I thought we might have a general discussion of the various coaching and management firings and hirings.
Romeo Crennel was fired today, about 3 years too late. Everyone from players to announcers were tripping over themselves to say how he was such a good guy. Yeah, I don’t doubt it - but he’s a ridiculously inept coach - easily the worst in Cleveland Browns history. If you make me look back longingly on the days of Butch Davis (who sucked quite a bit himself) then you must have some epic suckitude.
Interestingly, Phil Savage (the GM) was fired earlier, right after the game last night. There was clearly something weird going on behind the scenes there. Lerner (owner) tried to fire him 2 years ago, when a passionate and widespread fan protest made him reconsider. But clearly there was some animosity there and Lerner was more anxious to get rid of him than Crennel.
There was an anonymous letter sent in to a Cleveland news organization supposedly from a player who said that Savage was the biggest cancer to the team - that he demanded certain players be protected no matter what their bad behavior (specifically said they’d listen to ipods or talk on their cell phones during team meetings) among other things. The letter was anonymous, but he included details which made one of the sports radio reporters say he thought it was authentic.
Such a ridiculous level of bullshit…
Reportedly Cowher turned down Lerner’s coaching offer on Saturday. I have no idea who the likely candidates are. I’ve heard Cowher, Schottenheimer, Urban Meyer, and Spagnuolo mentioned as possibilities.
There’s a rumor that we might get Patriots VP/player personel Scott Pioli as GM. I’m cautiously optimistic. Taking people from the Pats is scary because Bellichick is so ridiculously good that it’s hard to evaluate how good his assistants actually are. Clearly Crennel was completely incompetant at doing anything other than implementing Bellichick’s orders.
I don’t know how you can keep blaming Crennel for doing a shitty job if this is the kind of contribution Savage was making. I’d be resigned to getting Marty Schottenheimer, if I were you. Sure, you won’t win a Super Bowl, but you’ll at least make the playoffs. Plus, your cupboard is totally bare right now. You have barely any more talent than the Lions…
Anyway, Butch Davis was 24-35, Crennel was 24-40- and Davis had complete control.
Ten bucks says Marinelli comes home to Tampa to coach our suddenly not very good defense, now that Monte Kiffin is off to Tennessee. Failing that, Raheem Morris (our D-backs coach) will take the job.
Because Crennel was bad at every single aspect of being a head coach. Even if this were true Crennel is at fault - he has to control those meetings. The team was his.
There was absolutely nothing that Crennel did well. How bad the GM was is irrelevant to that. You probably haven’t seen enough Browns games to really have any idea of how horribly coached the team was - everything from scheme to fundamentals to motivation to who he hired as assistants.
I don’t hate the idea as much as I used to, but the guy is almost 70 now. Could he be as dedicated to coaching as he needs to be?
And the Browns are easily more talented than the Lions. Remember, this is a team that dismantled the Giants before they gave up on the season. There are many players who are talented but completely misused - trying to place a square peg in a round hole. This team could go places with a real coach next year.
Yeah - the complete control thing was the biggest problem. He wasn’t actually all that bad of a game day coach - he did some things well. But he was a terrible GM. And he treated his team like college kids - curfews, snitches, all sorts of childish things.
I always wonder why people rush to defend head coaches as being “nice.” I’ve yet to see a “nice” head coach succede in the long run. All good head coaches have the ability to be both focused and demanding. Nice is your friend; demanding is your boss.
As an example of this: see the San Francisco 49ers and Mike Singletary. :eek:
Teams that need new head coaches: Kansas City, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New York Jets (stupid firing there, in my opinion; the coach takes the heat for the stupidity of their hired gun quarterback (after all, it wasn’t the COACH who threw an NFL-leading 20+ interceptions!)), Seattle (who should be happy to lose Holmgren, who really would have been much better if he hadn’t insisted that he could groom a quarterback out of nothing), Cleveland. Oh, and, of course, those Masters of Ineptitude, the Detroit Liedowns.
Notice that some of those teams have not yet released their head coaches, and may not do so. But it seems to me that the records speak for themselves, and in the case of Kansas City and Cincinnati, I think that both coaches are perfectly good coaches, but simply don’t have the right fit where they are, for whatever reason.
Oakland Raiders: not sure what they should do about Tom Cable. 4 - 8 not a bad result, especially when the last two were wins, one over a team that could have been in the playoffs. But his head coaching efforts in the past were not exactly awesome (Idaho was really bad under him). And, of course, who knows what’s going on in Al Davis’ mind!? Probably they are in need of someone, too.
