NFL Coaching Carousel Round-up Part 1

Now that Todd Haley has been hired to coach the Chiefs all NFL head coaching vacancies have been filled. In total ten new coaches were hired, eleven if you count Tom Cable and Mike Singletary who had their interim titles removed. That’s the most coaching changes in one season since at least 1996. There were also notable OC and DC hires as well as front office shifts.

Along with Singletary and Cable, Jim Haslett was the other interim coach this season. After Haslett won his first two games he Rams offered him an automatic extension pending another four victories. The league negated the contract, citing the Rooney rule. It became a moot point as the Rams lost their next ten games, coming within a touchdown only twice. The Rams’ new GM Bil Devaney hired his close friend Steve Spagnuolo on Januray 17 at four years/ $12 million. Spags was set for a HC job after last year’s Super Bowl showcase, but outdid himself guiding this year’s defense from 7th overall to 5th after losing arguably its two best players in Strahan and Osi.

Haslett interviewed for the Green Bay DC job that eventually went to Dom Capers and is now being floated as the Panthers’ DC. Scott Linehan, the Rams’ midseason fire, spurned the 49ers and instead took the Lions’ OC job. Whomever San Fran does hire (Dan Reeves!?) will be their 7th OC in 7 seasons.

The Giants quickly replaced Spags with their Linebackers coach Bill Sheridan. He shares Spagnuolo’s philosophy and Coughlin valued his commitment to an attacking style.

Spagnuolo beat out, among others, Jason Garret for the job. Garret, who last year was such a hot commodity that Jerry Jones had to give him the richest coordinator contract in history, whiffed on all three of his HC interviews this year (Denver, Detroit).

The postseason news that came out of Dallas likely didn’t help:

According to five sources, several offensive players lost respect for Garrett for his failure to corral quarterback Tony Romo in practice. Romo, sources said, often forced throws in practice and often did not treat practice work consistently.

The Cowboys are still trying to hire a DC, after Jerry Jones fired Brian Stewart.

It's further proof that head coach Wade Phillips has very little say at Valley Ranch. Stewart was Phillips' hand-picked defensive coordinator and the two have been close friends since working together in San Diego.

Phillips was ordered by Jones to take over defensive play-calling duties before the Tampa Bay game midway through the 2008 season. Phillips didn't acknowledge that the change had been made until the defense was playing well later in the season.

In his end-of-the-season news conference, Phillips said that Stewart would be back as defensive coordinator. Of course, that's not what happened. Phillips once lost a job in Buffalo because he refused to fire one of his assistants. He wasn't going to let that happen again.

They too brought in Dan Reeves - to inertview for an advising job - but the deal fell apart.

Those Denver and Detroit jobs that Garrett missed out on eventually went to Pats OC Josh McDaniels and Titans DC Jim Schwartz respectively. It’s notable that Martin Mayhew, the man now making the management decisions in Detroit, the man who hired Schwartz, was Matt Millen’s second in command. Steve Mariucci defended the connection, saying “Martin is his own man,” but the endless string of coaching failures during the Fords' ownership is remarkable – it is stunning how often the phrase “never coached again at any level” comes up in that list.

The Shanahan firing was surprising though not unreasonable. No matter the case for or against it, it’s agreed that Shanahan was a bad GM. To wit: hiring three DCs in the past three years, his inability to adequately evaluate defensive talent, and bad contracts (e.g. Daniel Graham for $30 million). On the one hand Shanahan had winning records with three different quarterbacks (he was just under .500 with Cutler) and his system could make a 1,000 yard rusher out of anyone. On the other hand he’d won one playoff game without Elway and closed this season with three straight losses, handing the division to the Chargers. The defense gave up 30, 30, and 52, in those games; it was in the bottom five in points allowed each of the past two years. McDaniels hired the Niner’s mid-season fire Mike Nolan as the Bronco’s fourth DC in four years.

