Jerry Angelo claims USA Today twisted his words

On Thursday evening, USA Today published an article by Josh Peter featuring an interview with former Bears GM Jerry Angelo. The first quote from Angelo used by Peter in the article is that NFL teams “did not discipline players in the ‘hundreds and hundreds’ of domestic violence incidents” during Angelo’s 30+ years in the NFL. The Bears issued a statement denying knowledge of Angelo’s comments, and that appeared to be that – just another embarrassing mark for the NFL’s record on domestic violence.

But Angelo went on Chicago radio morning show The Kap and Haugh Show to refute the initial quote in the USA Today piece, and give some context to his quote.

“That ‘hundreds and hundreds’ was taken totally out of context. When I was making a point to this person, I was making a point that over my 31 years in the National Football League I’ve seen a lot of changes. There were hundreds and hundreds of things over those years that I’ve seen that have gotten better. Domestic violence is one of those.

“There were no hundreds and hundreds [of cases] of domestic violence. I would have no knowledge of that or have any idea how I would authenticate that … That was never the intent of [the writer’s] conversation with me.”

One thing that stood out to me in Peter’s article was that, as stated yesterday by Deadspin, he never went back to the “hundreds and hundreds” comment. The rest of Peter’s column focuses on Angelo’s admissions that the team could have done more to combat domestic violence during his tenure with the team.

This is obviously a very sensitive situation, and it really is a he said/he said situation between Peter and Angelo. This isn’t a situation like with A.J. McCarron, where we can simply pull up his exact words from a radio interview and realize no one twisted his words. The truth lies somewhere in between – cases were likely covered up by the Bears and other teams in the league, but hundreds over a span of 30 years? That wouldn’t just be a “bad look” for the NFL, that would be downright despicable.

[CSN Chicago]