4341

ESPN is reporting that Mangini is fired.

4342

“runs to update poll results”

EDIT: if players want the coach to stay then why the fuck don’t they play like it?. Geezus.

4343

I like this. Simple and means that the losing team really has to prove itself.

It boggles my mind that people are complaining about a losing team going to the playoffs and mentioning the fact that it’s the first time it’s ever happened (in a full season) in the same breath. I know it really sucks that the Giants or Buccaneers (I’m a Saints fan and even I was rooting for them to get a spot) don’t get to go, but it’s effectively the first time this has ever happened. Maybe if it starts happening on a regular basis we can talk about changing the seeding strategy but for now let’s, maybe, leave it alone.

4344

You were close. He made it to the morning of the 3rd.

4345

He (along with Singletary and McDaniels) needs to go back in the garage for some more tuning. Take some coordinator jobs and be successful. He just took on more than he could handle.

4346

I actually think McDaniels could be a decent HC if he isn’t given personnel powers. He got rid of three great players right away, and only got one in return (Orton). But he did OK with what he had at times. I wouldn’t be against seeing him get a second chance at coaching next year.

4347

There has been one philosophy that “Great head coaches should be great coordinators” and another that says “A head coach isn’t about Xs and Os, it’s about game planning and leadership” (the Eisenhower Principle* – Eisenhower was a great general and leader but was never actually in combat). But after thinking about it, I can’t recall any great head coaches that were not originally successful coordinators or college HCs. Singletary went straight from positional coach to HC didn’t he?

  • I made up that term
4348

Is there any evidence that coaches that flame out and then get a second chance immediately have any success the second time around? I’m still puzzled how Mangini got two shots in a row based on very little track record.

4349

I simply listed all the teams with better records then the Seahawks who didn’t make the playoffs. The Jaguars finished 8-8.

4350

I would agree that a head coach does not have to have genius mastery over the X’s and O’s. That being said, I would think he must be familiar enough with the coordinator positions to work effectively and lead his own coordinators. I imagine a background as an O or D coordinator on a successful and well run staff would give a lot of good lessons as to how to run a program.

4351

Yeah, that was a bit odd. You can’t catch a football when your hands are two feet apart.

As a Rams fan, that was certainly a disappointing performance, but after a 1-15 season I’m happy overall with the team. They are going in the right direction and are much better than they were last year.

4352

A couple of interesting head coaching related stories on NFL.com. One says that Cowher probably won’t go to the Dolphins, a team he was supposedly interested in, because if Miami ditches Sparano they plan to keep GM Jeff Ireland. And Cowher wants his people in charge of personnel. I don’t get why the Dolphins would do a half-assed change if they feel the need to make one.

Meanwhile, Del Rio is meeting with the owner in Jacksonville, so maybe there will a change for the Jaguars as well.

4353

I don’t think anything should change, I just am stunned to see it happen in real life(a losing team winning the division).

That’s why I don’t favor altering the basic concept- no matter how you do it, someday some teams are going to have a perfect storm of mediocrity and undercut your system.

So it’s like with sudden death overtime or refs costing you a game- score enough to win during regular time, score enough so refs don’t have a say no matter how much they screw up, AND win your division.

I’d hate to be in the Saints’ shoes right now, if they lose to the Seahawks they’ll never live it down.

4354

Divisions are just a goofy, outdated idea.

4355

San Diego lost to both the Rams and the Seahawks. They can point a finger right at themselves.

The problem with changing the system is that you’d have more teams eliminated earlier and that would drive down fan interest. I think the only way it would work is if you expanded the playoffs to the top eight teams in each conference – maybe even the top ten teams.

(Actually, rather than expand to an 18 game schedule, I’d rather see an extra round of playoffs, and you could do that with ten teams getting in. You’d have 10 play 7 and 9 play 8 to get down to 8 teams, and then you’d do 1 v 8, 2 v 7, etc.)

And there are always going to be strength of schedule issues too – is it really fair if a team goes 9-7 and gets in if their schedule was decidedly inferior to the schedule that an 8-8 team had? And maybe the 9-7 team even lost a head-to-head game with the 8-8 team.

4356

If we eliminated home field advantage for division winners in the wildcard round I could probably live with it, but we’ve also been seeing that for years without much outcry. The outcry this year is because a losing team is made the plaoffs and is hosting, but since it’s the first time ever it seems like an over-reaction to the problem. Ultimately the real issue is that the current divisional structure means that teams will make the playoffs that don’t always have the best records, so it would require a much bigger change to deal with if your goal is simply to make sure only the teams with the best records go to the playoffs each year.

And expanding the playoffs wouldn’t necessarily solve anything. This year it would help, but there are other years where you’d just be adding 8-8 and worse teams.

4357

If they were actually geographically true they’d make more sense, but even so, having them for rivalries and fan interest is important.

4358

You can still schedule in the real rivalries. We don’t need an NFC North in order to have the Bears and Packers play twice a year.

4359

Strength of schedule is what it is. If you’re in a tough division this year there’s a good chance it’ll be a weak division in a couple years. Every division at some point was either seriously weak or seriously stacked, and the SoS adjustments done during scheduling don’t make that big a difference.

If people are going to complain about SoS or being in a tough division then they may as well also complain about field conditions or losing some key games because their starters were injured.

4360

This is only true if you want to keep pre-existing rivalries. It’s also unfair if the two teams that you pre-designate as ‘rivalry’ teams get to play each other twice a year and are either really weak or really strong. What about teams without any real rivalries or with multiple ones?

Teams need to play each other consistently over the years to develop a sense of rivalry. This is why a lot of times when two teams play each other for the first time in 5 years there’s no real emotional investment. Like does anyone give a shit when the Niners play the Titans every 6 years other than the “We want to win this week” bit?

Divisions are a big psychological part of the game, there’s no dodging that.