Another day, another failed adventure in taking what works on a college campus and trying to cut-and-paste it into the modern NFL.
Eagles coach Chip Kelly is gone this morning, suddenly, a game shy of three years into an experiment that seemed iffy from the jump. And the list of successful college coaches who foundered beneath the Shield grows by one more.
Welcome to the junk heap, Coach Kelly. You'll recognize a few people, we're guessing.
Yes, that is Lou Holtz over there. And Steve Spurrier. And Nick Saban. And, sure, maybe even Jim Harbaugh, who did manage to get the 49ers to the Super Bowl before all that rah-rah college intensity burned out his players and wore out his welcome with management.
Now he's back in academia at Michigan, and seems yea more comfortable there. And so it will be, too, you've got to figure, with Kelly.
There's still a chance some NFL team will take a flyer on him, intrigued by his offensive genius (which proved to be more theoretical than applied in Philly). But there are a ton of juicy college jobs dangling right now like low-hanging fruit. So if you're a betting man, you'd be better off betting he winds up in College Station or Austin or some other college town before he winds up in, say, Indianapolis.
He did win some games in Philly -- his record there was 26-21 -- but there was never the big breakthrough some predicted for him, and a lot of that was his own doing. That the Eagles put him not only on the sideline but in charge of personnel, too, was absurd on its face, because being an NFL GM is no job for an intern. And that's essentially what Kelly was.
He had zero experience at it and it showed in the moves he made, some of which were merely curious and some of which were plainly ridiculous. To run his up-tempo spread offense, he brought in Sam Bradford, a pocket passer with surgical knees who was perhaps the quarterback least suited to it. Then he got rid of every wideout capable of stretching the field. Then he shipped off LeSean McCoy and brought in DeMarco Murray, a push at best (and, actually, less than a push).
In the end, all that, plus his apparently imperious ways, lost Kelly his football team. And you could have predicted it. College coaches are used to being the absolute rulers of their particular fiefdoms. The NFL, however, is more of a partnership. It's a league whose most successful coaches don't rule by imperial decree but by getting highly paid employees to buy into a particular culture. No wonder so many big-deal college coaches fail at it -- with the possible exception of Pete Carroll, who, remember, was a pro coach before his star rose at USC.
That's why you have to chuckle when Saban's or Harbaugh's name bubbles to the surface in the speculation over who will replace the apparently outgoing Chuck Pagano in Indy. And why the news out of Philly this week seemed, except perhaps for the timing, somehow inevitable.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Blindsided
Two thoughts now as the San Diego Chargers, 4-11 and going nowhere but home (or, perhaps, L.A.), get ready to put a sad bow on a sad season:
1. If the Bolts had hit anyone nearly as hard as they just hit their All-Pro safety Eric Weddle, they probably wouldn't be 4-11.
2. On the other hand, given what a cheap shot it was, Weddle would likely have drawn a two-game sitdown if he'd hit anyone like that.
This upon the news that the Chargers have not only fined their best defensive player for the crime of being a Dad, they got petty about it and put him on IR even though Weddle didn't want to get put on IR. So he'll likely not even get to be on the sideline Sunday as the Bolts close out their less-than-distinguished season at Denver.
It's an amazing show of spite in light of the fact Weddle has so faithfully answered the bell for them, averaging 937 snaps a year since 2008 and racking up 961 last season. And it's perhaps the clearest indication why they're where they are right now, which is dead last in the AFC West.
So what was Weddle's crime?
Well, it seems that on Dec. 20, in the middle of a 30-13 win over the Dolphins, Weddle decided to stay on the field at halftime to watch his daughter perform a dance number sponsored by the Chargers themselves. For that, he was fined $10,000 and put on IR with a groin injury through which he's been battling.
And, yes, sure, he's a professional, so he probably should have been there for the halftime meetings. And you can certainly fault him for not asking permission first. He should have.
But the punishment, clearly, does not fit the crime here. To begin with, being a Dad trumps being around for halftime "adjustments" that obviously haven't been worth a damn. If they were,, after all, the Chargers wouldn't be 4-11.
Add to that the fact Weddle has for eight seasons been a valuable and conscientious employee. Add also the fact if his presence was all that vital at this point in a lost season, the Chargers wouldn't be leaving him behind this week just to be jerks about it.
The skinny: Weddle, an enormously popular player, has more than earned his employer's benefit of the doubt. So he didn't ask permission? Fine. You call him in, you tell him don't ever do that again, you move on.
