Buccaneers defensive tackle Gerald McCoy said this week that the coaching staff was unhappy with him for helping an opponent up during a game, but Bucs coach Greg Schiano says that’s not exactly how he feels.
Schiano clarified that he’s OK with one of his players helping an opposing player off the ground after a play. But Schiano tells his players that if they do that, they should also let that opponent know they plan to knock him down again, something Schiano said he learned as an assistant to Joe Paterno at Penn State.
“I don’t dislike if a guy helps him up, nor am I a proponent of helping a guy up,” Schiano said, via the Tampa Tribune. “I worked for coach Paterno for six years and what I learned is, you help a guy up, you look him in the eye and say, ‘I’m coming back to get you again.’ That’s just my personal belief.”
For his part, McCoy says his comments were misconstrued, and that while he and the Bucs’ coaches don’t necessarily agree about helping opponents off the ground, it wasn’t as big a deal as it was made out to be.
“They felt one way and I felt a different way. That’s all it was. You don’t always feel the same way someone else feels. It’s personal preference. But we didn’t have an argument,” McCoy said.
McCoy has stood by Schiano this season, even telling fans to get off his case. Amid talk that Schiano has lost the locker room, McCoy seems to be trying his best to show respect for his coach, even if the two of them don’t agree about helping opponents off the ground.