11/8/03 - The NFL season is half over. It won't be long until it is obvious to even the most diehard fans of certain teams that the squads will underperform those expectations that were held for them. And then the haunting tones to the chorus of “Fire the Coach” will be heard in many sectors of the land. I'll try to get a jump on all of that and tell you now what coaches ought to be feeling just a tad “uncomfortable”. My list has 14 coaches that should at least be sure they know where the Maalox bottle is at all times. For at least a couple of them, they need to have a good realtor on speed dial…
Let's take a tour around the league and start in the AFC West. At the top of the list of coaches that should be concerned for their future employment status is Bill Callahan in Oakland. In my 2002 pre-season analysis, I said that I was concerned about his ability to get the team over any major obstacles that came their way. Well, they had none last year – until they got waxed in the Super Bowl. Now the team is a mess and even the players are calling him out – even though the players are performing at a level far below what had come to be expected of them. The good thing about Callahan is that he works cheap; and since Al Davis is so “involved” it does not make sense for him to have a top drawer – translation: expensive – coach for this team. I think Callahan is GONZO before the Super Bowl is played.
Further south in California, Marty Schottenheimer is no better than a 50/50 shot to finish the year with the Chargers. Some people had this as a playoff team this year; I said they would be the odd-team out in a tough division but they are underperforming even that modest expectation. The Chargers' defense seems to be “talent-deficient” but it was Schottenheimer that weighed in to get Junior Seau and Rodney Harrison released. Seau is a shadow of what he was but is still in the league; Harrison is still a damned good player; the Chargers' defense is just plain bad. So Schottenheimer has to take a lot of blame there. If the Chargers want a new stadium in either San Diego or LA, it will go down a lot easier with the voters if the team is really good and generating excitement. It isn't. I think Schottenheimer is not going to be in San Diego next year.
In the NFC West, the Arizona Cardinals will continue to be a team with a losing record this year. No surprise here and not a big deal in the Phoenix area where people stay away from Cardinals' games in order to find time to do important things like trim their nose hairs. Dave McGinnis is energetic and enthusiastic and outgoing and all that right stuff. So long as he does not let the team become the butt of Jay Leno jokes or so long as he is not caught doing the horizontal rumba with a corpse, I think he will stay with the Cards. But the team ain't gonna win any time soon with this roster.
In the AFC North, some folks are stirring up scenarios where Bill Cowher is on the brink of being replaced. Highly unlikely. After being there for a LONG time and having done very well with not the best talent in the league for most of that LONG time, one losing season is not going to get him run out of town on a rail. Even though they are 2-6 now, I think they have a shot at breaking even for the second half of the year and finishing at 6-10. Even if the Steelers crater in the second half and finish 4-12, Cowher should be solid in his job.
Butch Davis in Cleveland is also probably safe in his job, but I'm not sure he ought to be. His teams are undisciplined – please recall the Dwayne Rudd helmet toss last season – and his clubhouse is hardly unified. Team ownership seems to love him in Cleveland, but I wonder how well he will go over there if this team goes 6-10 and next year's team starts off 2-7… Davis will survive to next year but then all bets are off.
In the NFC North, Dick Jauron needs the Bears to finish 8-8 to keep his job. They might actually do that even though the team is miserable, but it is a stretch. And it should be noted that Jauron did not assemble this team; the GM, Jerry Angelo, is the architect of this mess. At the moment the Bears are 3-5; on the schedule for the rest of the year are Detroit, Arizona and Washington. That could give the Bears six wins. Now with just two Herculean efforts in games against superior teams… Not gonna happen. One of the Chicago columnists has been calling him “Coach-for-now Dick Jauron”; that columnist will be proven to have been prescient soon after the final game of this season; Jauron is probably outta there.