But to fine him $10,000 and then kick him in the, well, groin by putting him on IR?
Ingratitude, thy name is Charger.
1. If the Bolts had hit anyone nearly as hard as they just hit their All-Pro safety Eric Weddle, they probably wouldn't be 4-11.
2. On the other hand, given what a cheap shot it was, Weddle would likely have drawn a two-game sitdown if he'd hit anyone like that.
This upon the news that the Chargers have not only fined their best defensive player for the crime of being a Dad, they got petty about it and put him on IR even though Weddle didn't want to get put on IR. So he'll likely not even get to be on the sideline Sunday as the Bolts close out their less-than-distinguished season at Denver.
It's an amazing show of spite in light of the fact Weddle has so faithfully answered the bell for them, averaging 937 snaps a year since 2008 and racking up 961 last season. And it's perhaps the clearest indication why they're where they are right now, which is dead last in the AFC West.
So what was Weddle's crime?
Well, it seems that on Dec. 20, in the middle of a 30-13 win over the Dolphins, Weddle decided to stay on the field at halftime to watch his daughter perform a dance number sponsored by the Chargers themselves. For that, he was fined $10,000 and put on IR with a groin injury through which he's been battling.
And, yes, sure, he's a professional, so he probably should have been there for the halftime meetings. And you can certainly fault him for not asking permission first. He should have.
But the punishment, clearly, does not fit the crime here. To begin with, being a Dad trumps being around for halftime "adjustments" that obviously haven't been worth a damn. If they were,, after all, the Chargers wouldn't be 4-11.
Add to that the fact Weddle has for eight seasons been a valuable and conscientious employee. Add also the fact if his presence was all that vital at this point in a lost season, the Chargers wouldn't be leaving him behind this week just to be jerks about it.
The skinny: Weddle, an enormously popular player, has more than earned his employer's benefit of the doubt. So he didn't ask permission? Fine. You call him in, you tell him don't ever do that again, you move on.
But to fine him $10,000 and then kick him in the, well, groin by putting him on IR?
Ingratitude, thy name is Charger.
A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 16
And now this week's installment of The NFL In So Many Words, the Blob feature of which eggnog-besotted critics have exclaimed "It's a Christmas miracle!" and "Dang, that boy can write!":
1. The mummified husk of Sammy Baugh.
2. Will soon be quarterbacking the Colts if the season doesn't hurry up and end.
3. The almost mummified husk of Peyton Manning.
4. Who, despite his various owies, is still capable of hiring lawyers. Which means Al Jazeera is going to feel the burn.
5. Carson Palmer, Cam Newton, Tom Brady, Russell Wilson.
6. Are not yet in traction, under sedation, on IR, or being held together with Scotch tape and strategically placed ten-penny nails.
7. Speaking of Christmas miracles.
8. Aaron Rodgers.
9. Is not hurt either.
10. But, after Sunday, probably wishes he were.
1. The mummified husk of Sammy Baugh.
2. Will soon be quarterbacking the Colts if the season doesn't hurry up and end.
3. The almost mummified husk of Peyton Manning.
4. Who, despite his various owies, is still capable of hiring lawyers. Which means Al Jazeera is going to feel the burn.
5. Carson Palmer, Cam Newton, Tom Brady, Russell Wilson.
6. Are not yet in traction, under sedation, on IR, or being held together with Scotch tape and strategically placed ten-penny nails.
7. Speaking of Christmas miracles.
8. Aaron Rodgers.
9. Is not hurt either.
10. But, after Sunday, probably wishes he were.
Monday, December 28, 2015
Sweet Georgia downer
I could write about the Colts this day, winning while losing ground as their playoff hopes flicker. I could write about the meager sustenance Colts nation will take from their guys winning while the Evil Empire in New England lost, or how the Arizona Cardinals suddenly look like the smart pick to win the Super Bowl, or how the Carolina Panthers finally went down to the Falcons, igniting a flurry of popping champagne corks from the '72 Dolphins, who after 43 years still have intact and fully functional gloat genes.
But, nah. Today, the Blob would rather throw a bucket of confetti on all that.
It will do so in honor of Meadowlark Lemon, aka the Clown Prince of Basketball, aka the beating heart of the Harlem Globetrotters when the Globies were going about keeping pro basketball off the ventilator back in the 1950s and early '60s. Meadow passed yesterday at 83, an American icon and one more symbol of a time in this country that has itself passed.
