Here's the thing, are you going to actually change the culture or will you simply give the impression of a culture change with the core being exactly the same? I think that if most players had a choice between a loss in a critical game and a win that required another player to be injured they'd pick the later in a heartbeat. I might very well be wrong but that's what I've gathered from my observations.
That's totally fair - and I agree most athletes feel that way at some point. I've never played football, but on a much lesser violent basketball court, I would've done some nasty things to opponents to ensure victory. So I can only imagine what goes through the head of a linebacker when he goes after a quarterback.
But there are rules in place to penalize players from acting on these instincts, and to curb them from doing it going forward.
When a coach consciously, cooly and premeditatively circumvents these rules, and the fundamental notion of respecting one's opponents - that's pretty wrong.
When Williams talks about going after ACLs and heads - I mean, that's out there. He honestly could be facing criminal charges for that stuff. If in any other business you planned ending the career or season of a competitor, well, you'd be f**ked.
The problem is that - the perception in football is that anything that a man can do physically should be allowed within the rules.
The obvious issue with that is that a man can kill another man with his own body - especially now when you have 6'4, 270 men who run 4.6 40s.
So we have rules. The perception and rules are at a disconnect. The culture needs to shift so that the two align.
Both sides of the argument are making that difficult. When you got Ray Lewis and James Harrison saying one thing that's too extreme and you got reactionary media on the other side that's saying something too extreme - you don't get anywhere.
Middle ground should be sought.
