Renaldo Wynn says Gregg Williams stole Jags’ playbook in 1999

Posted by Mike Florio on January 31, 2014, 10:30 PM EST
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Super Bowl week tends to dredge up some potent claims of wrongdoing from years gone by.

Six years ago, the Patriots had to deal with a false report that they had videotaped the Rams’ walk-through before the Super Bowl played six years earlier.  Last year, former Raiders receiver Tim Brown suggested that former Raiders coach Bill Callahan threw Super Bowl XXXVII as a favor to his former boss, Bucs coach Jon Gruden.

Now, former Jaguars defensive end Renaldo Wynn claims that the Titans’ upset of Jacksonville in the 1999 AFC title game resulted from former Tennessee defensive coordinator Gregg Williams doing something far worse than having a bounty program.

“You know why we fell short in that AFC Championship game?” Wynn told Mike Meltser and Seth Payne of SportsRadio 610 in Houston on Friday.  “After that I ended up getting coached by Gregg Williams. . . .  First thing he said when he came in the door was, ‘Hey, you know why you lost?’  With a lot of other explicit words with that.  He said he had our playbook.  Greg Williams had our playbook.  Our game-plan on offense.  [He] had our playbook.”

Wynn, who played 13 seasons in the NFL with four different teams, said the process continued, but he didn’t provide details.

“I know how he got them,” Wynn said, presumably regarding his mutual stint with Williams in Washington.  “He started getting playbooks when I was with him.”

It’s a potential bombshell, if it can be proven.  And if it can be proven, Williams could once again be the former Rams defensive coordinator before he ever actually coaches the team.

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47 responses to “Renaldo Wynn says Gregg Williams stole Jags’ playbook in 1999”

  5. Gregg Williams is a scumbag.

    He doesn’t deserve to be coaching football at any level…plain and simple.

  7. The Rams coaches are slime balls. Fisher & Dr Heat are known cheaters. Come on Goodell, DO YOUR JOB!

  9. Why didn’t you speak up then?why now?.. What the main point your tryin to prove here?Cause u never won a ring?or u just looking for cheap attention?.. I still here to see what’s u gave back to society or better yet help to improve… #stop supporting Barrack OBAMA just cause him black

  10. Ok… the bloke (Williams) was an idiot. He has already had his name dragged through the mud and God knows what else. He has paid more in having his reputation torn to pieces, where others seem to be near completely exonerated when there was enough blame to share between coaches AND players twice over!

    Williams should be allowed to do his job without people coming out of the woodwork just because they want their name back in a headline.

    I am a Vikings fan. Nothing said or done will change history. Leave the guy alone – unless he does something stupid again – and let him do his job in peace!

  12. So Goodell forces Marshawn Lynch to interviews when he’s obviously very uncomfortable yet he is too chicken to rid this league of a criminal like Williams.

  14. Six years ago, the Patriots had to deal with a false report that they had videotaped the Rams’ walk-through before the Super Bowl played six years earlier. —- there was nothing false about that report. They did videotape the rams walk through and the guy who videotaped it can attest to that fact….

  15. Did they have the game plan or the play book? Because one is much more significant than the other. Having a play book means nothing, unless you know what they’re running on that specific play, it would contain the original audible words and plays but those would surely change as the season goes on. And you can pretty much learn a team’s play book by watching their film (especially ally at that point in the year) you won’t know every specific play but you’ll know what their bread and butter plays are, and the complementary plays they run off of them.

    A game plan on the other hand would have exactly what they were doing that week, the active and dummy line calls as well as new formations/plays specific for that week and where they plan to attack them, that would be a pretty big thing to have but not really easy to get.

  19. Greg William is a POS and should be ban from the NFL forever. Jacksonville is clearly the best team in 1999. In my opinion would’ve beat the Rams.

  21. Are those the same false reports that were actually proven, and destroyed by the league office? The same false reports that cost them draft picks?

  22. What false accusations, it’s common knowledge they taped the Rams walkthrough. Then the league allowed them to destroy the tapes to avoid anyone seeing them. Can’t be a coincidence that they haven’t won a superbowl since.

  24. If my memory serves correct, the jags lost three times that whole year, all three of their losses were to the titans. Dont think it was a Williams stealing their playbook, he just had their number that year.

  25. Very interesting. …I recall Trent Dilfer saying exactly the samething. That in 2000, while playing for Baltimore his playbook disapppeared after a regular season game at Tenn. Played Tenn a month later in the playoffs & their defensive coverages change as if the knew what was coming.

  26. another playbook story, I cant remember which team it was, but it was either in Oakland or LA, a team found Raiders Playbook in the locker, a player wanted to keep it, but the coach handed it over to Al Davis… or it was the other way around..

