Bill Belichick’s NFL coaching future has more questions than answers

ESPN released an excellent in-depth report about Bill Belichick’s failed attempts to get another head coaching job after his split with the Patriots. Not counting the Patriots themselves, there were six head coaching jobs that were open-open where the team had fired their head coach and was about to hire a new one:

• Commanders
• Titans
• Chargers
• Falcons
• Panthers
• Seahawks

The Raiders had an interim coach after firing Belichick acolyte Josh McDaniels, but did a perfunctory search before giving Antonio Pierce the permanent gig.

Then there were two jobs – the Eagles and Cowboys – that were not technically open, but rumblings suggested that the coaches were on shaky ground with a chance that Belichick’s availability would have sparked a move that otherwise might not have been made. Ultimately, Nick Sirianni was retained by the Eagles and Mike McCarthy by the Cowboys.

As the article says, Belichick was hired for none of the open jobs. In fact, it suggests that he was not even particularly close to being hired. 

What does this mean and does it make sense?

Organizations need to assess two scenarios when they think about casting their lot with Belichick:

1) Am I hiring a dour prick who’ll cost a fortune; will make my life miserable; will only be around long enough to break Don Shula’s record for coaching victories; will blow up my organization to the point that when he’s gone, I’ll literally need to start from scratch; won nothing without Tom Brady; and wears the yoke of his unprecedented success being due largely to hitting the lottery with a quarterback and credible allegations of cheating?

2) Is he the tactical genius who will maximize the talent he has; can run an organization from top to bottom; has fifty years of in the trenches experience; is motivated to prove his remaining critics wrong; is fearless in doing what is best for the organization; and will give me a very good chance at winning a Super Bowl if he has the players?

The Brady question is unanswerable and will be debated forever. Still, there are indicators that while Belichick was significantly responsible for the Patriots run, it would not have happened without the luck that precipitated Brady’s rise. 

Underlying considerations aside, Belichick’s regular season record with and without Brady is what it is. It’s fact. 

With Brady, his record is 209-64.

Without Brady, his record is 36-45 when coaching the Browns; 13-8 while Brady was with the Patriots but didn’t play; and 29-38 after Brady left. 

Belichick had three winning seasons without Brady. 

Three. 

To make matters worse, the Patriots were mediocre and then collapsed after Brady left. Brady went to Tampa to win another Super Bowl with the Buccaneers. Now he’s floated the possibility of another comeback. It’s theoretical if not straight up realistic that Brady will be back in the league before Belichick after having retired twice already.

Despite the statistical realities, there is no answer and there never will be an answer. Would Brady even have gotten a chance to play in New England had Drew Bledsoe not gotten injured? Had Bledsoe remained healthy, would Belichick have felt obligated to stick with him due to the quarterback’s contract and his relationship with owner Robert Kraft? Does the dynasty even happen? Or is Belichick fired – again – after two-plus years and back as Bill Parcells’ second in command when Parcells took the Cowboys head coaching job, relegated to being an assistant, never getting another chance as head coach?

My best guess is that the 2001 Patriots would have continued to struggle under Bledsoe. Belichick, under the impression that he was on the verge of getting fired again, would have looked at a 4-7 team and said, “I’m gonna get axed anyway. Let’s look at the kid” and thrown Brady out there. 

Again, would it have been the same result or was it the confluence of events and utter serendipity (it’s true no matter how distasteful) that Bledsoe was seriously injured forcing Brady onto the field? This was a sixth-round draft pick. Nobody thinks a sixth-round draft pick is going to do much regardless of position and they definitely don’t expect anything out of a sixth-round quarterback. Then there’s the tuck rule playoff win in the snow and who knows how many other examples of divine intervention and chicanery they got away with in the Brady-Belichick era.

Another aspect of Belichick and even Brady’s success is the clear path they had to the playoffs every year. And not just to make the playoffs. More often than not, they had a bye to the second round from the moment training camp started. In most years, they won the division handily and had it locked up with about four or five weeks left in the regular season. The Dolphins, Bills and Belichick’s favored punching bag, the Jets, rarely put up much resistance in the two-decade Brady run. In the one season that is frequently referenced as Belichick’s “greatest” coaching job in 2008 as he won 11 games and barely missed the playoffs with Matt Cassel at quarterback following Tom Brady’s opening game knee blowout, it ignores that essentially the same team had gone undefeated in the regular season the year before. They might’ve won 11 games with Tim Tebow at quarterback. 

The coaching carousel this past offseason was unprecedented with a coach holding the hardware that Belichick does not just left out in the cold, but relegated to nearly begging for a job. The Falcons job appeared to be his to lose, but owner Arthur Blank checked in with Kraft and, according to the article, came away with greater reluctance than he previously had. Compounding this is that Kraft stood to gain financially had Blank hired Belichick, taking the Patriots owner off the hook for up to $25 million of whatever salary Blank gave Belichick. He gave Blank an honest appraisal even though it cost him a good amount of money.

More telling were the whispers that Belichick could not be trusted; that there was never a warm moment between coach and owner; and that the relationship was purely transactional with Kraft putting up with Belichick’s act as long as the team was winning. 

Just think about that. They were together for 24 years and never had a warm moment despite all the Super Bowl wins, the tragedies, the triumphs and the ups and downs. Why would Kraft give Belichick a strong recommendation when factoring in all these issues? 

The lingering questions of Belichick’s personality, the Brady vs. Belichick credit rodeo, and the last few years of borderline ineptitude were bad enough. But would a new team benefit from hiring Belichick if they were getting him and not Brady? 

A ready-made team like the Cowboys, Eagles or Chargers would win with him, but they could win with other coaches too and not have the challenge of convincing players to deal with the grinding work with little joy and the understanding that as soon as he found someone slightly better, they’d be gone without remorse? 

