The New York Giants are doubling down on their insistence that they don’t fake injuries, with multiple players coming forward to dispute the claims of their former teammate, Rams linebacker Bryan Kehl, that Giants defensive coordinator Perry Fewell instructs his players to pretend to be hurt if they need a timeout.
“It’s a bunch of bull, man,” Giants linebacker Michael Boley told the New York Post when asked about Kehl’s comments. “Bunch of smoke, man. That’s why he’s an ex-teammate, man. It’s one thing if you leave a team, you go somewhere else, if you didn’t like it there, keep it to yourself. There’s no point in trying to bad-mouth another team just because they let you go.”
Yes, it’s true that Kehl was cut by the Giants, and it’s possible that he has hard feelings toward them because of that. But the fact remains that Giants safety Deon Grant and linebacker Jacquian Williams were obviously faking injuries when they both flopped to the ground suddenly on Monday night, just as the Giants needed extra time to substitute into their goal-line defense.
Fewell doesn’t even deny that he coaches players to fake injuries, although Grant does deny that he flopped at Fewell’s instruction.
“As far as Perry Fewell coaching that, I never heard a coach on this team ever say anything about that,” Grant said, “so for Kehl to say that, he lost a lot of respect from me.”
Giants defensive end Dave Tollefson called Kehl “a great friend” but added, “I don’t know why Bryan would say that.”
The simplest explanation for why Kehl would say that is that when Kehl played for Fewell, Fewell told Kehl to fake an injury. When Williams and Grant both flopped to the ground simultaneously on Monday night, it sure looked like someone had coached them to do so.