The words “Nick Saban is upset” can be followed with countless phrases and still be accurate. (Indeed, the words “Nick Saban is upset” standing alone are pretty much always accurate.)
In this specific context, the not-going-to-be-the-Alabama-coach-Alabama-coach is peeved with the perception in NFL circles that his players head to the next level with too much wear and tear.
“When you talk to NFL teams, none of them ever say that to me,” Saban told Brock Huard and Mike Salk of ESPN 710 in Seattle, via NFL.com. “I don’t know where that came from. Eddie Lacy comes out and is rookie of the year as a running back. Where’s the wear and tear? We had 45 guys on NFL rosters last year, which is more than any other college team, so where’s the wear and tear? I don’t see it. Dr. [Lyle] Cain and Dr. [James] Andrews are our team doctors who deal with a lot of NFL players. They monitor what we do with our players. I don’t think this is factual at all, and I resent the fact that anybody in the NFL, with the access we give them, the things we do to try to help them . . . that anyone would make a statement like that and hurt our program, if it were true. I don’t get that. I have heard people in the media say that before, but I haven’t heard anybody in the NFL actually say that.”
Saban’s reference to “the access we give them, the things we do to try to help them” was no accident. NFL teams tiptoe on eggshells around the emperors of Tuscaloosa, Tallahassee, and every other small town that contains a big-time college football program. If the Ball Coach gets his nose out of joint, it suddenly becomes harder for Big Shield to get access to practice, film, information, etc.
Never mind the fact that the coaches should be doing everything they can to help place their unpaid players in paying football jobs. College football coaches can make life difficult for NFL coaches, and plenty of college football coaches have done it over the years, regardless of the impact on the best interests of their players.
“I think that’s really unfair,” Saban added. “We use a catapult system here, which is a GPS system that measures wear and tear on players. We certainly keep a balance in what we do. We also keep a record of how our players progress through the season and how they finish the season, based on the workload we have. Those players all improve their workload throughout the season. We had the lowest injury rate of any team in our conference, which is the only way we can measure it. I think a lot of those things are not even true.”
Regardless of Saban’s version of reality, the perception is what it is. And for NFL teams perception is reality. So instead of hinting that he may try to get back at NFL coaches and scouts by limiting access or otherwise making it harder to get information about players if they don’t stop trying to “hurt our program,” maybe Saban should try to reverse the very real perception that his players exit with more wear and tear than college football players from other programs.
