if you’ve got to give somebody money to get them to make a play on somebody, I don’t want that guy on my team.”

Packers guard Billy Ard said: “I’ve never been on a team where a coach said, ‘Get this guy out of the game.’ If you’re playing the Rams, you wanted to get Eric Dickerson out of the game; if you’re playing Reggie White, you’d like to see him out of the game, for strategic reasons. But you’re not going to go out there to hurt the guy. There’s no place for that.”