Look at the coaches who are succeeding and being hired. They’re “fun.” Mike McDaniel, Sean McVay, Jerod Mayo, Antonio Pierce, Raheem Morris – players want to play for them. There’s a commitment. There’s a buy in. The days of the czar running an organization as a one-man dictatorship and ruling based on fear are over. 

Belichick inside the building is undoubtedly different from the personality he shows to the public. He’s said to have a wry sense of humor and to truly care about the players. That doesn’t change the single-minded intensity that was a hallmark of the Patriots success in his reign. It’s not a fun place to work and the players said as much. 

Belichick, in his interviews, was said to have shown flexibility about being the de facto GM and running every aspect of the football operation. Good faith intentions or not, the likelihood is that he would have done what he wanted and either mitigated or fired anyone who got in his way. Is it any surprise that executives who he would have inherited with the clubs he was interviewing with were cool to the idea of hiring him and subtly or overtly steered the owner elsewhere?

His supporters offer a full-throated and almost “methinks he doth protest too much” defense and promotion of the Belichick way.

And they are bragging about this?

What Blank didn't say is that he and his top lieutenants had voted on the team's next head coach, ranking each candidate.

Bill Belichick didn't even finish in anyone's top three.

Comical.

— Michael Lombardi (@mlombardiNFL) April 17, 2024

They react indignantly that it was predominately Brady who facilitated the championship run. Yet that seems to be the league wide perception. It’s akin to George Costanza shrieking to Elaine on Seinfeld how he was making moves of skillful deftness when driving that she could neither see nor comprehend.

His plans as the new coach would have included hiring his trusted assistants like Josh McDaniels, Matt Patricia, Joe Judge and others. Thoroughly understandable, a great boss who is trying to succeed quickly will want people with whom he can speak shorthand or does not need to speak at all. That aside, the question as to who was primarily responsible for the Patriots’ success extends to those assistants. All three along with Bill O’Brien and Eric Mangini failed at their head coaching opportunities. Only O’Brien succeeded in not humiliating himself. The team that hired Belichick would need to deal with those guys too?

Belichick is going to get another chance. That is not going to happen until after 2024. He is not taking a job just to pass his nemesis and detractor, Shula, on the all-time win list. Nor is he going for an extended rebuild. It will be a team that is relatively close to winning so he can prove his still questionable greatness as a head coach. While many think it will be the Cowboys or Eagles, my feeling is that it will be the Giants.

Already, co-owner John Mara has taken cryptic shots at current coach Brian Daboll wishing the coach would “tone it down.” This is not done randomly. Belichick loves the Giants. He gets visibly emotional when talking about his time on the coaching staff. The owner is impatient and no longer has guardrails on his worst instincts that his father and cousin showed in the decade before George Young was steered to the Giants to save the franchise in 1979. 

While it is unfair for general manager Joe Schoen and Daboll to be on the hot seat after an unexpected playoff season and first-round victory in 2022, Belichick’s availability is too enticing for Mara to resist. Unless the Giants win 10 games and make noise in the playoffs this year, that is Belichick’s landing spot.

By then, he’ll be approaching 73. It will be his last chance to quiet the naysayers and unless he is able to adapt his style – and find a great quarterback – the likelihood is that he’ll do nothing but prove the criticism accurate and sully his reputation and how justified it is – an issue that has been eliciting whispers as to how much credit he should get for the past two decades. As great as he is, it’s still in doubt. And it probably should be. 

Russell Wilson, Sean Payton and the Broncos – the Objective Truth

Amid the mockery of the Broncos cutting Russell Wilson and absorbing the $85 million salary cap hit, several factors are being glossed over:

·      The current team ownership did not own the team when the trade was made

·      The current head coach and de facto GM was not the head coach and de facto GM when the trade was made

·      Retaining him for financial purposes or to save face only makes matters worse

·      The money is gone regardless of whether he’s there or not

You can find the gory details of the trade itself anywhere, but the Denver Post tallied up the draft capital the Broncos surrendered to the Seahawks to acquire Wilson here.

While it’s easy and cheap to tear into the trade as a horrific gaffe – which it was – the details are conveniently shunted to the side. The Broncos franchise had only just gone on the market in February 2022. Wilson was acquired on March 16, 2022. The team was officially sold to Walmart heir Rob Walton in August 2022. They inherited Wilson much like they inherited the money to buy the team. They also inherited coach Nathaniel Hackett and the football operations staff.   

The timing played a large role in the decision to cut Wilson. Once Walton took over, the 2022 team was largely set. This is not unusual when there is a new ownership in place and there was little they could do to make substantive changes immediately. They needed to live with what they had and hope for the best as they looked forward.

As the Broncos’ 2022 season unraveled almost immediately with Hackett’s ineptitude and Wilson’s seeming indifference, it was clear that the owners were going big game hunting with their new head coach. That was Sean Payton.  

Payton is ostensibly functioning as its football czar. Nothing football related is going to happen without his imprimatur or he wouldn’t have taken the job. Had the Broncos told him that he needed to make it work with Wilson because of the negative implications of cutting him and swallowing the money and ridicule, the odds are that a coach in as heavy demand as Payton would have politely declined and waited out the Cowboys, the Chargers or some other more appealing job where he’d get the power he felt he needed and the money and contract security to do what he felt was right.

Historically, Wilson is not ideal for Payton’s offense. In his heyday with the Seahawks, Wilson relied on a brutal and punishing smashmouth running game, primarily with Marshawn Lynch. He used his legs to improvise and took deep shots down the field. They had a punishing defense.

None of this is indicative of Payton’s history. Drew Brees, Payton’s quarterback with the Saints, stayed in the pocket and stuck to the game plan because he and Payton were aligned in what they wanted to do and what Brees could efficiently execute. His running backs were of the Reggie Bush, Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara ilk who are just as dangerous catching the ball as they are running it.

