Cheap shot? On-field etiquette debated in the wake of Chiefs player’s fine

By KENT BABB | THE KANSAS CITY STAR

Orlin Wagner

Shaun Smith’s humor keeps the Chiefs’ locker room light, but he’s got a serious job now: fill-in defensive end. 

 

 

On the replay, Shaun Smith’s hand is hidden. The rest of him is falling, one more big body at the top of the pile. But his arm goes outward, and San Francisco offensive lineman Anthony Davis recoils.
Davis will say later that Smith, a Chiefs defensive lineman, grabs Davis’ genitals during the play. That’s why, when Smith’s big body hits the ground, Davis begins punching him in the abdomen. Davis draws a 15-yard penalty for his reaction, during the Chiefs’ 31-10 victory. Five days later, Smith is fined $10,000 by the NFL for grabbing an opponent’s groin.

Smith never does own up to it, at least publicly, and that’s the way the good artists often are. They never reveal their secrets, or their technique. The rest is up for interpretation.

“Anything goes on in a scrum,” former Chiefs defensive lineman Bill Maas says. “You get kicked; you get grabbed. All kinds of stuff. People are pissed off down there.”
Yes, this is a story about private parts and the fine art of dirty play. Some say it happens in each game. Others say that, if Smith really broke the rules, he’s in the minority.

But from the beginning, some coaches teach young football players that anything goes — as long as you aren’t caught. Block for or tackle the ball carrier, for goodness’ sake, and do it however it needs to be done. By the time those players reach college or the NFL, each play is an act of desperation and primal instinct; one mistake could cost a player his job — especially one such as Smith, who’s been with eight NFL teams since 2003.

Jeff Meyers is the coach at Olathe East. He says that he doesn’t teach his players to kick, claw or grab — but that he knows it happens in football games, because it has happened to him. Decades ago, he was a fullback at Olathe High, and then he played at Kansas State. Yep, there were times that opponents grabbed his, well, nether region, and there wasn’t much he could do besides be glad that he’d worn his protective cup.
But those were the old days, and most players don’t wear protection under their football pants. It decreases mobility and comfort, but it allows players with a dark side and willing fingers to fire away.
“I have been amazed,” Meyers says, “at the number of people that say, ‘Boy, I’ve never heard of that before,’ somebody grabbing their kahunas during a play.
“My teams have had it happen on a yearly basis. It’s not always the same teams. You hate to think that any coaches coach that. I’ve never done that at all, and I would come out of my skin if any of my kids did that. But does it happen? It absolutely happens.”

Tim Grunhard, a Chiefs center during 1990-2000, is among those who don’t believe that most players are willing to grab another player’s cash and prizes during a game, because he never considered it.
“That was the last place I wanted my hand,” he says.
Grunhard is now the coach at Bishop Miege. He says that if his players experience illegal contact, he tells them to remember the player’s number and make him pay — within the rules, of course. Grunhard insists that, in all his years around football, he hasn’t seen or heard of players grabbing below the belt.
But Maas, who played three seasons with Grunhard, says he has seen it. In fact, he has photographic evidence that some players don’t mind going after another player in such a way — if enough frustration boils over.

In the early 1990s, the Chiefs were playing the Raiders, and Oakland needed to convert a fourth-and-1. Marcus Allen took the ball, and Maas was there to stop him in the backfield. Maas went to celebrate, he says, and Allen tried to kick him in the groin. Instead, Maas grabbed Allen’s foot, and someone snapped a picture that now hangs in Maas’ son’s bedroom.
Maas, who still has cleat-sized scars on his legs from being stomped two decades ago, says dirty play happens so often that he’s surprised so much has been made of Smith’s two-game grabbing streak. He says players would jump onto the pile, and heaven help the poor guys at the bottom. Some would be stepped on or scratched, spit at or pinched.

That was football. But now?
“We’re up in arms about everything,” he says. “We’re kind of soft.”
In the old days, before high-definition television and endless loops of YouTube replays, things like this would happen and be forgotten. Some things, anyway.
“All kinds of stuff,” Maas says. “I never tried to grab some guy’s nuts, for God’s sake. I might have kicked somebody.”
Smith, of course, hasn’t admitted to anything. He did tape a strongly worded letter from a Browns fan near his locker, in which he was called names far worse than the nickname making the rounds: Shaun Smith, the “Genital Giant.”

For now, Smith’s teammates won’t discuss the topic of dirty play and whether Smith, the loudest and brashest Chiefs player, would be capable of grabbing someone down south. Coaches aren’t saying much, either — but Maas says that doesn’t mean they don’t value that Smith listened to his coaches way back when, remembering now that his job is to stop his opponent by any means necessary.

“Don’t think for one second that Todd Haley isn’t glad he has a guy like that on his team,” Maas says. “He can’t say it. He’ll never say it. He likes the guy. Because he brings a nastiness to his defense.
“You have to say things politically correct. It’s no different from the gladiators in the Roman days. Same thing. People are there to see violence. Violence is going to happen. But you can’t talk about it. … You play in a frenzy, and you really don’t care about much else.”


Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/10/05/2280311/cheap-shot-on-field-etiquette.html#ixzz11Z3o1pmS