In the AFC South, all the coaches are safe and sound. Jack Del Rio seemed to be in over his head before the year started and now he has shown that he is REALLY in over his head. But it is way too soon to pull the trigger on this guy – unless the team soils itself for the rest of the year and goes 1-15. Del Rio will be back for at least one more year. Hopefully he learned from the incident of the ax in the locker room and the season theme of “Keep chopping wood.” Next year it would not be a good idea to put an Uzi there and use the slogan, “Just keep firing.”
In the NFC South, Dan Reeves is virtually assured of getting axed in Atlanta. The reason the Falcons are as miserable as they are is that Michael Vick got hurt in the preseason; that was not Reeves' fault. However, the rest of this team is playing so badly that they are an embarrassment. And with a new owner in Atlanta who is very sensitive to marketing and public perception of his product, I suspect that Dan Reeves will be out of work soon. Interestingly, Dennis Green's former agent is now a VP and Chief Admin Officer for the Falcons. You wouldn't suppose that Dennis would have an inside track here…
In New Orleans, Jim Haslett ought to be sweating. The Saints are under .500 now and if they tank in December the way they have tanked in the last two seasons, then they will probably finish 6-10. That could get Haslett fired. And that might make Bill Parcells edgy. If Haslett is gone, then Parcells is the hands down winner of the award for the ugliest dyed hair on the sidelines of any NFL team. The thing that provides cover for Haslett is that he still has 3 years and about $10M to run on his contract after this year and Tom Benson – Saints' owner – is frugal to put it very politely. A record of 6-10 is not awful enough to get him fired but if the team quits enough to do that this year, they look capable of going 3-13 next year. And that should get him fired next year.
In the AFC East, the expectations for the Dolphins were so high this year that Dave Wannstedt needs to go to the AFC Championship Game to prevent the season being labeled as “disappointing” or “disastrous”. I don't think he is going there. I suspect that Miami will make the playoffs but not the AFC Championship Game. That will probably be good enough to keep Wannstedt in Miami for another season – but not much longer than that without a trip to the AFC Championship Game or better. If the Dolphins collapse so thoroughly in December that they miss the playoffs, Wannstedt will be jettisoned within a week after the season is over.
The Jets' season is guaranteed to fall short of what every Jets' fan had penciled in during training camp. Injuries are to blame and not Herm Edwards. Edwards has shown the ability to pull a team together when it is in danger of flying to pieces but expecting them to win out against the rest of their schedule so that they can make the playoffs this year is unrealistic. Edwards will be back next year when he will be expected to go 10-6 in the regular season and get into the playoffs at the very least.
The Bills were supposed to be better than a 4-4 team at this point of the year and their wins are not particularly impressive; three of them have come against Washington, Cincy and Jax. I see a 7-9 finish for this team and that may not be good enough for Greg Williams to keep his job. That's a shame because any team known as the “Bills” should be a perfect fit for a coach named “Williams”. I say he is fired after the season is over.
Finally in the NFC East you have the Danny Boy Snyder and Steve Spurrier sideshow. Spurrier is certainly taking major hits from the national media and the local outlets have been far less polite to and about him than they have with coaches in the past. Nevertheless, if Danny Boy fires him, Spurrier is entitled to $15M. Danny Boy can afford it; but at some level, it ought to gall him to know that yet another of his splashy media-event personnel moves turned out to be as bad an idea as holding a spelling bee in Arkansas. I suspect that Spurrier gets a pass into next season – unless the Skins lose out for the year or continue to be ridiculed by the game commentators and the ESPN folks.
I would have fired Jim Fassel long ago, but I don't own the Giants. This team has to be frustrating to its fans because they play up or down to the level of their opponent; there is no killer instinct here. At 4-4 now, Fassel is safe but the expectations for this team included “playoffs” and “division title”. Looking at the schedule ahead of the Giants, the season could wind up with the Giants at 8-8 and watching the playoffs on TV, which would turn up the heat on Fassel. I suspect he will be back next year so long as the team does not tank in December.
Stay tuned. There are lots more plot twists and intrigues to come.
But don't get me wrong, I love sports...
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