An NFL field is a workplace where employees are ordered to physically attack employees of other companies for three hours, then change clothes in full view of their co-workers. It’s not your local coffee shop, is what I’m saying, unless you like to order a triple espresso poured over an enemy’s head. Yet even within an NFL team, certain conduct falls into the “Nope, Sorry, Not Under Any Circumstances” banner, like what Jonathan Gannon did Sunday.
To summarize: Cardinals running back Emari Demercado dropped the ball 71.5 yards into a 72-yard run, turning a touchdown into a touchback, and turning Gannon, his coach, into Bob Knight. On the Cardinals’ sideline, Gannon appeared to hit Demarcado twice: Once hard enough to jolt the 215-pound Demarcado, and then again as he stormed away. For most of the 20th century, America would have shrugged. But nobody can act like Bob Knight anymore, a societal development that used to kill Knight before he died.
Gannon apologized to the team. The Cardinals fined Gannon $100,000 but allowed him to keep doing what he loves, which is spend 18 hours a day conjuring ways for his underlings to physically attack employees of other companies.
Gannon was completely in the wrong. He owned it, privately and publicly, and he told reporters Monday he hadn’t even seen the video yet.
“I woke up this morning and didn’t feel great about it, honestly ... I just told them I kind of let the moment of what happened get the better of me there. Obviously, I try to be emotionally stable and calm, because my job is to solve problems during a game and try to lead the charge on that. It’s not really who I am and who I want to be."
In the last decade or so, “It’s not really who I am” has become standard apology-speak, a deft self-pardon designed to separate the acts from the actor. But to participate in an NFL game, you have to be who you really are not. Every single play involves acts that could lead to jail time if you tried them almost anywhere else.
We could spend hours listing the coaching tactics that were once commended and are now condemned: denying players water breaks; smacking linemen with yardsticks; the Oklahoma drill; etc. The modern coach must be a thoughtful and caring boss. Gannon’s mistake was that he acted with the intensity he tries to foster.
Why Gannon lost control
The line Gannon crossed is thick and clear. A coach cannot do what he did. But to understand why he did it, think about what a person can do in the NFL.
Before the season, the NFL banned teams from administering smelling salts, in part because they can mask symptoms of neurological issues. But players can still use them. They just have to bring their own. It’s a B.Y.O.S.S. league.
In the Super Bowl two years ago, Kansas City’s Travis Kelce bumped coach Andy Reid while yelling in his face; Kelce acknowledged he was wrong, but Reid seemed unperturbed. Reid also bumped into Kelce during the first half of their Sunday Night Football game against the Giants on Sept. 21. Earlier this season, Jaguars players had to restrain coach Liam Coen from going after 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh. Watch this video of former Bills offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey throwing a tantrum at the end of a game. Now watch it again: The Bills coaches sitting with him don’t even seem to notice what’s happening, or if they do, they don’t think it’s strange.
Of course it was strange. It’s all strange. Lions coach Dan Campbell, who received A-plus grades from NFL players in union surveys in each of the past two years, told reporters earlier this year, “I’ll tell you what—man, it’s a violent game, and we love it.” There was context that explains this quote, of course. The context is that Campbell is an NFL coach.
What this says about Gannon’s conduct is an interesting question. He works in a profession where people frequently throw temper tantrums, yet he still went too far. Hitting a player in anger is not really who NFL coaches are. Not anymore.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Jonathan Gannon’s Reprehensible Behavior a Product of Football’s Own Making.