So who should go where? There will be a lot of movement. Are there any assistant coaches that could/should move up? And the inevitable question: are any of them “black?”
That team really did suck at the end of the year: if not for an inexplicable play call by my Bills a few weeks ago, they’d have ended the season with a five-game losing streak and been 8-8. To me, that points to coaching (and so does the Bills finish, but I think they’ll keep Jauron). Anyway they weren’t going to fire the owner for making the Favre trade.
The Browns were 10-6 last year but they missed the playoffs. New England, Jacksonville, Tennesssee, San Diego, and Indy made the playoffs from the AFC.
Marinelli has been fired. Some of his coaches have also been canned. Coletto was moved to defensive coach after people were screaming for him to get deleted.
It’s hard to compare him to Chris Palmer who had an intentionally (by the NFL) crippled expansion team, but they played with more heart than the 2008 team, and I’m not too familiar with some of the coaches with short stints decades ago, but it’s hard to imagine any of them were worse than him.
When they went 10-6 in 2007 it was actually because Crennel was neutered. The offense was taken away from him entirely after he bungled the whole offensive coordinator situation. So a potent offense which was potent because Crennel didn’t control it, an easy schedule, a surprising Derek Anderson (who Crennel decided wasn’t worth starting over Charlie Frye until the GM forced the situation), and the players taking matters in their own hands (after getting creamed in week 1, Winslow and some other players called a players-only meeting where the players decided they’d take things into their own hands and not suck despite the coaches) were what resulted in the 2007 results.
So, Crennel was left to manage the defense, which regressed, and had his paws taken off the offense, which flourished. Lesson? Crennel must be good! Extend him!
So 2008 sees him de-neutered and back in more control. So the team sucks again. Even the offense sucked - a big part of that was that Anderson got a bad concussion in the preseason and was still clearly not all there through the early season, but Crennel couldn’t handle the controversy if the backup came in for the injured starter and did well, so he put his dopey starter out there, who sucked. Then, in mid-season, as Anderson recovers a bit and starts to suck less, THEN he decides to pull him in favor of Quinn, basically making the worst choice at every turn.
I knew it’d never happen after a 10-6 season, but I wanted him fired then too because I knew he was ridiculously incompetant. 2008 was just a waste having to prove it.
With all three timeouts and 2:21 left in the game, down by seven, 4th & 2 on your own 20, what do you do?
Mangini chose to go for it. That alone earned every bit of his firing, though in general he wavered between bad and incompetent when it came to being a gameday coach.
I admit to being a bit of a homer, but I’d like to see former Redskin Russ Grimm get a chance somewhere. Apparently, Mike Tomlin’s spectacular interview is what kept Grimm from getting the Steelers job. He strikes me as a coach with a lot of “coaching” skills. That is, I don’t see him in the “genius” genre of coaches. I think he’d manage a team well, have them focused and disciplined, and be a leader. Get competent coordinators and a GM who can find some talent, and I think one of these habitual loser teams might turn things around in a few years.
I’m curious as to whether Singletary will keep Mike Martz in San Francisco. I’ve never been a big fan of Martz. I can’t argue with the points he put up in St. Louis, but has he recreated those results in Detroit and SF? I remember at the height of the Rams success, the Redskins manhandled that team just be hitting the receivers hard for a while. Took them out of the game. Upgrade the QB position and get a OC that loves the run, and I bet SF will be a good team next year.
Apparently Martin Mayhew will be given a shot as GM of the Lions. He’s another former Redskin. He’s an African-American. With James Harris leaving Jacksonville, I think he’s one of two black front office execs (with Ozzie Newsome). The Lions have been fairly lousy for so long, that I think they need to think outside the box. Give some fresh blood a chance to do something.
If Marvin Lewis is let go in Cincy, does he get consideration for any of the open jobs? I would lay only a little blame for the Bengals mess on his doorstep.
There are plenty of coaches who have succeeded without being angry, confrontational, in-your-face types. Tony Dungy and Tom Landry are two. At a different level, John Gagliardi has had a modicum of success, despite redefining “laid-back” in terms of coaching.
I’m very, very happy with the 49ers hiring Singletary. I wanted them to do that at the end of last season. When your team is mostly sub-par, a good motivator and leader can do wonders.
I’m not sure about Martz. It would be nice to have the same Offensive Coordinator for two years straight :eek: but he doesn’t seem to have a good slate of Red-Zone plays. Perhaps an upgrade on the O-line would help.
SenorBeef, you clearly know more about the Cleveland situation than I do. I don’t follow the Browns that closely. All I know is that they’re two guaranteed victories for the Steelers every year.
