8 Horrible Player-Coach Relationships

Player Coach Relationships ModernMan.com

Rashad Evans & Greg Jackson | Team Jackson
Jon “Bones” Jones’ defeat of Rashad “Sugar Shad” Evans at UFC 145 was the culmination of a year of hard feelings, but not between the two fighters. After a knee injury forced Evans’ withdrawal from a scheduled fight with Mauricio Rua for the UFC Light Heavyweight title the year before, Jackson replaced him with Evans’ teammate Jones, who went on to win. Jackson’s previous policy of prohibiting bouts between team members made Evans look like a scaredy cat when he publicly ruled out a fight with Jones, so Evans very publicly split from the team. A year later, Jones defeated Evans in a unanimous decision in five rounds.

Player Coach Relationships ModernMan.com

Keyshawn Johnson & Jon Gruden | Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The blood between these two is so bad it couldn’t be contained by just one industry; in fact, the enmity has carried over from the sideline to the studio, something you won’t see these two ESPN broadcasters share. One year after winning the Super Bowl, Johnson was deactivated for the last seven games of the 2003 season when his relationship with Gruden, whom he said “made football depressing,” became unsalvageable. Johnson was also quoted as saying of his former coach, “When your psyche is messed with … you just want to do whatever you can to get out of there. That was the situation when I was under Coach Gruden.” Gruden’s response: “You’ve got to have some thick skin.”