Rocky's Football Corner #7
by Rick Rockwell
Watch your step out there football fans, lest you step in the fresh blood from the coaching guillotine.
No, no head coaches have lost their jobs. Yet. It’s too early for that.
Oh, the fans are calling for such crazy action. Certainly, folks are not happy in Oakland, Arizona, and elsewhere. They want action. They want change. Talk radio is filled with such foolish talk. Sometimes, I wonder if sports talk producers just throw that topic out there to fill the phone lines with vitriol. This is like throwing out chum to attract sharks.
Or another cliché comes to mind: rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
So in Arizona, Coach Dennis Green sacked his offensive coordinator this week, after one of the worst collapses by an NFL team ever. In case you missed it, the Cardinals were up on the Bears 23-3 heading into the fourth quarter on Monday night, and the Bears managed to score three touchdowns to win. The Bears did this mind you, without scoring an offensive touchdown. Now, that is some comeback trick. Green threw a fit before the television cameras after the game, and then fired his assistant.
Green obviously wanted to blame someone now after two consecutive fourth quarter chokes by his team. What better way to deflect that fan and sports radio anger?
But who will Green have to blame at the end of the season? And this one looks like another long, losing season for the Cardinals (1-5). But the solution shouldn’t be to sack Green.
Look at many of the poorly performing teams and the problems don’t start at the coaching level. They start with owners. But who can fire them? No one. The fans in Oakland are stuck with Al “The Imperial Emperor” Davis (think of the emperor in the Star Wars series in a track suit and you have Al Davis) and so is the NFL. The days of “just win, baby” and Coach Madden are too far in the rearview. Poor Art Shell was the only coach willing to take on the Raiders this year. Davis now admits he wrongly fired him in the 1990s. Eventually, in two or three years, the Raiders will be better off with Shell at the helm. But the sports pundits and fans who are calling for Shell’s head now are just wrong. What the Raiders need is stability. Arguably, they could have kept Norv Turner as coach for another year or two and they would have been no worse off than they are now. But that was another misstep by Emperor Davis.
Likewise, the fans in Arizona are stuck with Cardinals’ owner Bill Bidwell, who wore out his welcome in St. Louis and took his team to Arizona. The fans in St. Louis still say: good riddance.
Even winning teams are firing coaches. This week, the Baltimore Ravens (4-2) fired Jim Fassell, their offensive coordinator. This came as a great surprise because Fassell is a close friend to Ravens Coach Brian Billick, and some may remember he is only five years removed from taking the Giants to the Super Bowl as their head coach (where he lost to Billick and the Ravens). But again, this was a case of a head coach deflecting criticism. Billick was facing a mutiny by some of his offensive stars and it is clear if Billick doesn’t get the Ravens back into the playoffs this may be his last year in Baltimore. (That too would be a foolish decision.)
Fans, talk radio, and the sports pundits have no patience. They should remember that firing coaches means they usually must wait at least two or three more years to get a winning team. Sometimes sticking with what you have is best.
Dennis Green
Cardinals
Raiders
nfl
Football
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2 comments:
Rocky,
Why Arizona would go get Edgerrin James when they clearly have no offensive line is beyond me. As a fan, you would go get James for the excitement, but as a Football team you build the line first.
My Lions choose flash over substance almost all the time. The owner thinks it sells Ford Trucks. Hence, five years of West Coast Non-Offense.
This explains everything. The Cardinals are getting advice from Matt Millen!
I agree... Edgerrin James now has the dubious futility record of 36 carries for 55 yards against the Bears.
When will the Cards start to put the blame where it belongs? They need to look at their VP for football operations for not drafting or acquiring a better line: that would be Rod Graves. (Since the Bidwells will never take any responsibility.)
Also, do you get the idea Kurt Warner got another raw deal in Arizona? First, they blamed him. Now, they blame the offensive coordinator. And then...
I love how the media annointed Matt Leinart as Arizona's savior. But look at his statistics. He has a quarterback rating of 84.4 and Warner was benched with a record of 81.9, statistically about the same really. And did I miss something, or didn't that blindside hit on Leinart produce a fumble which contributed to Chicago's win on Monday. If that had been Warner, sports pundits would be debating the end of his career, when they should be looking at poor blocking and line schemes.
Poor Kurt Warner... he got a raw deal in St. Louis. Then he got a raw deal in New York (they benched him there and he had a rating of 86.5 and was winning games... just so they could put in Eli Manning who promptly lost games and finished the year with a 55.4 rating). I'm not sure there's anywhere for Warner to go now. He's just a casualty in the Arizona blame game.
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