The difference between what Wilson did with the Seahawks and what Payton did with the Saints are not only divergent playbooks, but they’re not on the same planet. What was the team supposed to do? Just continue forward by ordering Payton to keep Wilson and figure it out? That’s not fair to Wilson or Payton.

This past season was indicative of how the forced marriage was going to proceed. After a 1-5 start, Payton patched it together but keeping games close, constraining Wilson from his usual freelancing and limiting the number of throws he made, pulling games out late. They rallied to 8-9 and were in the playoff race until late in the season – truly a remarkable coaching job.

Toward the end of the season, Wilson was benched. According to the club, it was a football decision. According to Wilson, it was because he refused to renegotiate his contract by removing the injury guarantee that would pay him $37 million in 2025. Wilson would have been a fool to do so. Payton and the Broncos are insulting the intelligence of any reasonable person by saying they felt they would get a “spark” offensively from journeyman Jarrett Stidham.

The reality is that they were cutting Wilson and they wanted to save as much money and limit their exposure when they did. The alternative was to continue down the road with a quarterback the football boss didn’t want and didn’t suit his offense while compelling a new owner to pay for past mistakes and ignore what their handpicked football boss wanted.

It’s become trendy for sports franchises to be viewed in business terms. In that context, the Wilson contract was a sunk cost. They did as much as they could to mitigate what they needed to pay him by benching him and did what everyone with a brain knew they were going to do when they cut him. Payton will find a quarterback he wants whether that’s Trey Lance, Justin Fields, someone from the draft or a name no one has considered but has caught the coach’s eye. Wilson can still play and will get a new team among the Steelers, Falcons, Raiders or Vikings and have the offense tailored to his strengths. The ridicule ignores these facts out of convenience, ignorance or both.

Book Review: The Dynasty by Jeff Benedict

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The term “dynasty” is thrown around so cavalierly and as a prediction rather than retrospection that it has lost much of its impact. That has also served to tarnish the New England Patriots from 2001 to 2019 and what they accomplished compared to other would-be dynasties that never met those lofty and often preposterous expectations. This is the span covered in Jeff Benedict’s The Dynasty. 

In the past, the word was used to refer to teams that won consecutive championships and had a string of titles over a decade. The last dynasty in the sense as it was truly intended was the New York Yankees from 1996 to 2000. That Derek Jeter-led team won four World Series in five years. In the NFL, the Dallas Cowboys won three Super Bowls in four seasons from 1992 to 1995. The Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Blackhawks, Boston Red Sox and San Francisco Giants all have a reasonable claim to call themselves varying forms of dynasties in the current environment. 

Yet standing above all as the paragon others strive to be is the Patriots. With a mind-boggling eight Super Bowl appearances and six championships in those twenty years, the Patriots were known for their machine-like efficiency and utter ruthlessness in formulating a plan to achieve that one goal at the start of every season: winning the Super Bowl. The book centers on the triumvirate of owner Robert Kraft, head coach and de facto general manager Bill Belichick, and quarterback Tom Brady. 

That desperation to win extended to allegations of rampant cheating and borderline cruelty in how Belichick callously discarded players who were no longer of use to him in that stated goal. What sets the Patriots apart from their counterparts in football and other sports is how they have maintained their level of excellence. Even in years when they didn’t win the championship, they were on the cusp of doing so. There was no bottoming out; no valleys; no tear down and rebuild. Year in, year out, they were there. Benedict explores how this sets them apart. That they achieved it in the world of free agency, salary caps, multi-tiered playoffs and a system that is intricately designed to prevent one team from doing precisely what the Patriots have done is why the story is so compelling.

How did they do it?

While the easy story to tell is Brady’s and the most polarizing one is Belichick’s, the book dedicates the bulk of its narrative on Kraft. He is the sun around which Belichick and Brady revolve. Part soothing presence; part tiebreaker; part defender; part parent; part friend; and part overseer, he was the indispensable cog in keeping the egos of his coach and quarterback from forcing a breakup long before one was necessary, though it came close several times, all of which are described in detail with the most notable being due to Belichick’s belief that Brady’s age would eventually derail his productivity and Brady being tired of the lack of appreciation and warmth expressed by his coach. 

Kraft is a businessman whose hard-charging style mirrors that of captains of industry who made it to the top of their respective professions and did not care who they stomped on to facilitate their rise, Kraft is different in that he did care who he stomped on and made certain not to do it. Piety to his Jewish faith with a gentle demeanor and socially conscious with charity work, Kraft’s rise from rabid Patriots fan who had season tickets almost from the team’s inception to when he bought the team and saved it from being moved to St. Louis showed him to be a community-minded man who grew up in the area and understood the financial and sentimental value the team held while ensuring that it was a profitable business. The best way to do that was to win. And win he did. The keys to that were his business acumen and willingness to trust people like Belichick, whose history and personality were considered ill-suited to running an organization; and Brady, whose pedigree was not such that he should have been expected to be anything more than an extra guy on a roster who would bounce from team to team as a journeyman body. 

Still, it was not an easy path. Inheriting head coach Bill Parcells and his entire package of arrogance, condescension, bullying and greed that comes along with it, Parcells epitomizes what Belichick was supposed to be based on his reputation as a miserable human, but really wasn’t. 

Nailing down the X factor to their sustained run is a near-impossibility. Without Kraft, there is no Belichick; without Brady, there is no elevation of Belichick from failed head coach who Kraft was told by multiple people including Belichick’s former boss, Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell, not to hire. Even Parcells, who had a long and fruitful working relationship with Belichick, was lukewarm on the idea as evidenced by his dual-sided question to Kraft as they negotiated compensation for Parcells allowing Belichick to leave his New York Jets contract: “Bob, do you want this guy to be your head coach?” 

Yet Kraft trusted his instincts and that he could better analyze the understated strengths of Belichick and not just hire him, but give him total control of football operations.

