I would have loved to see Green and Sanders (and maybe Chris Johnson) race if you could have them all in their primes at full speed.
I would have loved to see Green and Sanders (and maybe Chris Johnson) race if you could have them all in their primes at full speed.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/playof...ory?id=6091766
Now that's a depressing-from-Hell story.
--- Alan
:(Originally Posted by Alan Dunkin
So, the Titans have officially made Mike Munchak coach. Jumping from OL coach to HC is a pretty big leap. However, he's had chances to be an OC and didn't take them. Plus, I'm not sure that being a coordinator is essentially to being a HC. Much will depend on the coordinators he gets. I think Dinger will stay for this year (if Munch wants him). We'll see about the DC. Mangini maybe?
Tennessee fans are going to miss Fisher greatly.
Well, how many non-coordinators jumped straight to HC with success? I'd guess special teams counts too, but from DL/OL or positional coach straight to HC? I can't recall anyone who has done that with any success, but I can think of quite a few that didn't (Marinelli,Tice,Singletary,Zorn).
You'd better hope for Mangini or a name guy for DC, Robert. This smells a little too much like Mike Singeltary in SF.
OFFENSIVE LINE COACH TO HEAD COACH IS AN AWESOME THING
HEY WHAT STATE DIS I GROW UP IN AGAIN
I WOULD LIKE TO DEFEND MY ALLCAPS B/c decades of failure
if only because it appears bud adams doesn't know how to hire a better coach, not so much because fisher was any good
Rimbo's right. Fisher was simply not a great coach. He was good (sometimes), but not great. I would honestly rather have Munchak than Fisher right now. So no matter what happens, I doubt I'll miss Fisher that much. The Titans aren't likely to have a good season this year, no matter who is coaching. They don't have a QB, which is pretty critical. And there may not be an offseason training program this year, which makes it nearly impossible to bring in a guy and get him really ready.
Good start, firing the cancer striken offensive coordinator.
They probably could have handled that better.
If I'm not mistaken, Andy Reid and John Harbaugh are the only two I can think of. Coincidently, Harbaugh was a positional coach under Reid.
So you can't fire people who have cancer, even though they are incompetent at their jobs? Also, it's common practice to let the assistant coaches go when a new coach comes in. I guarantee you that Dinger wouldn't want to be treated differently because of his cancer. It's just a way that ESPN is making the story sound worse than it is.
You forgot Jim Zorn.
Oh...right...you said with success...
Raheem Morris, current head coach of the Bucs, was a DB coach before being elevated to the top job. His only experience above the positional level in his entire career was single year as DC for Kansas State.
I didn't say they couldn't make a change, just that they could have handled it better. And calling Heimerdinger "incompetent" is a bit of a stretch. As bad a season as the Titans had, they were still an average team in terms of offensive points scored. Not to mention that he was OC for many years with the Titans, including many good years. You can't seperate him from that.
I didn't mean incompetent to apply to Dinger per se. I just meant that if someone isn't doing the job that the boss wants, but happens to have cancer, you should still be able to fire that person. As someone who watched every game though, I can tell you that the Titans offense did not look good, and at least some of it was coaching. Points scored average is pretty good, but look at their opponents. They got most of the scoring against teams that weren't very good, and the defense and ST scored some too. The offense was predictable and didn't make good use of its talent.
But mainly the new coach wants to go a different direction, and they are already behind schedule on making changes like this, so I'm not sure how else they could have handled it. What is a better way to fire someone?
BTW, I'm not just trying to be a homer here. I think the Titans have made many terrible moves over the years and handled a lot of things poorly. This includes telling everyone they plan to cut Vince Young if they can't trade him. That makes it a bit hard to trade a guy. They locked McNair out of the offices before they let him go. They cut Godfrey after getting him to rework his deal, which left a very sour taste. I'm just not sure how else they could have gone about this particular firing.
Hey, I hear that the 49ers might bring Alex Smith back. Why would that be?
Teams can still try and resign their own players. So the 49ers may be figuring that bringing back Smith will give them some options as they develop a draft pick since they may not have a chance to bring in a free agent QB. Or maybe Harbaugh thinks he might as well give fixing Smith a shot. They can always cut Smith later if things develop differently, but it does probably say something about what Harbaugh thinks of the rest of the QBs on the roster.
This "ticketgate" fiasco is really getting bad for the NFL. ProFootballWeekly posted this story, which describes the experience of one of the "lucky" fans who actually got a replacement seat. The whole thing was clearly a disaster despite the NFL's claim that about 2/3rds of those displaced (which would include this particular fan) got equal or better seats and that only 1/3 were left out in the cold. (Though it is admittedly hard to feel all that sorry for someone who can a) afford those prices to begin with and b) has already been to two other Superbowls.)
Meanwhile, the lawsuits have already begun.
I've been trying to find out a little bit more about the ongoing collective bargaining agreement negotations.
