Your actions can make you a hero or a villain in a moment, and no one knows it better than former Washington head coach Jay Gruden. Back in 2016, during their game against the Chicago Bears, safety Donte Whitner injured himself badly during the game; all Gruden was concerned about was getting into the playoffs. That’s something Whitner will never forget.

“I didn’t know that he had that in him, but he was so eager to try to make it to the playoffs,” Donte Whitner said on the Jim Rome Show. “I think it was late in the fourth quarter. So, he just wanted to get the game over. But at the same time, you disrespected somebody who laid it all on the line for you. So, I’ll never respect Jay Gruden.”

For Whitner, the game against the Chicago Bears changed everything for him. During that game, he badly injured his thigh (quad) muscle. The injury was so serious that the team put him on injured reserve, which meant he could not play for the rest of the season. He never played another NFL game after that, so the injury effectively ended his football career.

But what cut deep was Jay Gruden’s words after his injury.

“I was hit by a wide receiver,” Whitner continued. “I almost tore my quad, and he [Gruden] came out on the field, and he was like, ‘Let’s get him up and out of here so we can get this game over with.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, okay.’ I lost all respect for him in that moment.”

In the end, Washington won the game 41-21, but Whitner couldn’t play thereafter.

So, while he was on the injured reserve, Washington brought back safety Josh Evans to replace him.

That became the last game of Whitner’s career, and that abrupt ending just made it even harder for him to respect Gruden.

Back in 2019, Washington fired head coach Jay Gruden and made Bill Callahan the interim head coach. After the change, players said they quickly noticed a difference. According to NFL.com, the team had strong practices where no one arrived late or left the locker room after stretching had started, problems that had happened under Gruden.

Now, years have passed, and both Gruden and Donte Whitner have moved on in their lives, but that moment is still pretty much intact in Whitner’s heart. Retirement was tough on Whitner, but he joined NBC Sports Bay Area as an analyst and later moved on to his own show, called The Grit Code Podcast.