Jon Gruden’s firing was similarly unexpected. Gruden himself was said to be "blindsided." The Glazers explained Gruden’s relatively late removal by emphasizing the prudence of deliberateness. Much like the Broncos the Bucs had a late season collapse that knocked them out of the playoffs, and much like Shanahan Gruden’s post-Super Bowl resume is unimpressive. Unlike Shanahan Gruden has had a consistently good defense and has had even less offensive success. Beyond the numbers, Gruden also was unpopular with his players – Michael Clayton said players felt like they were playing for themselves. Mike Lombardi, his former Raiders GM put it like this:

I once referred to Gruden as the Larry Brown of the NFL. I meant that as a compliment because I love Brown, but when Brown, the well-traveled NBA coach, has control of the personnel on a team, he makes horrible decisions and hates the players he coaches. He wants new, but after new is over, he wants more new. Does that sound familiar?

From Brad Johnson to Chris Simms to Brian Griese to Luke McCown to Jeff Garcia, there was never stability at quarterback, the one position that is vital to a franchise. In addition, this is the one position that Gruden can coach as well as anyone in the league. Yet his refusal to fall in love (I called him the Warren Beatty of quarterbacks coaches a while back in a column) with a quarterback was his downfall in Tampa Bay.

We have all read the reaction of the players on the record — some positive, some negative — but the one consistent theme when you’re talking about Gruden is that he loves football, but loves NO players. The negativity and the inconsistent message to the players never seemed to go over well. Gruden is the type of coach that needs to have consistent turnover in his roster. He needs new players every year and might be best suited for college football since graduation and the NFL draft promote the change he craves.

At 32 Raheem Morris becomes the youngest active NFL head coach and the second youngest all time (Lane Kiffin). He was promoted from DB coach. He hired Jeff Jagodzinski as his OC. Jagodzinski should be revlieved after himself being unexpectedly fired as a penalty for interviewing for the Jets job. The Bucs also promoted the similarly young Mark Dominik to GM, replacing Bruce Allen who had been fired in tandem with Gruden.

-Agent Easy

What no one has mentioned about the Super Bowl: 4 things

1. Plaxico's Touchdown

How is it that the Pats' Defensive Coordinator Dan Pees, or better yet, defensive genius Bill Belichick has escaped blame? Anyone who's watched the Giants play this year (ahem, presumably the NE coaching staff) should've known that they love to throw the jump ball to Plax in the corner. How could Pees and Belichick have called a red zone defense that left Hobbs (5'9") matched up against Plax (6'5") with no help over the top? Take a look at the replay. With its all-out blitz and throw from off the back foot it closely resembles this game-winner from last year.*

There's the oft-uttered line about how a coach is limited in that they don't step on the field and thus the best they can do is put their player in a position to win. Well, this one's on the coaches, the genius Belichick included.

*The audio might be NSFW


2. Where was the Patriots' running game?

Sure, maybe no one is talking about it because they think that since the Pats didn't run much all season, it's no surprise. Yet Belichick's reputation has been based on his ability to game plan for anything and everything. Maroney had his 2nd and 3rd highest carry totals and yardage totals in the Pats two playoff games, so them being one-dimensional isn't a valid explanation. So then, where WAS the running game?

Ten of the Pats sixteen carries came in the 1st half and four of them came on their twelve-play opening drive (which, by the way, produced a TD). In the second half they carried only six times. Maroney ran those six carries for 24 yards, a solid average, so it wasn't that the running game was ineffective. Clearly, it wasn't just a matter of game planning not to run, but rather a deliberate choice to abandon the run.

OK, despite what the numbers suggest, let's assume they're misleading, give the Pats the benefit of the doubt, and presume that they indeed had never intended to run the ball. Perhaps they decided that because when they played the Giants in week 17 their running game was shut down so effectively (26 carries for 44 yards), that it wasnt worth pursuing this time around. But we all know that the passing game is about quality and the running game is about quantity. Even if they wouldn't pick up significant yardage, wouldn't a bigger running game at least keep the defense honest? Wouldn't it have been a little easier on Brady to hit his targets if he wasn't on his back all day?

It's as if they didn't consider any solutions to fixing they're sieve of a line other than some WR screens. Sure, yes, those worked well, but why didn't they run more draws for example? According to Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders,* the Pats ran more draws than any team in the league, and the Giants had been abysmal at stopping the draw all year (fitting for a pass-rush team, Schatz points out). Yet in the SB the Pats only ran one draw! (It went for 15 yards, but the net gain was only three because of a hold).