We figured that out, of course, some months ago, when the Globies announced they were cutting ties with their longtime foils, the Washington Generals. Odes to the nobility of losing for the storyline's sake followed, including in this space.
But Meadow dying is far more significant, and affords the opportunity to remind a nation largely ignorant of its own history that there was a time when the NBA was not LeBron 'n' Steph Curry 'n' them. College buckets owned the sport 60 or 65 years ago; the pro version was a sideshow played in high school gyms in quiet little towns (i.e.: Fort Wayne, Sheboygan, etc.) that in some cases (i.e.: Fort Wayne) didn't even have rail service. And it was overwhelmingly, glaringly, white.
Enter the Globies, who not only gave employment to black players the NBA was reluctant to hire, but gave the early NBA an attendance bump every time it played a league city. And they did that a lot. It's not much of a stretch to say without them -- and without the point-shaving scandals that severely wounded the college game in the '50s -- the league might never have survived.
Likely pro hoops would have been reborn anyway. But its path would have definitely been a different one -- and certainly, Meadow and Co. played a role in keeping that from happening.
If their act was just that, an act, it was also a window into a style of basketball the pro game would eventually come to embrace, to its great good fortune. The 3-point shot and other showbiz touches introduced by the ABA -- and later adopted by the stodgy old NBA -- had their spiritual antecedents in Meadow and his guys. If Meadow's sleight-of-hand dishes out of the post didn't directly beget the no-look wizardry of Pistol Pete Maravich, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, you could at least see their ghostly outlines in the latters' work.
And so, let's honor those outlines today. Raise a glass. Wad up a piece of paper in the office and throw it behind your back. And raise a fervent hope that, as Meadow goes to his rest, he'll do so beneath a blizzard of confetti, flung from buckets held by his friends and family.
It is, after all, the only fitting tribute.
But, nah. Today, the Blob would rather throw a bucket of confetti on all that.
It will do so in honor of Meadowlark Lemon, aka the Clown Prince of Basketball, aka the beating heart of the Harlem Globetrotters when the Globies were going about keeping pro basketball off the ventilator back in the 1950s and early '60s. Meadow passed yesterday at 83, an American icon and one more symbol of a time in this country that has itself passed.
We figured that out, of course, some months ago, when the Globies announced they were cutting ties with their longtime foils, the Washington Generals. Odes to the nobility of losing for the storyline's sake followed, including in this space.
But Meadow dying is far more significant, and affords the opportunity to remind a nation largely ignorant of its own history that there was a time when the NBA was not LeBron 'n' Steph Curry 'n' them. College buckets owned the sport 60 or 65 years ago; the pro version was a sideshow played in high school gyms in quiet little towns (i.e.: Fort Wayne, Sheboygan, etc.) that in some cases (i.e.: Fort Wayne) didn't even have rail service. And it was overwhelmingly, glaringly, white.
Enter the Globies, who not only gave employment to black players the NBA was reluctant to hire, but gave the early NBA an attendance bump every time it played a league city. And they did that a lot. It's not much of a stretch to say without them -- and without the point-shaving scandals that severely wounded the college game in the '50s -- the league might never have survived.
Likely pro hoops would have been reborn anyway. But its path would have definitely been a different one -- and certainly, Meadow and Co. played a role in keeping that from happening.
If their act was just that, an act, it was also a window into a style of basketball the pro game would eventually come to embrace, to its great good fortune. The 3-point shot and other showbiz touches introduced by the ABA -- and later adopted by the stodgy old NBA -- had their spiritual antecedents in Meadow and his guys. If Meadow's sleight-of-hand dishes out of the post didn't directly beget the no-look wizardry of Pistol Pete Maravich, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, you could at least see their ghostly outlines in the latters' work.
And so, let's honor those outlines today. Raise a glass. Wad up a piece of paper in the office and throw it behind your back. And raise a fervent hope that, as Meadow goes to his rest, he'll do so beneath a blizzard of confetti, flung from buckets held by his friends and family.
It is, after all, the only fitting tribute.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Kicked while down
Well, this is a fine and charitable thing. Like Peyton Manning hasn't taken enough shots to various body parts this season.
Now its his reputation that's being blindsided.
Now comes the news, or not, that Manning used HGH on the sly in 2011 while recovering from his various neck surgeries, the drugs coming to him in his wife Ashley's name. If true, it continues a dark endgame to a sparkling career, as the NFL's most prolific passer limps to the finish line like the 2015 version of Willie Mays, blundering around in pursuit of fly balls he would have caught in his sleep in his Say Hey Kid heyday.
