Former Ravens’ and Jets’ linebacker, Bart Scott, saw the replay of Adam ‘Pac-Man’ Jones’ assault on Amari Cooper and shared a new concern: where were Cooper’s teammates?
This was Scott on CBS Sports Radio’s The DA Show:
Can you imagine that happening and (Tony) Siragusa is watching you bang one of his teammate’s heads against the ground? Come on, man. We call that the cost of doing business. You got to protect your teammates. You send a message to everybody that you’re not going to stand for that. Come on, man. You’re supposed to be the Oakland Raiders – the castoffs, the goons. Now the next team on tape will think they’re a little soft. So now people are going to mess with Amari Cooper. You got to nip that in the bud immediately. I’ll tell you what: You might not be able to win the game, but you can win the fight – and they lost the fight. If I’m Amari Cooper, I’m looking at my teammates a little different – like, where were you at?
Scott, who played for Jack Del Rio in Baltimore, said the lack of response from Raiders’ players shows him the Raiders aren’t quite ready to take the “next step” as a team:
This is how I know that this Raider team isn’t quite a Jack Del Rio team or quite yet a team ready to take the next step. Amari Cooper: young guy, nice guy. He doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into. He doesn’t know the NFL. He’s learning what the NFL is all about: tough guys. If you talk tough, you got to walk tough, right? So Pacman Jones, known as a little tough guy, bit of a thug, had some issues off the field, rips his helmet off and takes my young rookie that I’m supposed to love and protect, the guy that’s brought in here to try and get us to the next level. So if I’m a Raider and I see that happen to my young guy, I get up. And listen, I’m not talking tough, trust me. I walk it. I would have grabbed Adam by his dreads and banged his head into the ground and choked him out and wouldn’t care who came on that field. It should have been benches-cleared, all-out melee, and you just pay the fine. We call that the cost of doing business. If that would have been a Ravens team that I was a part of, Pacman would still be getting his butt beat.
While Scott is correct – the Bengals were far more physical than the Raiders – several of Cooper’s teammates did respond and RT Austin Howard received the same 15-yard penalty as Jones (which should be an embarrassment to the league) for stopping the assault. It’s also worth noting that the altercation took place at end of a long run and many of Cooper’s teammates weren’t near the play.
This week, Oakland faces another physical team in the Baltimore Ravens. The players and coaches need to offer no apology for the way they retaliated to Jones, but it will be interesting to see how they respond to being pushed around for most of the game by the Bengals.
UPDATE: The NFL fined Austin Howard $8,681 for his ‘unnecessary roughness’ penalty during the altercation.
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