About all of the sporting press has been characterizing the position of the two sides like this: The NFL owners are confident that the bubble is about to burst on their business model not unlike the late 1990s internet bubble or 2000s housing bubble. Given impending "hard times" some restructuring is necessary which is lawyer speak for reducing player salaries.
The NFLPA's response to that is: Fine. We don't really believe you, and there are obvious reasons why analogies to the dot com bubble and housing market bubble are wrong. If such hard times are pending, then show us the books for all the teams and convince us that the threat is real and we'll be reasonable about sharing the risk with you.
The owners' response to that is -- well, what the media is reporting as the the owners' response isn't terribly convincing. It's either a "we're not going to do that" or a more lame, "showing the books wasn't necessary in the past."
What I'm interested in reading is whether the owners' response is *truly* that lame. Or a better analysis of why the owners' argument makes sense. I don't have any illusions, both sides are interested in making the most profit possible. Can't blame 'em.
But the whole, "you'll just have to trust us" as a negotiating tactic just doesn't seem very smart. It sounds like a bad bluff, but perhaps I'm all wrong about that.
Last edited by Hiredgoons; 02-11-2011 at 12:36 AM.
I think the owners are just trying to take a big bite and get whatever they can whether it is the 18 game season (which is a terrible idea totally driven by profit) or the decreased rookie pay.
Personally, I hope the owners don't get shit.
About Alex Smith returning, I hope it works out for him. Obviously, he will never be Aaron Rodgers but I can see him being McNabb in his prime with the right situation. The big problem I see is that Frank Gore is not going to be able to keep up this pace much longer. Amazing running back but he isn't invincible.
The way the expiring system was setup was that the league got to take $1b off the top of annual revenues for "infrastructure expenses" (to pay for stadium expenses and other things that both players and owners benefit from) and then the rest was split with the players getting something like 58% on average. The players were fine with this. But what is happening now is that the owners want to increase the "off the top" chunk, thus reducing the share the players get. Basically the owners want to reduce the players share by about $1b. Keep in mind that revenues this season were expected to be about $9b total, so that's significant.
The owners basically claim that at least some teams are marginal in terms of profit at this point, though they aren't providing details. The Packers are the only team that is required (as a publicly held team) to provide financial details and last season they stated a profit of less then $10m. The problem is that while the NFL shares a lot of revenue equally, and it's this shared revenue that is used to calculate the salary cap and players share, some teams make way more then others on non-shared revenue. So the players argue that while some teams may be marginal, others are probably rolling in money that the players don't get a share of. And on top of that, the owners benefit solely when franchises are sold, something players think needs to be factored in.
Personally, I am tired of hearing about it already. If they could just shut and not tell us anything else until a deal is done, I would be happy.
I am on the player's side. They are putting their bodies on the line. They deserve the lion's share of the profits.
The NFL is a money-making machine. I don't see the bubble bursting. Most of us tune in and watch it for free every Sunday. It's not a big expense for most fans so even in a down economy fans will still tune in and watch.
I see some value in a rookie salary cap, but in return those rookies need good bonus clauses and they need the be able to become free agents more quickly. I'd' say let them become unrestricted free agents after three years.
I'm on my side. Millionaires vs Billionaires, hard for me to get beind either side. I just want football.
Yeah, that. Get something moderately fair for all, continue to pay millions to players and billions to owners and let me have football. I do not begrudge anyone their money, but do not throw it in my face that you want billions more to make things all right for you and yours and you will stop football for that. That is when I call bullshit.
The owners really don't want to open up their financial records for everyone to see, but they have been pointing to the Green Bay Packers, who are the only publicly owned team in the league. As such, their records are freely available, and they do actually show that while their operating costs have been steadily climbing, their profits have been declining. That's all well and good, but the players really aren't satisfied with that since the Packers are by far the smallest market in the NFL and may not be a good representative of every team.
I'm just flabbergasted that the owners of NFL teams really are so interested in profit-making. Isn't owning a sports team supposed to be a vanity project, your chance to trade in your wealth for celebrity and status? If you can do that in a mostly break-even way, that'd be a pretty good deal; to expect to make money off it too... well, that's a bit much, isn't it?
For some owners that's very true. Paul Allen, owner of the Seahawks, doesn't really care if the team makes a big profit or not. On the other hand are guys like Jerry Jones, who basically sold everything he had to buy the Cowboys. Now it's his family business. For that group of owners, profit is important.
Another angle to consider is the impact of signing bonuses on team finances. A signing bonus is essentially borrowing from future earnings for both the player and the team. So teams need to have some cash on hand every year for that stuff. That change is one of the big reasons we've seen so many new stadiums built in the last 10 years or so. They need better stadiums (and better stadium deals) to generate that money, or at least the lesser financed owners do.
There are a lot of ways the owners could solve their problems other then reducing the players share of the overall pie. But its easier for owners to unite to take it from the players then it is to ask richer teams to share more of their local, unshared money with teams that haven't been as aggressive in generating more of their own.
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