I have NEVER heard ahtletes and professionals talk about one of their own like this. And these are the guys that agreed to be quoted:

Coward. Quitter. Hypocrite. And those were some of the nicer things the Atlanta Falcons had to say about their former coach on Wednesday.

"I feel like I've been sleeping with the enemy," safety Lawyer Milloy moaned.

"It got to the point where guys really didn't care if he left or not," running back Warrick Dunn said. "But the way he decided to leave, to me, was just not right."

"The best way to describe the way we feel," Falcons owner Arthur Blank said, "is betrayed."

"This league is not for everybody," Milloy said. "This league is for real men. I think he realized he didn't belong here."

"We're not college kids," said Dunn, a 32-year-old, 11-year veteran. "I'm a professional, grown man. Look at me eye to eye. Talk to me. But Bobby wasn't like that."

Dunn said Petrino's rules ranged from a ban on televisions in the locker room at the team's training complex to frowning on any loud talking at team dinners when the Falcons were on the road.

"It got to the point where I never went down to team dinners to eat because I was not going to sit there in silence," Dunn said. "It's a joke. You tell kindergartners things like that."

A couple of weeks later, tight end Algie Crumpler complained about Petrino's offense and said the veterans felt they were being phased out. Those concerns came to a head when 35-year-old Grady Jackson, one of the team's most effective interior linemen, was surprisingly cut during the bye week.

"It just shows his true color, like a coward with a yellow stripe down his back," said Jackson, who now plays with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

"He snuck out in the middle of the night like the Baltimore Colts did," said Kansas City Chiefs running back Kolby Smith, who played for Petrino at Louisville.

All Petrino left on his way out the door was his goodbye letter.

Milloy had a copy of it taped above his locker, with a red "X" through Petrino's words and the player's own assessment written in: "Coward." Center Todd McClure didn't even bother keeping his copy.

"I think it's already in the trash," he said bitterly.

Defensive end Jamaal Anderson, the Falcons' first-round pick from Arkansas, was asked what he would tell his alma mater about its new coach.

"One word: Disloyal," Anderson replied.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/a...oX_en34494
[Edited 12/13/07 8:57am]

Ehh - the whole world is becomming more and more about how fast and how much we shit on people

He deserves it. It was a bitch move on his part.

Mach said:

And less and less about Christ. I think those two facts are related.

If it makes anyone feel better, insert your own savior in place of "Christ".

RodeoSchro said:

Here is why they feel this way...despite how this sounds it is not about people piling on some guy who quit his job....

Patrino and Nick Saban (another coach who did the same thing) are college coaches that were hired to coach a pro team. In Patrino's case he came in with a "my way or the highway" way of thinking. Not respecting his new players as men but treating them like they were beneath him.

He would not talk with them...gave restrictions without reason and could not relate or lead them. He lost the faith and respect of his players...and once he did he took his ball and went home as it were by quitting before the end of the season to go back to college. He proceeded to lie to his boss the owner of the Falcons and everyone else by saying "Im in this for the long haul"

The reason he gets this heat (and deserves it) is betrayal of trust and disrespect. Coaches are to teach and lead...all he did was seperate and shut himself off. And then leave the first chance he could.

Sinister said:

I agree 100%.