The Sports Curmudgeon

Okay, yesterday’s rant was NFL-free. Not today. Today, it’s about NFL coaches. In case you’ve only heard this 727,456 times, there will two Black head coaches in the Super Bowl game this year; there hasn’t been a Black head coach in a Super Bowl game ever before. This fact has already been pounded to death and there are more than eleven days to go until the game. Enough already! In the 40 Super Bowl games to date, there have been 80 head coaches of the Caucasian persuasion. Their cumulative record is 40-40. After this year’s game, there will have been 2 head coaches of color. Their cumulative record will be 1-1. Yet another demonstration of the equality of the races for those looking to make this game into some kind of social statement - - which it is not.

Here’s a slant to Super Bowl hype I haven’t seen yet. Do you think anyone will stick a camera/microphone in Edgerrin James’ face and ask him:

So, just what the hell were you thinking?

Bill Parcells retired. He says he won’t coach again - - but he’s said that before so I’d have to say that only time will tell on that front. His tenure with the Cowboys was better than his recent predecessors’; yet the Cowboys won no playoff games under Parcells. Obviously, I don’t read minds and have no pipeline to Bill Parcells, but I have to think that two situations carried great weight in his decision to retire:

1. He did not need to deal with the likes of Terrell Owens ever again.

2. He did not like what he saw from his team that had a two game lead in the NFC East in early December and responded by losing four of its last five and its last three in a row.

Jerry Jones said he and Parcells would continue to meet and work on the future of the team. That should be good news for Cowboys’ fans if by “continue to meet” Jones means it will happen over the period of time it takes to interview and select the next coach. Owens is due a roster bonus sometime in March/April of this year. The Cowboys better have a coach in place that is comfortable with whatever decision GM Jones makes about Owens and with whatever goofiness GM Jones has in mind for the draft in April. I’m not sure that the Cowboys – as currently structured – are a team on the rise.

The rumors are flying about who will take over in Dallas. Wade Phillips is prominently mentioned; he’s not been successful in a head coaching role twice before. Another name prominently mentioned is Norv Turner who likewise has been unsuccessful in two head coaching stints in the past. However, Turner is a favorite of Troy Aikman who credits Turner for much of his growth/development as a QB. And Heaven knows that Tony Romo might benefit from a coach who was “QB-friendly”; Romo’s never had one of those in the NFL.

They do have a head coach in Oakland. His name is Lane Kiffen. His previous experience in the NFL was one year as a quality-control coach in Jax. No, I don’t know what a quality-control coach does. Maybe he assures that the bagels and lox are fresh when the coaches meet to go over game films early in the morning? Recently, Kiffen was a position coach at USC. His hiring makes sense since the offensive coordinator at USC interviewed for the job and turned the Raiders down; in addition, his colleague at USC – the quarterbacks coach – turned down the job. Think about that; a college position coach turns down one of the 32 head coaching jobs in the NFL; just how unappealing does the situation in Oakland have to be?

Looking at the glass half-full, the Raiders have the #1 pick in the draft and have the chance to select a franchise QB – assuming one is available out there. The Raiders last took a QB with their first draft pick in 1991; that QB was Todd Marinovich; let’s be kind and say that didn’t work out all that well for Al Davis and the team.

Whatever the Raiders do in the off-season, they have to find a way to make their offense productive. I believe that the Raiders scored 12 offensive touchdowns this year; I may have miscounted so I may be off by one – or two at the most. LaDanian Tomlinson scored 31 offensive TD’s this year all by himself; that’s two-and-a-half times more than the Raiders scored as a team.

People point to Al Davis’ previous success in hiring relatively unknown young head coaches and say that Lane Kiffen may be in that mold. He could be; Raider fans have to hope that’s true because there isn’t all that much else in Davis’ recent history to hang one’s hopes on. The last coach in Oakland who was successful over any period of time was Art Shell – in his first incarnation – who got fired in 1994 after six years on the job and a better than .500 record. Since then, Al Davis hired:

Mike White: He lasted two years and achieved mediocrity.

Joe Bugel: He lasted one year; the record was 4-12

Jon Gruden: He took the team to the AFC Championship game (you know that game as “The Tuck Rule Game”). Then Davis was sure he had found the biggest sucker on the planet when he sent Gruden to Tampa in exchange for $8M and four high draft picks. Gruden proceeded to beat the Raiders in the Super Bowl the next season.

Bill Callahan: He lost to Gruden in the Super Bowl and then the team came apart at the seams. Callahan said they were the dumbest team in all of football at one point.

Norv Turner: He got the team with all those extra high draft picks and they turned out to produce nothing of consequence.

Art Shell: Incarnation #2 lasted one year; the record was 2-14.

Enter Lane Kiffen. Unless Al Davis has some magical potion that he’s going to slip into the food consumed by players like Randy Moss and Jerry Porter, Kiffen will find a team that has discipline issues, commitment issues and a horrible offensive line. If Art Shell couldn’t handle this team, what makes anyone think Kiffen can? The fact is that Al Davis calls the shots out there and Al Davis created these problems and most importantly, Al Davis hasn’t found a way to solve them. Shell and his predecessors and now Kiffen are merely along for the ride. The relationship out there is sort of like Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. That’s something for you to look for; when Lane Kiffen holds a news conference, check to see if there’s a hand up his butt somewhere…

There was a time when Al Davis was a creative force in the NFL and someone to be reckoned with in any strategic or tactical confrontation. Those days are gone. If you look at his body of work for the last 5 years – or even the last decade if you will – he’s an owner who ranks right up there with greats such as Leonard Tose. If you’re too young to remember Mr. Tose, go check him out on Google…

Finally, Scott Ostler put the Raiders’ coaching search into perspective in the San Francisco Chronicle recently:

“One good thing about the Raiders’ coaching search (besides that for the time-being there’s no coach for Randy Moss or Jerry Porter to hate on) is that it gets us all well acquainted with the top offensive assistant coaches in college football. In that respect, the Raiders’ search is more like a faculty tea.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…