If you look at the winners of the Super Bowl, you’ll find that “retreads” have won a lot of them
Bill Belichick, a retread (and a flop in Cleveland), has won 3 Super Bowls with the Patriots.
Tom Coughlin, a retread, won with the Giants.
Dick Vermeil, a retread, won with the Rams.
Tony Dungy, a retread, won with the Colts.
Jon Gruden, a retread, won with the Bucs.
Don Shula, a retread, won 2 with the Dolphins.
Weeb Ewbank, a retread, won with the Jets.
I’m not defining everybody who has had more than one job as a retread. Gruden and Dungy, for example, have been successful in more than one job. Dungy won in Tampa, got fired, and then won in Indy. Gruden won in Oakland and quit to go to Tampa, where he also did well. Dick Vermeil’s Eagles got good, then he was out of the game for a long time, and his Rams teams did well. Belichick did poorly his first time out and got much better. Other guys keep getting rehired even though they are mediocre wherever they go. That’s who I am talking about. Take Chan Gailey (please). And there’s talk that about Dave Wannstedt returning to the NFl as a coordinator this season.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Cowher come to Tennessee assuming Fisher is gone after next season. I think this would be a good fit for him. The team definitely needs a firm hand.
Well, Heckert, yeah, and also the two or three trades between the two teams (in which we took your all time favorite player and man crush supreme)… Shurmur also spent time in Philly, and though he had a stop in between, he probably got the job in part due to the time he spent with Heckert back then.
And now there’s talk about poaching away Dick Jauron from Philly too, after talk of poaching away Mornhinweg. It’s like those guys in Cleveland don’t bother to make decisions that aren’t centered around Philly. Bizarre.
That’s a pretty tenuous link. Considering the former GM of your team is our GM, we’ve actually had surprisingly little in the way of former Philly players. Shurmur has as much connection to Holmgren as to Heckert.
I mean, I don’t care - Philly is a solid organization so it’s not like I’d mind if we tried to poach for them - but the link isn’t very strong.
As for how strong an organization Philly is, I’m starting to feel the floor shake a bit. It’s starting to feel a little uncertain around this team, like a ship adrift. I’m wondering if the management has any sort of direction or purpose right now.
The Eagles fired their DC today, Sean McDermott, less than a week after confirming that he’ll be back next season. There doesn’t seem to be anyone on deck, either, so I’m wondering what’s going on. Clearly the defense was a major concern, but they went into the playoffs starting 7 players on defense who were either undrafted rookies or seventh round picks. Not much you can do there. And they still geld Green Bay to 21 points.
There is a rumor they fired McDermott to keep Dick Jauron in Philly. I’ll go on record right now and say that would be a bad decision.
Firing McDermott just to keep Jauron in Philly- Bad move
Firing McDermott because his defense was historically bad this season - Better move
Some of which was admittedly not his fault, but heavy is the head that bears the headset. When you’re consistently being outschemed in the redzone (like 80% of the time), your days are to be numbered.
The Rams have hired former Broncos HC Josh McDaniels as it’s new Offensive Coordinator. He replaces new Browns HC Pat Shurmur and fills the role he had in New England.
All in all, I think McDaniels is a colossal jackass and utterly incompetent as a CEO and leader but as an offensive coordinator I think he’s a pretty good choice. So long as he’s able to swallow his misplaced pride and ego long enough to take his marching orders from Spagnulo he’ll probably be an excellent fit in St Louis. They have Bradford who needs some continuity and instruction and McDaniels showed in Denver that offense and the passing game are things he understands well. Hopefully for the Rams and Bradford he doesn’t come in all full of piss and vinegar the way he did in Denver and also that he’s not gone for another job in a year.
Can’t argue with any of that obviously, but I think his defenses performed well enough these last two years, and in many ways comparably to the great Jim Johnson, that he had earned another year or two. Especially considering the injuries. It wasn’t as if this secondary was a strength in the preseason… the obviously typical short term memory of a sports fan is at work here a little - that unit was projected to really suck all year and basically did what was expected.
Then again, the red zone defense is literally impossible to ignore. And apparently the players had soured on McDermott, too. I saw a lot of Eagles games this season and never felt like the defense had any fight in them. You could absolutely tell within the first half of the first quarter whether the defense would be a liability or merely a hindrance.
And now that Reid has basically hitched his wagon to Vick, that window of opportunity which was potentially 5-7 years long pre-2010 is suddenly only open for a year or two… so I guess Reid felt he couldn’t wait for McDermott to grow and had to do something to fix the D now. Can’t disagree with that, if true.
Al Davis came out to look for his shadow yesterday. His press conference bashing former coach Tom Cable* (and also introducing the victim of Al’s next press conference, Hue Jackson) was awesomely bizarre. Davis enumerated all the reasons Cable was untenable, yet he still didn’t fire the guy until Cable said “We’re not losers anymore” shortly after finishing 8-8.
*: Tom Cable is now the assistant head coach and offensive line coach in Seattle.
You have to feel for Hue Jackson. That press conference pretty much spelled out that he was coming in a dead man walking for team run by the walking dead.
Why should anyone feel sorry for a guy who actively undermined Tom Cable and was clearly bucking for the job?
In any case, the Raiders finished strongly and play in a weak division. Jackson HAS to be pretty optimistic about his chances to win the division next year (before getting skunked in the playoffs, of course).
The Eagles made a huge hire today by picking up Jim Washburn from Tennessee as their new defensive line coach. He’s highly, highly regarded in the NFL as possibly one of the best defensive coaches in the league, let alone defensive line coaches. He’s done wonders for defensive linemen in Tennessee, and I can’t wait to see what he can do with such a talented cast like Trent Cole, Mike Patterson, and Brandon Graham. He’ll have a lot to work with, and I’m stoked to see if this team can finally start getting consistent pressure from the front four. Fantastic move. You don’t have to look any farther than the mourning and grief on the Titans’ fan boards to know how good of a coach he is. How many fan bases actually know and care about their defensive line coach?
Still no updates on the vacant defensive coordinator position, but hopefully something good comes out in the next week or so. From what I’ve heard of the candidates, I’m not overly excited, but we’ll see what happens.
Fisher is out in Tennessee. Not sure who initiated it. Sucks for the teams that already hired their coach.
Browns hired Jauron as the DC. I guess under an offensive coach, it can be good to have a strong experienced guy in the DC position to handle that side of the ball, but it’d be nice if that strong, experienced guy was… you know, good.
If they were going to let him go, it’s a shame they couldn’t have done it weeks ago when there were still a lot more jobs available. I’m sure someone will snap him up though; or maybe he’ll decide to take a year off and do some Sunday Pre-game show, coming back in 2012 when he’ll have his pick of jobs and the labor dispute is settled.