For those who suggest that Brady is a “systems” quarterback who was in an advantageous situation after he and the team were “lucky” that they got him in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL draft and he went on a hot streak after replacing the severely injured Drew Bledsoe in the second game of the 2001 season, their misinformed analysis is blown to smithereens. His determination and work ethic are described in detail. The hard work is one thing, but that laser focus and putting every ounce of attention into his objective is what sets him apart. Many put forth the pretense of being all-in for their goals, but Brady put it into practice. 

This is not to imply there was no tension between the parties. Kraft was notably displeased with Belichick’s penchant for pushing the envelope of propriety, notably telling his coach that he was a “schmuck” for videotaping the opposing defensive coaches’ signals (Spygate) when Belichick himself said that it did not help at all. However, many of the harshest criticisms of Belichick clearly lack credibility or are based on personal animus. The allegations of the Patriots’ cheating were explained in detail and Benedict makes a convincing case that apart from Spygate, they were innocent. The report that the Patriots had videotaped the St. Louis Rams’ practices prior to their first Super Bowl win was found to be untrue and was retracted; Deflategate in which Patriots’ equipment staff were accused of removing air from footballs at Brady’s direction in the 2014 AFC Championship Game against the Indianapolis Colts becomes difficult to believe based on the available evidence.

 As astute as Belichick was in his implementation of a system that would continually replenish while dealing with free agency and a salary cap, none of it would have succeeded had he not been blessed with an owner who gave him nearly free rein and a megastar quarterback who did not ask for nor did he receive preferential treatment. Repeatedly, Benedict retreats to the reaction of newcomers to the Patriots – notably Randy Moss, a placated star if there ever was one – who were stunned that Belichick tore into Brady during team meetings like he was the last guy on the roster and was in danger not just of losing his starting spot if he kept screwing up, but might lose his job entirely. The star player hierarchy that was and is present in other organizations is simply not there in New England. And Brady silently took it. In part, that may have been due to Brady’s desire to improve; in part, it might have been his family-centric upbringing and that he wanted nothing more than to please and receive approval from his football father figure in Belichick – something he never received to a sufficient degree. 

The fundamental question that goes without an answer is who of the three was the critical and indispensable component of the Patriots dynasty. 

Was it the owner who leveraged himself to the nth degree and navigated the complex terrain of running the organization as both an on-field sports franchise and a business?

Was it the coach whose reputation as a malcontent with the personality of a corpse’s toupee whose first foray as a head coach ended in a disaster with the Browns and resigned the day he was given his second opportunity with the Jets so he could go to New England?

Or was it the afterthought quarterback who was only given the opportunity to play due to the starter’s injury?  

The answer is that they’re inextricably linked. Without Kraft, there’s no Belichick; without Belichick, there’s no Brady; without Brady, there’s no Kraft and Belichick. The Dynasty is the Patriots as an organization with background characters Julian Edelman, Tedy Bruschi, Moss, Deion Branch, Rob Gronkowski and myriad others integral to the story, but it’s foundation is the three men whose methods were different, but who mapped out a strategy to reach the pinnacle of their profession together with one unable to do it without the other two. That these three markedly different personalities could mesh so effectively and coexist for two decades with unparalleled success supersedes any individual. That Benedict does not give an answer may be the answer as to how their legendary twenty-year run came to be.

On Mike Francesa and his return to WFAN in New York

Mike Francesa’s pending return to WFAN in New York caught many by surprise. An onslaught of criticism has inundated him and the station for the ham-handed way this was handled, that Francesa had his extended “farewell tour” only to stage a return four months later, and he usurped his replacements with little regard to anyone other than himself.

Francesa benefited from the poor showing in the first ratings book from his replacements, “The Afternoon Drive” with Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray and Bart Scott, and that the station was still reeling from the firing of morning co-host Craig Carton after his arrest for allegations of being involved in a Ponzi scheme.

This was a perfect storm. The decline in ratings was one thing. The content for the Afternoon Drive show and that they lost to none other than Michael Kay appears to have been the tipping point. For Francesa’s  hard core listeners – of which were and are many – a shrieking storm alert text message on a loop is preferable to listening to Kay. Since there is no other sports afternoon radio talk show in New York, those who cannot stand Kay and didn’t like the Afternoon Drive show were left lamenting WFAN’s inability to keep Francesa from leaving and Francesa for abandoning them.

For Carlin, Gray and Scott, the die was cast early in their brief tenure during the New York Giants’ quarterback controversy when Gray launched into an extended rant as to how an NFL team should develop a quarterback as if she somehow knew more about it than experienced NFL front office folk. No, it wasn’t a Francesa rant when he raved like a lunatic with his ample flesh jiggling and his voice and internal organs straining like he was about to have a volcanic eruption with Diet Coke exploding from every orifice, but it was worse. Francesa was so cocksure in his statements – no matter how idiotic they could be – that he pulled it off. Gray tried a calm, rational approach that failed the “Who are you to be saying this?” test. Francesa’s credibility on such a subjective topic as developing a quarterback is likely not any better than Gray’s, but he sold it better and hand waved away the credibility question like one of his callers.

Carlin tried too hard to generate controversy with outrageous statements.

Scott clearly lacked conviction as he spouted memorized lines about sports other than football.

It didn’t work. Like the nightmarish experiment of David Lee Roth replacing Howard Stern, there were two choices:

1) Continue moving forward, refuse to acknowledge a mistake and let the audience wither away to nothing.

2) Cut the ties and make a move that was financially motivated to be sure, but was also adhering to what the audience wants.

The purpose of a radio show is to generate listeners. The listeners are gauged by ratings and the ratings are an overriding factor in advertising rates. Losing listeners means lower advertising rates and lower revenue. After the loss of Carton and the station’s apparent rudderless foray into the unknown, they had no alternative. It’s fair to criticize the station for how it was done, but arguing that it was not a sound business decision is putting what’s deemed to be “fair” ahead of what’s necessary to effectively run a business.