And finally, they only called only one run on their final scoring drive. It's tough to argue with play-calling that resulted in a go-ahead 4th quarter TD, but maybe a run play or two on that last drive would've ticked off those precious seconds that were still left for Eli. Or better yet, if they hadn't abondoned the run to begin with, maybe they wouldn't have needed that drive to pull ahead. Maybe they could've been killing the clock, lead in hand.

*Schatz doesn't say so on the website, but rather during Bill Simmons' 1/31 podcast, around the 16 minute mark.


3. The Fumble

Does anyone remember the Eli Manning fumble? I remember it as the Ahmad Brashaw fumble, but the official box score says otherwise, so we'll go with the former. The reason you may not remember it is because it hasn't been shown among any of the highlights. (I can't speak for regional Boston coverage, but here's the NFL network for example).

Let me refresh your memory: middle of the second quarter, Manning and Bradshaw botch the handoff exchange at the NYG 32 yard line, New England player falls on it, Bradshaw jumps on top and wrestles the ball away, Giants retain possession. The interesting thing about the recovery is that it wasn't your standard pile-on where who knows what kind of tickling and pinching happens, and the ball exchanges hands an unknowable amount of times. No, in this case Bradshaw pounced on the defender and snatched the ball away from him while on top and in plain view. It was so blatant that I was surprised by the call, and even more surprised that Buck and Aikman didn't debate whether or not Belichick would challenge. (It's more understandable why Belichick in fact didn't challenge, as it's very possible that the evidence wouldn't have been indisputable. Again, I say "possible" because I haven't seen the play since).

I'm not saying it should have been Patriots ball, it might have been the right call. I'm just pointing out that the absence of the play from the highlight reel (every highlight reel!) is just as conspicuous as Bradshaw's grab. It's seems a curious production decision, as if every producer was concerned about possibly stirring up controversy, as if they didn't want to taint the Giants' day. Not surprisingly, I can't find the clip anywhere on youtube and the only thing a google search turned up is a mention by a fan on a giants message board, "we got extremely lucky."


4. Plax's Heart

Maybe the biggest story that no one is talking about is Plax's effort, not necessarily just in the Super Bowl, but throughout the year.

Plax has played the entire season with a dislocated ankle. He's played large parts of the season with a hurt back and more recently a sprained MCL. He would heal during the week, sitting out practice, and then play on Sunday. After the loss to Minnesota, Sean Salsbury called for the Giants to sit him because he was hurting the offesnive chemistry. And at the time, this was a reasonable argument, as Salsbury made the case that it usually took Eli and Plax the first half of a game to get in sync, and by then it was sometimes too late.

Of course the Giants didn't sit him, and while he practiced but twice since week two, Plax played in every single game this year. His statline: 70 receptions for 1,025 and 12 TDs.

So why doesn't he get any love? Is it because he's considered flashy? Nah, not flashy; no one would put Plax in the same boat as Chad Johnson and TO, but the image of him coming off the field and instantly making sure that his visor is cocked to the side does stir doubts about focus. Irreverent maybe? There's the history of an ostensible lack of effort. Maybe it's a little of all of the above. After all, Pittsburgh's Post-Gazette felt the need to put a positive spin on his tenure with the Steelers after he left.

Whatever it is exactly, the media hasn't deemed him deserving of the kind of praise they love to heap on the likes of Zach Thomas, Wes Welker, or his former teammate Hines Ward. Rarely do we hear about Plax' toughness or heart, or how he's a "complete football player."

But Plax does deserves that kind of adulation. Not only did he ignore the pain and show up on game day as his stats testify, but he did so as the focus of the Giants offense. He was their number one option, not just statistically, but more importantly, psychologically. He's the one the defenses keyed on. He embraced that responsibility, and we never heard him complain.

The first time he said anything about his injuries was after the Super Bowl when he was asked about his game-winning touchdown. "I gave him a slant fake, he bit it, Eli put it up there and I came down with it. I just told myself, 'God, if you could just get me out here tonight, based on what I've been through all year with the knee and the ankle and the back and everything.' I'm just so grateful for the opportunity and I just told myself I can come out here tonight and compete I would give God all the glory."