  27. That “false report” against the Pats??? Everyone knew it was false. He’ll, we didn’t even need to see the tapes before they were destroyed!

  29. In 2000 Trent Dilfer had his play book disappear or stolen when playing the Tennessee Titans. Their DC was Greg Williams. This is described by Dilfer in America’s Game.

  30. Someone without apparent motivation to lie, without any apparent hostility to Greg Williams, who stands to gain nothing but pain from a investigation into this, talking about a long ago event, about someone we know has a serious morality deficit, and lays out a credible story.

  31. If this accusation had been made of Belichick, the typical trolls would be calling for his immediate suspension if not execution given that he is the most evil man in the world.

  32. “Six years ago the Patriots had to deal with a FALSE REPORT – Everyone read the report in the Boston Herald, nobody read John Tomase’s front page retraction and apology – that they had videotaped the Rams’ walk-through before the Super Bowl six years earlier.” Let it go Marshall. Your anger should be directed at Coach Martz for his lousy game plan, not the Patriots.

  33. If all that Mr. Wynn says is true, someone needs to explain to him the principle of sin of omission. He voiced no objection to the practice while it was allegedly ongoing in Washington. Ronaldo’s hands are just as dirty.

  34. If you’re not going to tell EVERYTHING, just please go away…. How he got the playbooks is the entire story, the only part that matters…. Anyone can do what Wynn did there… Somebody like Williams ought to make an accusation against Wynn & not back it up.

  35. Gregg Williams is a cancer to the sport … it’s disappointing to know that Jeff Fisher actually rehired such an idiot who boasts about cheating

  36. How can you say “Six years ago, the Patriots had to deal with a false report that they had videotaped the Rams’ walk-through before the Super Bowl played six years earlier” when Goodell burned the tapes before anyone saw them?

  39. Why do I have the feeling there’s a lot more about Williams we have not yet heard?

  40. So why’d they lose their only other 2 games that year to that same Titan team? By that point of the season, every opponent knows exactly what you’re going to do because it’s all on film. That Jaguar team was simply overwhelmed by a more physical team all 3 times they played that year. That much was evident.

  41. playbook or not, unless he was eavesdropping on the communication between the O-coordinator and qb, how would having the playbook help any more than the 4 camera angles they have of EVERY play you have run?
    this one is going to get so overblown it’s gonna be ridiculous. was he on the sideline paging through a mysterious book-o-plays, then making defensive calls based on the formation (because i’m sure in the NFL, one formation MUST MEAN one particular play)? probably not.
    football isnt about having secret plays and “tricking” the other team. it’s about exploiting matchups and executing your gameplan ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY KNOW WHAT’S COMING. it’s called imposing your will.
    does having playbooks, signs, etc give you an idea of what’s coming? absolutely! but what the coaches recognize from the sideline and what the players recognize and react to are usually pretty different. it still comes down to execution at the end of the day.

  43. “What false accusations, it’s common knowledge they taped the Rams walkthrough. Then the league allowed them to destroy the tapes to avoid anyone seeing them. Can’t be a coincidence that they haven’t won a superbowl since.”

    This is really ridiculous. You act as if it’s easy to win a Superbowl. They’ve been to 2 since 2007 which is more than almost every team in the league. They were literally 2 plays away from winning both of them and had the lead at the 2 minute warning in both games.

    They’ve turned over the entire team since 2004 except Brady and were still 1 game away from the Superbowl 2 years in a row. It’s amazing what they’ve done, no other team does that without an 8-8 season thrown in there, look at the Steelers.

  45. Last Superbowl appearance by team:

    Miami – 1984
    Buffalo – 1993
    NYJ – 1968
    NE – 2011

    Pitt – 2010
    Bal – 2012
    Cin – 1988
    Cle – never

    Ind – 2009
    Ten – 1999
    Jax – never
    Hou – Never

    Den – 2013
    SD – 1994
    KC – 1969
    Oak – 2002

    Phi – 2004
    NYG – 2011
    Dal – 1995
    Was – 1991

    Car – 2003
    NO – 2009
    Atl – 1998
    TB – 2002

    GB – 2010
    Chi – 2006
    Det – never
    Min – 1976

    SF – 2012
    Sea – 2013
    AZ – 2009
    StL – 2001

    Clearly it’s easy to win the Superbowl.

  46. As if Renaldo Wynn waiting this long to say anything wasn’t bizarre enough, are we supposed to believe Williams had so much success from stealing play books while working for Tennessee and Washington that he all of a sudden decided to stop doing it in New Orleans at the same time he was up to the Bountygate shenanigans? Or he still was doing it and not a single person questioned mentioned it during those investigations?

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