Greene Is Suspended for One Game

The Carolina Panthers suspended Kevin Greene for one game without pay Monday, one day after he attacked an assistant coach on the sideline during a loss to the Washington Redskins.

“No matter what happened, you can’t justify what Kevin Greene did,” said Panther Coach Dom Capers, who announced the suspension after meeting with Greene and Kevin Steele, the coach Greene grabbed and shoved.

The action means the Panthers (2-12) will be without Greene, who leads the team in sacks, in Sunday’s game against the St. Louis Rams (4-10). Greene’s suspension will cost him $117,647.05, the equivalent of one week’s pay from his 1998 salary of $2 million.

Greene, an outside linebacker, got into a heated discussion with Steele, the inside linebacker coach, after the Redskins drove for long touchdowns on their first three possessions. Carolina safety Mike Minter, who was sitting beside Greene at the time, said the linebacker was upset because someone had given him the wrong call on the Redskins’ third touchdown, a five-yard run up the middle by Skip Hicks.

The 6-foot-3, 247-pound Greene jumped up from the bench, lunged at Steele, grabbed him by the jacket just below the neck with both hands and began shoving him backward before coaches and players separated the two.

Capers spent several minutes speaking to Greene before letting him stay in the game.

Greene’s teammates resisted attempts Monday to draw a parallel between the attack and last year’s assault of Golden State Warrior Coach P.J. Carlesimo by guard Latrell Sprewell.

“I don’t think there’s any bad blood between Kevin Steele and Kevin Greene, and there obviously was bad blood between Latrell Sprewell and P.J. Carlesimo,” quarterback Steve Beuerlein said. “And that was a little bit more of a premeditated type of thing, I think. Kevin was just reacting emotionally, a split-second. I know Kevin well enough to where he would have never done anything to hurt anybody in that situation.”