Well, Mora did have a couple of USFL championship rings. Sure, they were made out of plastic and came out of a Crackerjack box, but still.
I wouldn’t attribute to Bledsoe what could be much better attributed to poor play-calling. I don’t know how much leeway Bledsoe is given with audibles and plays, but the Bills were time and time again being given plays to run that had no prayer of working…even with Bledsoe’s talent.
Yea, he’s so bad that he did it four times! He’s as bad as Marv Levy! :rolleyes:
As to the Bungles…They have talent. Kitna, while not Unitas, did have the best numbers in the league for about 6 weeks this year. Dillon is one of the top 5 backs in the NFl. Spikes is the kind of player to build a defense around ( See Ray Lewis in Baltimore ), they played hard for 60 minutes in almost all their games…and yet they were 2-14. I have to think coaching is where to look. MHO, Brian Billick has this team at 8-8 if he had been their coach this year.
Fun topic, with lots of good debate.
Here’s an article listing the WORST TEAMS of all time, maybe we can dig up some more names from even further in the past here, even though a few of these teams might have had good coaches, bad ownership:
In between Buck Shaw and the 1960 NFL Championship team, and Dick Vermeil taking over the helm in 1976, the Eagles had a succession of mediocre coaches that you could roll up into one big piece of garbage:
NICK SKURICH
10-4
3-10-1
2-10-2
(15-24-3)
JOE KUHARICH
6-8
5-9
9-5
6-7-1
(26-29-1)
JERRY WILLIAMS
4-9-1
3-10-1
6-7-1
(13-26-3)
ED KHAYHAT
2-11-1
MIKE MCCORMACK (who would later coach the Baltimore Colts to a 1-15 season)
5-8-1
7-7
4-10
(16-25-1)
In all fairness, the Eagles during this era were not a model franchise at this time.
As for coaches I have seen, and am familiar with, it is hard to beat Rich Kotitte for pure buffonery.
http://members.tripod.com/~itpa/kotite.html
Met him once, he was a hell of a nice guy.
As for Biggest Coaching Frauds, coaches who were clearly overrated because of their records, I’d go with:
** BARRY SWITZER
BUDDY RYAN
GEORGE SEIFERT
BRIAN BILLICK**
BTW, Barry Switzer was a total bonehead as a coach as is that big mouth Billick, but I guess it’s hard to put a guy on the list that won the Super Bowl
Yeah, I knew I wasn’t going to get much support for a guy with 100 plus wins and a career record over .500 in more than a decade of coaching.
But I would argue that Mora has had a lot more talent at his disposal than the rest of these guys. The Saints of the early 90’s had dominant defenses, as good, in my opinion, as the Bears, Giants, and Ravens defenses that led those teams to Super Bowl wins. In 92 the Saints sent three linebackers to the Pro-Bowl, the most ever for one team. In 93, they topped that by sending four. That was arguably the best squad of linebackers ever (outside of maybe LT, Pepper Johnson and anyone wearing pants). Admittedly, Bobby Hebert wasn’t much of a QB, but if Hostetler and Dilfer can win Super Bowls, Mora should have been able to win a few wildcard games with those teams at the very least. With the Colts, Mora had probably the best QB/RB/WR trio in the league for a few years, and still he seemed to lose every big game that came his way. And then he had a hissy fit in front of a room full of reporters and said his team had no heart.
Of course you’re right. With that many years in the league and that many wins, it’s unlikely he’s the worst coach in NFL history. But he’s the last guy I’d hire.