Francesa is not innocent here. It would not be the essence of Francesa if he didn’t try to spin his return into something he was “forced” to do as he made bizarre allusions to a conspiracy to keep him off the air as if he’s the last line of defense against a cabal of shadowy powerbrokers for which his return sabotages a quest for universal domination.

Somewhere inside him, when getting past the rancid soda, clogged arteries, calcified chunks of ego and goo, presumably he knows this. And he doesn’t care.

To say that he couldn’t find a new radio home is difficult to believe. He certainly could have gone to Sirius or gotten a job on a network talking about the NFL and college basketball. The motivation to go back to his radio home could have been the money; it could have been the exposure; or it could have been that he finally got what he wanted from WFAN and his wife was sick of him being around the house micromanaging her all day when she’d grown accustomed to him being gone.

It doesn’t matter. His fans don’t care.

Those rolling their eyes at the extended farewell tour and his subsequent return are ignoring the reality that Francesa has functioned for his entire career – if not his entire life – thinking that he was worthy of feting and fealty just for existing; simply because he granted his listeners the generosity of sharing his wisdom with them. By that metric, he should have been idolized whether he was retiring or not.

As for show content, this was a no-brainer. Like him or not, there are few voices in the media who have that cachet of “I wonder what he/she will say about this?”

Francesa has it.

Wondering about how Aaron Boone is using his bullpen for the Yankees?

What’s wrong with Matt Harvey and what the Mets should do?

If there’s a real chance that Tom Brady will retire and that a rift between him and Bill Belichick will sabotage the Patriots?

Whom the Knicks should hire as head coach?

If the Giants will select Saquon Barkley, Bradley Chubb, a quarterback, or trade down with the second overall pick in the coming NFL draft?

What the New York Jets will do after having traded up to get the third pick?

Francesa will tell you. You’ll listen. You might agree. You might disagree. You might loathe his arrogance and refusal to admit to ever having been wrong about anything, ever. He’s heading back to WFAN because the station needs him and he needs the forum. How it was done is secondary and after all the conversation, nobody cares if they get the show they want. That show is Francesa’s show.

The right question to ask about Chip Kelly and the Philadelphia Eagles

As the Philadelphia Eagles make one headline after another during the NFL’s free agent frenzy, the question most often being asked about Eagles coach and de facto organizational boss Chip Kelly is, “Does he know what he’s doing?”

It’s a bad question, but it’s all part of an agenda designed to ridicule, express sarcasm and make preemptive “predictions” as to how the additions and subtractions will fare. It unavoidably degenerated into the ludicrous as football know-nothing Stephen A. Smith of ESPN trolled for ratings and web hits by implying that Kelly is a racist.

The idea in and of itself is nonsensical but, ironically, it coincides with why Kelly’s wheeling and dealing shouldn’t be viewed as a blind loyalty to the University of Oregon at the expense of keeping his job. No football coach can be labeled a racist today because no football coach who wants to keep his job can afford to be a racist; no football coach can be labeled as married to a former college program and reunite it in the pros because no football coach in his right mind believes that even the best college teams can succeed in the pros.

The right question to ask regarding Kelly has nothing to do with racism, his college loyalties or his system. It has to do with whether or not what he’s doing will work. It’s that simple. And the answer to that won’t be known until the team is on the field.

Looking at NFL history, every coach who tried to do something different saw the new schemes universally treated as if there was a personal affront being committed against the history of the league; that it couldn’t possibly work…because…it just couldn’t. There was rarely a logical explanation with a point-by-point refutation of the new strategy. It was the simplistic and stupid, “That’s not the way we do things here.” If that were the case, there would never have been the forward pass, the spread formation, the run-and-shoot (which most teams use a variation of now), the slot receiver, the pass-catching tight end, or the decision to go back to the old-school smashmouth and a vicious, punishing defense. Anything will be viewed negatively for no other reason than it’s deviating from the current norm. When it’s an unwanted interloper like Kelly who purports to be reinventing the game, then the media and NFL lifers will grow even more incoherent, angry and restless.

The names of Eagles that have come, gone and remained – LeSean McCoy, Nick Foles, Sam Bradford, Kiko Alonso, Ryan Mathews, Jeremy Maclin, Mark Sanchez – are largely irrelevant. What’s important is whether or not Kelly is doing things his way and is going all-in as he does it.

Much was made of Kelly triangulating himself into being the main voice in running the Eagles after winning the power struggle with former general manager Howie Roseman. Roseman had his role changed to executive vice president of football operations, but his job will be limited to negotiating contracts. Kelly managed this by responding to the firing of his front office ally Tom Gamble by threatening to get out of his Eagles contract to go back to college.

College.

The looming threat is always there for coaches who made their names in the NCAA and are more than willing to go back if the “NFL thing” doesn’t work out. Some coaches like Jimmy Johnson were essentially professional coaches when they were in college. Some, like Steve Spurrier and Bobby Petrino, were college coaches who were giving the NFL a shot knowing they’d eventually head back to college sooner rather than later. And some are perfectly content with either/or. Jim Harbaugh and Kelly fall into that category.

The concept that Kelly is gutting the Eagles and replacing the erstwhile roster with something akin to what would have been found at a University of Oregon booster meet-and-greet with NCAA football championship contending players of yesteryear is a convenient storyline to make him look as if he’s pining for his college days and transferring what was in the Pacific Northwest to the Northeast and trying to succeed with it to prove his genius. In truth, any boss is going to want to import people with whom he has a rapport; who know how he wants things done; who are so accustomed to his tics and quirks and style that there’s a spoken shorthand streamlining communications. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Johnson was torched when he got to the NFL, took over the Dallas Cowboys and followed Tom Landry’s distinguished reign with a 1-15 embarrassment. But it was that 1-15 embarrassment that planted the seeds for the Cowboys’ three Super Bowls in four years. It was the decision to trade Herschel Walker at mid-season and getting what amounted to the S&P 500 worth of draft picks that let him get the players he wanted.