Bad enough Peyton similarly has been unmasked as mortal. Now he's a cheater, too?
Well ... probably not.
The only saving grace in the news that Manning might have been using HGH the year the NFL banned it is that the "news" might not be news at all. To start with, the guy who ratted him out in the Al Jazeera doc has recanted his story, saying he was only throwing around Manning's name (and several other big-deal names) to misdirect the reporter who was interviewing him, on account of he didn't trust the guy. So there's that.
There's also this, from the Blob's angle of sight: If Manning was, in fact, using HGH to facilitate his recovery, who besides the NFL cares?
Look. I get the argument about PEDs. If used as PEDs, they skew the playing field, because, even if you made them legal, there would always be a strata of athlete who had access to the best and newest stuff. And that's an affront to on-the-level competition.
But using HGH (or any steroids, for that matter) to promote the healing process after a serious injury?
I'm trying very hard to understand why that's such an appalling thing. And I'm coming up empty.
Frankly I have no problem with a professional athlete using any pharmaceutical means at his disposal to recover from an injury, because such use has nothing to do with enhancing performance. He (or she) is merely trying to get back on the field, which hardly seems like the crime of the century. What am I missing here?
And all of this is probably moot anyway. When your key source says he was just testing you, your story's pretty much dead on arrival. All you've got is a bunch of unsubstantiated rumors from a possibly conned reporter.
Conclusion: This hit Peyton might just shake off. Or so the romantic in us hopes.
Now its his reputation that's being blindsided.
Now comes the news, or not, that Manning used HGH on the sly in 2011 while recovering from his various neck surgeries, the drugs coming to him in his wife Ashley's name. If true, it continues a dark endgame to a sparkling career, as the NFL's most prolific passer limps to the finish line like the 2015 version of Willie Mays, blundering around in pursuit of fly balls he would have caught in his sleep in his Say Hey Kid heyday.
Bad enough Peyton similarly has been unmasked as mortal. Now he's a cheater, too?
Well ... probably not.
The only saving grace in the news that Manning might have been using HGH the year the NFL banned it is that the "news" might not be news at all. To start with, the guy who ratted him out in the Al Jazeera doc has recanted his story, saying he was only throwing around Manning's name (and several other big-deal names) to misdirect the reporter who was interviewing him, on account of he didn't trust the guy. So there's that.
There's also this, from the Blob's angle of sight: If Manning was, in fact, using HGH to facilitate his recovery, who besides the NFL cares?
Look. I get the argument about PEDs. If used as PEDs, they skew the playing field, because, even if you made them legal, there would always be a strata of athlete who had access to the best and newest stuff. And that's an affront to on-the-level competition.
But using HGH (or any steroids, for that matter) to promote the healing process after a serious injury?
I'm trying very hard to understand why that's such an appalling thing. And I'm coming up empty.
Frankly I have no problem with a professional athlete using any pharmaceutical means at his disposal to recover from an injury, because such use has nothing to do with enhancing performance. He (or she) is merely trying to get back on the field, which hardly seems like the crime of the century. What am I missing here?
And all of this is probably moot anyway. When your key source says he was just testing you, your story's pretty much dead on arrival. All you've got is a bunch of unsubstantiated rumors from a possibly conned reporter.
Conclusion: This hit Peyton might just shake off. Or so the romantic in us hopes.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
And to all a good night
Christmas Eve now, and one thing more before the Blob departs for a couple of days of rampant festive-ing.
("And one thing more." See what I did there?)
In honor of the season, I'll turn things over to Charles Dickens, and a passage from "A Christmas Carol" I post every year somewhere because it seems to me the appropriate thing to do:
"Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea -- on, on -- until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him."
Merry Christmas, to those who celebrate. And the happiest of holidays to those who don't.
("And one thing more." See what I did there?)
In honor of the season, I'll turn things over to Charles Dickens, and a passage from "A Christmas Carol" I post every year somewhere because it seems to me the appropriate thing to do:
"Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea -- on, on -- until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him."
Merry Christmas, to those who celebrate. And the happiest of holidays to those who don't.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Famous last words
Bumped into Santa Claus the other day out at the mall, which was good because there'd been something I'd been meaning to ask him, and I didn't know if I was going to get the chance before he started his yearly spree of breaking-and-entering.
