Coughlin: No more dunking!

Several Giants noted that dunking young players in a cold tub is a tradition and part of the locker room culture. Not any more it isn’t. At least not with this team.

Tom Coughlin has banned the practice after seeing the video of Jason Pierre-Paul tossing Prince Amukamara into a tub in Albany. While he is not upset by the sentiment of the action or the idea of hazing, he is concerned that someone could get injured if the practice continues.

“I told the players that because of the idea, the nature, of what took place and the potential for injury, we can’t have that anymore,” Coughlin said.

Coughlin called the actions caught on video “inappropriate on a couple of levels.” He singled out the language used by Pierre-Paul, and was disturbed by the risk of injury. “Those are the things,” he said.

The other thing, as you might imagine, that Coughlin was upset with was that the video was posted to begin with. In fact, that was the initial thing Coughlin mentioned today.

“First of all, it was wrong of Steve (Weatherford) to do that because there is trust in the locker room and people have to be able to rely on one another,” he said.

But while Coughlin has changed the rules on dunking, he has not changed his social media policy for players.

“The only social media policy that I have is to respect the rights of others,” he said. “I’ve had conversations and lectures about this in training camp that I don’t approve of it and where it’s a team and a family and what is heard and said should stay inside the realm of the family.”

This time it didn’t.

“When you’re away at camp they do have fun with each other, they have some fun with the rookies and that kind of thing,” Coughlin said. “However, as has been stated, if there is a chance that someone could be injured, no one wants that, no one wants that. And the inappropriate langue that is broadcast, we would never want that to be associated with us.”