With the sporadic writing here in Curmudgeon Central over the Holidays, I did not have the opportunity to comment on a small matter that produced a headline for a day or so and then slipped quietly into the night.
- Jim Laranaga stepped down as the head basketball coach at the University of Miami.
Laranaga is a basketball lifer; he played for Providence in the late 60s and took a job as a graduate assistant coach at Providence in 1971 right after he graduated. He has been an assistant coach or a head coach at the collegiate level ever since then. Laranaga is 75 years old and has clearly earned his retirement days; twice he took teams to the Final Four (Geroge Mason and Miami) and even when his teams lacked the talent level to be a top-shelf contender, those teams always played hard and made opponents earn any victories.
As he announced his resignation, Laranaga cited his desire to spend more time with his family meaning someone else needed to spend extra time with the team since he no longer would be able to do that. Frankly, that is an obligatory aside in any resignation/retirement statement; here is part of his statement that caught my attention:
“The University needs a new leader of the program, one who is both adept at and embracing of the new world of intercollegiate athletics.”
Jim Laranaga is another victim of the unintended consequences of “paying college players” and “NIL cooperatives”. He joins a growing list of college coaches – – in basketball and in football – – who simply do not want to be a part of what college sports have become. If you want, you can say something akin to “Good riddance” to those folks who refuse to embrace “change”. Or, you can say that the jury is still out as to whether the new incarnation of collegiate athletics is in fact better overall than it used to be.
Specifically, I hope Jim Laranaga has a long and satisfying retirement. Bonne chance, good sir.
Moving on … With the NFL regular season over as of last night, I was thinking back on events in the last offseason that were considered to be impactful at the time but just did not work out. The one that spurred my thinking was the Falcons’ signing of Kirk Cousins to be their franchise QB – – only to have the team also take Michael Penix, Jr. with a Top-10 Draft pick. The Cousins deal was for 4 years and had about $100M guaranteed and I remember thinking that the Falcons were going to try and emulate what the Packers did with Aaron Rodgers who sat for 4 years while Brett Favre finished his career in Green Bay before turning the keys to the car over to Rodgers. I thought that made sense.
There is a thing known as “Buyer’s Remorse”. Basically, it is a feeling of regret experienced by some folks soon after they have made an extravagant/expensive acquisition. I was thinking this morning that the Falcons may be feeling Buyer’s Remorse about now with that large guaranteed payment hanging over the team’s salary cap status. And then I realized that there were a couple other “trumpeted moves” from last offseason that just did not work out the way they were envisioned.
The Jets traded for Hassan Reddick giving up a third-round pick to acquire him. Reddick wanted a new deal, and the Eagles were not inclined to give it to him; hence, the trade. In 2023 with the Eagles, Reddick recorded 11 sacks and 13 tackles for a loss; getting him for a third-round pick seemed like a good idea. The problem was that Reddick was very serious about wanting a new contract and he held out from the Jets’ Training Camp plus for several weeks of the regular season. In 2024, Reddick only appeared in 10 games, and he produced 1 sack and 2 tackles for a loss. That is a significant reduction in performance and clearly could not have been part of the Jets’ thinking last year.
Lest anyone think I am picking on the Jets here, the Eagles had a need to replace Reddick on their roster; remember he gave them 11 sacks in 2023. So, the Eagles chose to sign Bryce Huff as a free agent which had an ironic note to it:
- Huff had been an edge rusher/DE for the Jets in 2023 and had recorded 10 sacks and 10 tackles for loss.
On the surface, it looked as if the Eagles had replaced Reddick’s onfield production at a contractual level they were happy with AND they had pocketed a third-round draft pick for their troubles. Let me channel Lee Corso here:
“Not so fast, my friend…”
Huff appeared in 12 games for the Eagles in 2024 and needed surgery for a wrist injury in mid-season. In those 12 games, Huff produced 2.5 sacks, 3 tackles for loss and 1 forced fumble. Neither player turned out to be nearly as productive as envisioned at signing time.
One other move that turned out to be a bad one involved Diontae Johnson. Back before the Draft last year, the Steelers traded Johnson to the Panthers for CB. Donte Jackson and a low-round draft pick. The Panthers’ offense was anemic in 2023; Johnson was supposed to give them a credible deep threat at WR. Diontae Johnson’s season in 2024 was basically a disappointing downward spiral:
- He played 7 games for the Panthers catching 30 passes for 3 TDs.
- In mid-season the Panthers sent him to the Ravens for a late-round pick swap. That had to be disappointing to the Panthers’ braintrust, but the team did not fall apart after sending him off.
- For the Ravens he played in 4 games and caught 1 pass for 6 yards. He also refused to enter a game for the Ravens when another WR was injured. Naturally, the Ravens just waived him.
- The Texans took Johnson off waivers; he played 1 game in Houston and caught 2 passes for 12 yards.
I guess the Texans might be happy with their move to acquire Johnson since it cost them only a waiver claim; the Panthers and Ravens are probably not happy with their acquisition decisions.
Finally, having focused today on the concept of “Buyer’s Remorse” let me suggest that the part of our society over the last several decades where this concept should be easily recognized is the political realm. How many politicians have we the people elected to a wide range of offices who subsequently did not perform or produce as promised? Sadly …
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………