But Johnson was in the NFL and had zero intention of going back to college. Spurrier on the other hand, took the job as head coach of the Washington Redskins to feed his own ego, make a ton of money and try to prove that he was not only the best college football coach in the land, but the best football coach period. He’d do it his way with University of Florida players – whether they were suited to the NFL or not – and he’d do it while making plenty of time for golf. His offense didn’t work and his attitude was a disaster. He ran back to college as an almost foregone conclusion once he realized he couldn’t dominate the games with his offensive genius, intimidate the players by holding their scholarships over his head, and control the media simply through their lovelorn, glazed-over lust for him. People dared to have the audacity to question the ol’ ball coach Spurrier. He couldn’t have that.

When Vince Lombardi entered the NFL as an assistant coach for the New York Giants, the players rolled their eyes at him and thought he was some short, loud jerk from college. Eventually, he gained their respect and got the job as the czar of the Green Bay Packers. It was there that he set about resurrecting a moribund franchise by making such unpopular moves as immediately trading away the team’s best player and most prominent personality Billy Howton because Howton was insolent, had a big mouth, was divisive and was exactly the type of player who would sow dissent in the locker room because he wasn’t getting the ball enough. In part it was due to the new coach wanting to send a message; in part it was due to Lombardi realizing he was going to install a power-based running offense that didn’t need a mouthy end demanding the ball.

If Lombardi were around today, set about rebuilding the Packers in the way he did in 1959 with the same players and there was 24/7 sports talk and cable channels, Paul Hornung would be called a Heisman Trophy bust, Bart Starr would be called a non-prospect joke, and Lombardi would be referred to as a would-be drill sergeant who never served in the military and had a Napoleon complex with no clue how the NFL really functioned.

Lombardi is considered the greatest football coach in history.

Even Bill Belichick wasn’t immune to the criticism for making necessary cuts to further his plan for the New England Patriots. It’s easy to forget now, but Belichick was said to have “lost” the locker room after he cut Lawyer Milloy at the end of training camp in 2003. It was a salary cap move made because Milloy refused to take a pay cut. Leaders like Ty Law and Tedy Bruschi were livid. After Milloy (and former Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe) and the Buffalo Bills obliterated the Patriots in the opening game of that year 31-0, there were questions as to whether Belichick’s job was on the line. He stayed stoic, explained his position, made clear he was the boss and in command, and that the decision to cut Milloy was best for the organization in the present and future.

Then the Patriots won 17 out of 18 games through the Super Bowl and Milloy wasn’t mentioned as anything but a meaningless, “Oh, yeah. That.” They won the Super Bowl the next year as well and Belichick’s job status has never been in question since.

Someone has to be in charge.

Coaching in the NFL can be a dirty business and if a coach isn’t willing to play dirty and use somewhat underhanded tactics in organizational politics, he’s not going to last very long. If being static were the idea with no room for innovation and change, we’d be trapped in a purgatory of players in leather helmets running into each other with no excitement, no innovation, no intelligence – just brute force and dullness. In a similar sense, in years gone by, coaches had bizarre – often dangerous – training tactics like refusing to allow players water while they were practicing and forcing the players to partake in pads-on scrimmages that were even more brutal than the games themselves. Without positive advancement, the players wouldn’t even be allowed to seek big money in free agency. It wasn’t that long ago that NFL free agency was a wink-and-nod joke with every team knowing they had what amounted to indentured servants at their disposal. Innovation and change is a good thing.

Kelly has a top-to-bottom idea of how he wants the team to function from the dietary habits of the players to the training techniques to the fast break offense he wants to implement. If he’s doing it and doing it his way, then he’d better make sure to throw all his chips into the center of the table and either win big or lose it all. That’s what he’s doing. It’s not racism. It’s not stupidity. It’s not ignorance. There’s only a hint of megalomaniacal arrogance that you find in all NFL head coaches and there’s a method behind the perceived madness. He’s right to do it his way in theory even if it fails in practice. At least then there won’t be the regret of woulda, shoulda, coulda. Like any other change, it’s either going to work or it’s not. Then will be the time to judge. Not now.

Browns’ signing of McCown good news for Manziel

The Cleveland Browns have been open in their public statements of no longer being committed to Johnny Manziel as their future starting quarterback. Given the public issues that Manziel has had culminating with him entering rehabilitation for undisclosed issues, it’s no surprise. He’s done just about everything he could possibly do to sabotage an NFL career that many still believe stems more from promotional skills of his handlers than actual ability to play in the league.

Whether he can play well enough to be a functional NFL quarterback – let alone the star he was in college – remains to be seen. But his off-field problems will prevent him from even getting on the field if he doesn’t get them under control. There was an intentional opaqueness to the statements from the Browns that Manziel wasn’t guaranteed to be their starter in 2015 and that they were prepared to move on without him if he didn’t begin to take his job as seriously as he did being a bon vivant celebrity who liked to party and enjoyed the “celebrity QB” lifestyle without doing the work necessary to fulfill the “QB” part. They might have been threatening him or they might have been serious. My belief is that it was the former – for now. Given his off-field value to the franchise and the still unknown on-field quantity that he is, it’s worthwhile for them to give him another chance to see if he gets the message.

Unless Manziel shows a commitment to playing in the NFL in lieu of being in the NFL, there’s no logical reason for them to go forward with him. No matter how much Kardashian-style attention and financial benefit they get for having Manziel on their roster, eventually it’s going to be a case of diminishing returns. Fans – even rabid ones – will stop watching a freakshow if the freakshow is an embarrassment and, especially, if the team doesn’t win. The players won’t support Manziel; the coaches won’t support Manziel; the media won’t support Manziel. Eventually, even his most vocal benefactors like owner Jimmy Haslam would acquiesce to the groundswell, accept the situation for what it is and move on.