"Why do you want to do the people of Alabama like that?" I said.
Unaccustomed dismay appeared on his cheery bewhiskered countenance.
"What do you mean?" he said. "Why, I just gave the people of Alabama the greatest gift they could ever ask for."
Both of us, it turns out, were referring to the same thing: Nick Saban's pronouncement the other today that he could never see himself anywhere else but the University of Alabama, where he has become almost revered as Bear Bryant himself, lacking only a colorful and appropriate nickname.
(I vote for "Fisheye." Nick "Fisheye" Saban, for his renowned ability to give impertinent reporters the ol' fisheye. Not that there is an actual vote, or ever will be)
Anyway ... Santa seemed to think ol' Fisheye telling the people of Alabama he was never going to leave them was the sweetest gift ever, much better than the year I woke up and discovered he'd left me a Ferrari.
(OK, so it was Matchbox Ferrari. But, still)
I looked at the Big Fella and slowly began to shake my head.
"Are you kidding?" I said. "Hate to break it to you, but you just left a big shovelful of coal in their stockings. You don't ever, ever want your big-deal coach pledging his fidelity to you. You might as well start backing up the moving van the second the words come out of his mouth.
"I mean, think about it. Remember right before Saban came to Alabama when he said there was no way he was leaving the Miami Dolphins for Alabama? Remember when Rick Pitino looked a certain reporter -- OK, it was me -- straight in the eye and said he couldn't see himself ever leaving Kentucky, the day before leaving Kentucky for the Boston Celtics?
"Listen, Santa. I know your heart's in the right place. I know you represent all that is good and kind and charitable in the world. But take it from me, the world's a mean old place. Especially when it comes to coaches who pledge their troth forever to dear old State U."
But now Santa just smiled at me.
"Ah, son," he said. "I know all that. But sooner or later, one of these guys is actually going to be telling the truth when he says that. It's a matter of faith, my boy. And faith -- and the hope and promise that come along with it -- is what the season is all about, isn't it?"
A sudden rumbling laugh; a cheerful little wink.
"Merry Christmas, son. Now go home. Something's waiting for you."
I gave him a sidelong glance.
"It's not another Matchbox car, is it?" I said.
But Santa only winked again.
"Why do you want to do the people of Alabama like that?" I said.
Unaccustomed dismay appeared on his cheery bewhiskered countenance.
"What do you mean?" he said. "Why, I just gave the people of Alabama the greatest gift they could ever ask for."
Both of us, it turns out, were referring to the same thing: Nick Saban's pronouncement the other today that he could never see himself anywhere else but the University of Alabama, where he has become almost revered as Bear Bryant himself, lacking only a colorful and appropriate nickname.
(I vote for "Fisheye." Nick "Fisheye" Saban, for his renowned ability to give impertinent reporters the ol' fisheye. Not that there is an actual vote, or ever will be)
Anyway ... Santa seemed to think ol' Fisheye telling the people of Alabama he was never going to leave them was the sweetest gift ever, much better than the year I woke up and discovered he'd left me a Ferrari.
(OK, so it was Matchbox Ferrari. But, still)
I looked at the Big Fella and slowly began to shake my head.
"Are you kidding?" I said. "Hate to break it to you, but you just left a big shovelful of coal in their stockings. You don't ever, ever want your big-deal coach pledging his fidelity to you. You might as well start backing up the moving van the second the words come out of his mouth.
"I mean, think about it. Remember right before Saban came to Alabama when he said there was no way he was leaving the Miami Dolphins for Alabama? Remember when Rick Pitino looked a certain reporter -- OK, it was me -- straight in the eye and said he couldn't see himself ever leaving Kentucky, the day before leaving Kentucky for the Boston Celtics?
"Listen, Santa. I know your heart's in the right place. I know you represent all that is good and kind and charitable in the world. But take it from me, the world's a mean old place. Especially when it comes to coaches who pledge their troth forever to dear old State U."
But now Santa just smiled at me.
"Ah, son," he said. "I know all that. But sooner or later, one of these guys is actually going to be telling the truth when he says that. It's a matter of faith, my boy. And faith -- and the hope and promise that come along with it -- is what the season is all about, isn't it?"
A sudden rumbling laugh; a cheerful little wink.
"Merry Christmas, son. Now go home. Something's waiting for you."
I gave him a sidelong glance.
"It's not another Matchbox car, is it?" I said.
But Santa only winked again.
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