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Feb. 15, 2007, 2:58 PM ET
NFL coaching parade has lost some sizzle
By Pat Forde
ESPN.com
It might be early to come up with the National Football League's 2007 slogan, but try this one on for size:
New Blood
The six new NFL head coaches (with San Diego still to hire):
Whisenhunt
Ken Whisenhunt, Arizona
Phillips
Wade Phillips, Dallas
cameron
Cam Cameron, Miami
Petrino
Bobby Petrino, Atlanta
Kiffin
Lane Kiffin, Oakland
Tomlin
Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh
A complete look at all the new NFL coaches can be found here.
The Year of the Sideline Strangers.
There is a sudden and staggering loss of charisma and experience in the head coaching ranks of the NFL. Personalities and big names are disappearing faster than jobs at Chrysler.
Bill Cowher (149 career victories) is gone. Bill Parcells (172 career victories) is gone. And now, this week, Marty Schottenheimer (200 career victories) is gone. At season's end, they were merely the three winningest coaches in the league.
Throw in the firing of Dennis "They're Who We Thought They Were" Green, and the league lost four coaches with more than 100 career wins. Only six century men remain: Mike Holmgren (147 wins) Joe Gibbs (145), Mike Shanahan (131), Tony Dungy (114), Bill Belichick (111) and Jeff Fisher (105).
So where has the NFL turned to offset this brain drain?
The Tuna and The Chin have been replaced by The Who? (That's Wade Phillips and Mike Tomlin, respectively.) MartyBall probably will be replaced by a Low-Profile Assistant To Be Named Later. (Unless Mike Singletary gets the San Diego job. That's at least a name that needs no introduction, even if he's a head coach who has no track record.)
Then there is toddler Lane Kiffin at Oakland, the latest puppet coach trying to channel Al Davis' outdated brilliance. In Miami there is Cam Cameron, whose head-coaching résumé consists of an 18-37 record in five seasons at Indiana University. In Atlanta there is Bobby Petrino, whose college head-coaching résumé looks great, but whose idea of brutal honesty is a white lie.
(Petrino is not opposed to telling flagrant lies, either. That trait might serve him well in the NFL, especially when it's time to fill out the Thursday injury report. But flairless lying is a fairly poor substitute for a personality.)
And I don't want to leave out the new coach in Phoenix. Whoever he is.
So that's your replacement roster.
Seven coaches leave -- six with winning career records, and the seventh with a college national championship to his credit. All in all, an accomplished group.
Parcells, whose glowering presence, two Super Bowl rings and three Super Bowl appearances made him an almost mythic figure, is out. Cowher, whose spit-spewing intensity and two Super Bowl appearances left its own indelible mark, is out. Schottenheimer, whose regular-season successes and playoff disasters at least gave him a national niche, is out. Green, the winningest African-American coach in league history until Dungy won the Super Bowl, is out. So are Art Shell (56-52 career record), Jim Mora Jr. (26-22) and Nick Saban (15-17, but the aforementioned title at LSU).
In their place comes a bunch of short-order cooks from Waffle House.
But that is today's NFL. Coaches are getting younger and, by default, less experienced and less well-known. Everyone is looking for the next Lovie Smith or Sean Payton. Somebody is going to wind up with the next Dave Campo or Bruce Coslet.
Without even knowing who gets the job in San Diego, 12 NFL head coaches in 2007 will be in either their first or second year on the job. Just seven current coaches have winning career playoff records. Just three have been to more than one Super Bowl.
And in the current league, you don't have a huge surplus of coaches with outsized personalities or personas -- even among the guys we've heard of.
Dungy is a classy guy who makes George Will seem positively madcap. Lovie Smith is cut from the same bland cloth. Joe Gibbs is a nice name who appears to have left his coaching mojo behind in the early '90s. (Paging Timmy Smith, come in Timmy Smith.) Andy Reid suddenly has much larger issues than being entertaining. Bill Belichick has made a personality out of no personality, I guess -- the unsmiling Type A pseudo-genius who dresses like a vagrant and carries grudges for centuries. Mike Shanahan is a strategy wonk, probably bored to tears when the dinner-party conversation doesn't veer toward goal-line packages and five-receiver sets. Tom Coughlin is misery personified. Mike Holmgren at least has some visual recognition and cache, but is socked away in the Pacific Northwest.
Among second-year head coaches, Brad Childress, Scott Linehan, Gary Kubiak and The Gentleman Coaching The Lions Whose Name Escapes Me bring nothing to the party.
Is this trend away from star coaches a good thing?
We'll see.
It's never bad when the athletes are the stars of the show instead of ego-stoked, control-freak coaches. In any sport. And the NFL has a fabulous array of athletes in starring roles.
But in the most telegenic league of them all, there is plenty of time between plays for cutaway video and commentary about the head coach. And if the cutaway video consists of an endless array of unfamiliar faces tensely mumbling into their headphones, it might not resonate with the Rozelle Focus Group.
On the positive side, this offseason should provide a bull market for TV analysts. And you can bet that Parcells, Cowher and Schottenheimer's names will be brought up every time one of the colorless current coaches loses two games in a row.
Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.
NFL coaching parade has lost some sizzle
By Pat Forde
ESPN.com
It might be early to come up with the National Football League's 2007 slogan, but try this one on for size:
New Blood
The six new NFL head coaches (with San Diego still to hire):
Whisenhunt
Ken Whisenhunt, Arizona
Phillips
Wade Phillips, Dallas
cameron
Cam Cameron, Miami
Petrino
Bobby Petrino, Atlanta
Kiffin
Lane Kiffin, Oakland
Tomlin
Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh
A complete look at all the new NFL coaches can be found here.
The Year of the Sideline Strangers.
There is a sudden and staggering loss of charisma and experience in the head coaching ranks of the NFL. Personalities and big names are disappearing faster than jobs at Chrysler.
Bill Cowher (149 career victories) is gone. Bill Parcells (172 career victories) is gone. And now, this week, Marty Schottenheimer (200 career victories) is gone. At season's end, they were merely the three winningest coaches in the league.
Throw in the firing of Dennis "They're Who We Thought They Were" Green, and the league lost four coaches with more than 100 career wins. Only six century men remain: Mike Holmgren (147 wins) Joe Gibbs (145), Mike Shanahan (131), Tony Dungy (114), Bill Belichick (111) and Jeff Fisher (105).
So where has the NFL turned to offset this brain drain?
The Tuna and The Chin have been replaced by The Who? (That's Wade Phillips and Mike Tomlin, respectively.) MartyBall probably will be replaced by a Low-Profile Assistant To Be Named Later. (Unless Mike Singletary gets the San Diego job. That's at least a name that needs no introduction, even if he's a head coach who has no track record.)
Then there is toddler Lane Kiffin at Oakland, the latest puppet coach trying to channel Al Davis' outdated brilliance. In Miami there is Cam Cameron, whose head-coaching résumé consists of an 18-37 record in five seasons at Indiana University. In Atlanta there is Bobby Petrino, whose college head-coaching résumé looks great, but whose idea of brutal honesty is a white lie.
(Petrino is not opposed to telling flagrant lies, either. That trait might serve him well in the NFL, especially when it's time to fill out the Thursday injury report. But flairless lying is a fairly poor substitute for a personality.)
And I don't want to leave out the new coach in Phoenix. Whoever he is.
So that's your replacement roster.
Seven coaches leave -- six with winning career records, and the seventh with a college national championship to his credit. All in all, an accomplished group.
Parcells, whose glowering presence, two Super Bowl rings and three Super Bowl appearances made him an almost mythic figure, is out. Cowher, whose spit-spewing intensity and two Super Bowl appearances left its own indelible mark, is out. Schottenheimer, whose regular-season successes and playoff disasters at least gave him a national niche, is out. Green, the winningest African-American coach in league history until Dungy won the Super Bowl, is out. So are Art Shell (56-52 career record), Jim Mora Jr. (26-22) and Nick Saban (15-17, but the aforementioned title at LSU).
In their place comes a bunch of short-order cooks from Waffle House.
But that is today's NFL. Coaches are getting younger and, by default, less experienced and less well-known. Everyone is looking for the next Lovie Smith or Sean Payton. Somebody is going to wind up with the next Dave Campo or Bruce Coslet.
Without even knowing who gets the job in San Diego, 12 NFL head coaches in 2007 will be in either their first or second year on the job. Just seven current coaches have winning career playoff records. Just three have been to more than one Super Bowl.
And in the current league, you don't have a huge surplus of coaches with outsized personalities or personas -- even among the guys we've heard of.
Dungy is a classy guy who makes George Will seem positively madcap. Lovie Smith is cut from the same bland cloth. Joe Gibbs is a nice name who appears to have left his coaching mojo behind in the early '90s. (Paging Timmy Smith, come in Timmy Smith.) Andy Reid suddenly has much larger issues than being entertaining. Bill Belichick has made a personality out of no personality, I guess -- the unsmiling Type A pseudo-genius who dresses like a vagrant and carries grudges for centuries. Mike Shanahan is a strategy wonk, probably bored to tears when the dinner-party conversation doesn't veer toward goal-line packages and five-receiver sets. Tom Coughlin is misery personified. Mike Holmgren at least has some visual recognition and cache, but is socked away in the Pacific Northwest.
Among second-year head coaches, Brad Childress, Scott Linehan, Gary Kubiak and The Gentleman Coaching The Lions Whose Name Escapes Me bring nothing to the party.
Is this trend away from star coaches a good thing?
We'll see.
It's never bad when the athletes are the stars of the show instead of ego-stoked, control-freak coaches. In any sport. And the NFL has a fabulous array of athletes in starring roles.
But in the most telegenic league of them all, there is plenty of time between plays for cutaway video and commentary about the head coach. And if the cutaway video consists of an endless array of unfamiliar faces tensely mumbling into their headphones, it might not resonate with the Rozelle Focus Group.
On the positive side, this offseason should provide a bull market for TV analysts. And you can bet that Parcells, Cowher and Schottenheimer's names will be brought up every time one of the colorless current coaches loses two games in a row.
Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.