As many of you know, the New York Jets are being scrutinized because assistant coach Sal Alosi was caught tripping a Miami Dolphins player on the sideline during a game last weekend. The Jets at first downplayed the incident -- apologizing and moving on -- but they later discovered that Alosi instructed others to intentionally form a wall on the sideline to block special teamers from using the sidelines.
The NFL found out what was going on and got involved sending a letter to every team instructing them to appoint a "get-back coach", according to the (other) AP.
The letter from Ray Anderson, the league's executive vice president for football operations, includes the responsibilities placed on each team to appoint a "get-back coach" to ensure that players, coaches and staff members are in compliance with league rules.
The Jets say Alosi acted alone in creating this wall along the sidelines and that special teams coach Mike Westhoff had nothing to do with it. Of course when questioned about it Westhoff said he had no clue it was going on and, for some reason, suggested the
New England Patriots do (or did) the same thing.
Westhoff was a special teams coach with the Dolphins from 1986-2000 and a bunch of the
Chiefs coaching staff were on the Jets, a division rival, from 1997-2000. Some members of the Chiefs coaching staff were also on the Patriots, the team Westhoff says does something similar.
So if Westhoff has been doing this for a while or the Patriots did it, I imagine someone on the Chiefs coaching staff has heard of this tactic. It hasn't been going on in KC and this letter assures us that it won't be in the future.