The Browns being so open about questioning Manziel as their franchise linchpin is in part a fact and a message. The second part of the equation is finding someone who can serve as competition/potential replacement. Given the relative weakness of the pro free agent and trade market and that, barring a trade, they’re not drafting high enough to get a top college quarterback along the lines of Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota, they had a choice: re-sign last year’s starter Brian Hoyer or sign a veteran who could play if necessary, but isn’t so head and shoulders above Manziel that he must start. They chose the latter by signing veteran Josh McCown to a three-year contract.

On the field, there’s really little difference between Hoyer and McCown no matter how many sources – identified and not – say that the team has the best chance to win with Hoyer. Hoyer’s a journeyman who somehow parlayed a few brief spurts of good play and a solid attitude into being a “starter” and “leader.” The fact is that when Hoyer was benched in favor of Manziel late in the 2014 season, there might have been some background noise from factions in the Browns’ front office that they wanted Manziel to play, but objectively, the benching was more than deserved as Hoyer had been terrible for a solid month before he was finally pulled. That it was Manziel and there was a movement for him to get his opportunity based on factors ancillary to his readiness or viability doesn’t alter that reality.

A team in need of a quarterback or possibly in need of a quarterback – the New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Chicago Bears, Tampa Bay Buccaneers – will sign Hoyer with the intention of him getting a legitimate shot to play with Hoyer expecting to walk in as the first man on the depth chart when training camp opens. That’s not the case with McCown.

Like Hoyer, McCown is the ultimate case of believing too much in what’s happening in the moment and looking at factors that need to be placed in better context. He’s not as good as he was in that late season run with the Bears in 2013; he’s not as bad as his team was in 2014 with the Buccaneers. His resume, however, is at least as accomplished as that of Hoyer which says more about Hoyer and his sudden in-demand position than it does about McCown or Manziel. The difference is that Hoyer will sign a contract befitting a starting quarterback and will not be happy if he’s not the starter regardless of performance. McCown will be prepared to start. He’ll also be willing to sit if that’s what will help the team. If that’s the case, he’ll be happy to try and steer Manziel in the right direction both on and off the field. Would that happen with Hoyer? And is he the player the Browns want to commit to if they’re teetering on giving up on Manziel?

While Hoyer is said to have gotten along well with Manziel, it’s human nature for him to want the younger player to continue partying and damaging his standing with the organization to let Hoyer keep his tenuous hold on the starting job long enough to get a large contract as a free agent. McCown is long past that and is now thinking about a future of hanging around a few years as a respected backup and team player with a coaching job ahead of him. That says that the Browns are still hoping that Manziel will realize that he’s owed nothing and has to work for what he gets rather than have it handed to him because of his public relations team, Heisman Trophy and name recognition.

Only Manziel knows and the Browns can judge whether or not he’s being sincere in changing his ways and is treating sobriety and his career with a seriousness he’s yet to show. It’s difficult to envision him ceasing and desisting with drinking and doing whatever else it was that spurred the (parentally? organizationally?) mandated intervention that sent him to rehab in the first place. This won’t be a matter of him evolving from the immature Johnny Football into the mature John Football. It’s going to take a sacrifice that he may not be prepared to make; one that, given the spoiled life he’s led, he won’t have the first concept of how to make. McCown can help him and, unlike what would be the case if Hoyer were still around, will be willing to help him enough so he can take the starting job and run with it if he’s capable of doing so.

Johnny Manziel’s career Hail Mary: rehab

Given Johnny Manziel’s immaturity and complete lack of interest in committing himself to football instead of partying, his voluntary entry into rehabilitation for undisclosed problems appears to be a blatant attempt to throw a Hail Mary and save his career with the Cleveland Browns. In fact, considering his reputation, his entire career as a quarterback in the NFL is in jeopardy. For a Heisman Trophy winner and first round draft pick to have self-destructed to this degree in one season is hard to fathom. Somehow he managed it.

Are we to believe that Manziel woke up one morning after an especially rough night and realized that things had to change for his professional career to validate the “Johnny Football” nickname and not be used as a derogatory term of ridicule to be used in the same sentence with the phrase “Johnny Bust?” Or did he come to a different realization that being catered to, spoiled and babied while a schoolboy star in Texas wasn’t going to transfer to Cleveland as he began his pro career?

That the Browns are openly vacillating on his future made clear that something had to change. The key is whether it’s real. Rehab and perhaps converting to Christianity are the last, desperate measures that athletes, celebrities and politicians try to use to salvage their careers. Given the frequency of recidivism for drug and alcohol problems in general and with high-profile people in particular, it should be taken with a significant amount of hesitation before 28 days in a program is suddenly evidence that Manziel will be clean and sober and stay that way.

The personal problems and lack of dedication are one layer of what Manziel faces, but even if he was as clean-cut and determined as Tim Tebow, there’s still the looming question as to whether or not he’s good enough to be anything more than a journeyman backup in the league. In that sense, he’s like Tebow without the likability to get him chance after chance even if he doesn’t deserve it.

The hype machine and college success that created this image of Manziel as a future “star” doesn’t eliminate the obvious flaws in his game. Were he a prototype, 6’5”, 220 pound pocket passer with a rocket arm, he’d have the capital to act like a colossal jerk, party his brains out, alienate teammates, coaches, front office people, fans and media and get away with it.

He’s not a prototype and he’s not getting away with it. There are two layers to Manziel’s challenges in rebuilding his image and career: one, he doesn’t seem to want to work very hard; two, he might not be talented enough to be anything more than a bare minimum, game-managing starter even if he works 20 hours a day. That’s two strikes. The attitude is strike 2.2; the partying is strike 2.5; rehab is strike 2.8.

