Packers assistant Winston Moss fired for tweet shading Rodgers
Winston Moss was fired as assistant head coach of the Green Bay Packers one day after he tweeted about All-Pro QB Aaron Rodgers needing to be held accountable. “@insanecane99 Ponder this. What Championship teams have are great leadership! Period! It’s not the offense guru trend, it’s not the safe trend. Find somebody who’s going to hold #12 and everybody in this building to a #LombardiStandard.” Moss, 52, tweeted about his dismissal Tuesday night: “#thankstwitter!” Joe Philbin, who became Packers’ interim head coach upon the firing of Mike McCarthy, issued a statement Wednesday: “We thank Winston for his contributions over the past 13 years.
Between the Lines: Given that Moss is a close friend of McCarthy, it’s unlikely he would have remained on the staff of the next Packers’ coach. But he probably would have made it to the end of this season if he’d stayed off Twitter.
Meyer retires from coaching at 54, with mixed legacy: championships, character issues
Urban Meyer, who won three national football championships, is retiring at 54, pained by a cyst in his brain and attacks on his character. He said he will leave coaching when Ohio State’s season ends. The announcement was not entirely unexpected. Appearing on ESPN’s Around the Horn, Tim Cowlishaw pointed out, “In the Maryland game the players and coaches huddled, and he was over there with his hands on his knees looking at the ground.” Even with a truncated career, Meyer is certain to be elected to college football’s Hall of Fame, and his 82-9 record in seven seasons at Ohio State seems impervious to challenge. But there is the other side. Meyer began this season suspended for three games because he enabled an assistant coach to remain on his staff despite knowledge of his having committed domestic violence. Jackie McMullen said on Around the Horn: “At Florida and Ohio State he had one of the worst records in terms of player character. He was very troubled by that 3-game suspension. When he left Florida he called it “a broken football program. I don’t think he wanted to do the same thing at Ohio State.”
Between the Lines: Perhaps Meyer will undergo surgery some day to relieve pressure on his brain. There could be a comeback.
NFL investigators never questioned Hunt after learning of his alleged assault of a woman
When Kansas City Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt had an altercation with a woman in the hallway outside his apartment in a Cleveland hotel on the morning of February 10, the NFL office was soon aware of the incident. But the ensuing investigation was remarkably incomplete. The league’s investigative team never spoke to the athlete or to the alleged victim. Witnesses said Hunt and some of his friends were visiting with two women they had met the night before. But when the women were asked to leave in the morning, they protested. A scuffle ensued, and one woman claimed Hunt shoved, kicked and scratched her. Hunt’s friends said she shouted racial slurs at them. The victim complained to police. The league imposed no punishment. Chiefs coach Andy Reid did interview Hunt, who later admitted he didn’t give a truthful explanation in claiming he did nothing wrong. The matter seemed to be dropped until last week, when TMZ obtained a copy of video from hotel surveillance cameras. The tape clearly showed Hunt making a physical assault on the woman. League officials said the hotel refused to let them see the video because it doing so would “violate company policy.” Cleveland police could have demanded to see the video but said they take that sort of action only in the case of felonies, and this was considered to be no more than a misdemeanor.
Between the Lines: Seems like the hotel, the police and the NFL were all trying to look the other way. Shouldn’t Hunt at least have been charged with misdemeanor assault? And why could TMZ get the video but not the NFL?
Cowboys give up on Travis Frederick playing this season
When the Dallas Cowboys’ All-Pro center Travis Frederick was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome during the preseason, the team did not place him on injured reserve but said he might be returning to action in October. It seemed like unwarranted optimism, considering that this is a very debilitating illness of the nervous system. It’s considered incurable, though treatable. Frederick has been making progress, has regained sensation in his hands, but he has no sensation in his feet. The team has given up hope that he will play this season, but hope remains for 2019. They’re getting by with Joe Looney, a respected backup, as the starting center, but the dropoff is severe. “It’s going to come back,” Frederick said. “I have no doubt about it.”