He’s running out of strikes.

When he was drafted, Manziel tried to mimic Tom Brady’s bravado by proclaiming his own future greatness, but he failed to do what Brady did and put in the work to make that a reality. Brady believed it. Manziel said it because it sounded good. There lies the difference between a Manziel and a Brady. Both have the bravado, but Brady had the ability and was, more importantly, willing to stay home at night and study his playbook in between workout sessions. Manziel’s eyes are apparently too bleary and bloodshot to read the top two lines of an eye chart, let alone a complicated Kyle Shanahan playbook. Shanahan’s gone now. While initially that appeared to be an accommodation to Manziel, it now appears that Shanahan simply didn’t want to deal with a player who couldn’t play and didn’t want to bother trying to maximize what limited skills he has.

Manziel may not have the ability and clearly expects everything to be as easy in the NFL as it’s been throughout his life. His commitment is wanting. He’d like to have the fringe benefits of being a football star without having to actually perform. If you told Brady that he could have the star status and a faltering career or a superlative career without the star status, he’d take the latter. That’s why Brady just won his fourth Super Bowl and why Manziel’s career might end before it starts.

Fans and media love a rise, but they love a fall even better. Manziel puts forth the impression that he doesn’t understand the difference between being on a big screen TV in an arena and being an exhibit in a zoo. He had every opportunity to win the starting job in training camp and didn’t. He got a chance to play late in the season, was atrocious and got hurt.

A minuscule amount of that is why the Browns are presenting a laissez faire attitude regarding Manziel. It’s his off-field behavior that’s the problem and that an offense will have to be tailored to what he can do, placing the team in a position where they’re drafting and signing players to cater to him and perhaps setting themselves back for an even longer period than they would if they cut ties with him or found a replacement, keeping him as a sideshow on the sideline wearing a baseball cap and holding a clipboard.

From the Browns’ perspective and contrary to prevailing sentiment, it won’t be a huge disaster if they have to move on from Manziel so quickly into his career. He wasn’t the first overall pick in the draft. He wasn’t even their first overall pick. For a 22nd pick in the first round, it’s easier to shrug, chalk it up to experience and move on rather than lament a massive mistake and make it worse by not accepting the truth: he might not be able to play and he’s definitely not invested in his on-field career.

So we come to the entrance into rehab. Seeing the situation deteriorating and the Browns basically telling him that he needs them, not vice versa, he or someone close to him decided that he had to take the tack of contrition instead of doubling down on bluster. Like everything with Manziel, it might be another shallow attempt at pretense. If that’s the case, his career is headed in the direction of other notable players who were famous for being famous and faded out before they realized the opportunity they’d blown. Then he’ll really begin to spiral. Then, it’s likely that he’ll really need rehab.

Damon Bruce’s Rant (Who’s Damon Bruce?)

I didn’t know who Damon Bruce was prior to about an hour ago. In fact, when I went to have dinner and came back to my Mac to Twitter-search his name, I mistakenly referred to him as “Buford.”

The name “Damon Bruce” brought me back to my days of writing fiction as I began formulating a method to describe a character to fit the name. My version of Damon Bruce would be wearing denim overalls and no shirt. He’d have a corncob pipe in his mouth as he sat on a tree stump holding between his legs a two-tone bottle of moonshine with the “XX” emblazoned across its front. His eyes would be crossed, his head titled toward the sky and the corners of his lips would be in downward curl as he gazed toward the sky. There might be a thought bubble above his head with the universal sign of thoughtlessness/blissful drunkenness: ***. His hair and goatee would be identical to what they are in reality.

The world is quick to take what they deem offensive or what they’ve been told is offensive by those who have been offended and twist it into a way to write a blog posting, go on a tangent or bolster themselves by using it (whatever “it” is) as a catalyst. Women who are insulted are fainting as if they’re a Southern belle caricature and have the vapors. Men are responding with a “how dare you?!?” tone as if they really care one way or the other. If Bruce were in a position of authority like a newspaper editor or program director, I can see the offense taken. He’s a guy looking for attention and is getting it.

You can listen to Bruce’s radio rant below:

After listening to it, I’m not sure of its purpose other than for him to get his name out there for those who – like me – had no idea who he was. It was poorly organized from the start and if one is going to intentionally build up a chain reaction controversy, it would be better executed if it wasn’t so blatant. Comparing the content provided by women in comparison to men is a silly foundation to complain about given the state of media as a whole. Male or female, the majority of supposed sportswriters don’t know much of anything to begin with and can’t write very well. It’s not women; it’s not men; it’s everyone.

Bruce played the Jerry Sandusky card when comparing the abuse that Jonathan Martin supposedly suffered at the hands of his Dolphins teammates. Without a legitimate context, this should be completely off-limits when making any kind of comparison and wanting to keep one’s job on the radio.

And that’s the key: Bruce works on the radio in San Francisco. The Martin-Richie Incognito case appeared to be what sparked this bizarre rant and that case is about lines and at what point they’re being crossed. No matter what happened and who’s completely at fault – and we really don’t know the full extent of the story yet – it was about lines more than anything else. The lines between what the coaches said and meant when they allegedly told Incognito to toughen Martin up; the lines between how far the players should have gone separating conventional team goofing and abuse; the lines between what would be acceptable. For a radio host working in one of the most liberal and intolerant cities in the world when it comes to misogyny, homophobia and racism, it’s clear that Bruce doesn’t understand the difference between drumming up some attention and saying things that will, at best, get him suspended. At worst, he’ll be fired.

If this wasn’t a planned and desperate plea for attention and Bruce had left out the gender-related commentary by saying, “Everyone is being too sensitive because this story has blown up to the degree it has. This stuff has been going on forever. All those billions of NFL fans who watch with rapt attention and spend gobs of money every week acting indignantly because the Martin case is such an affront to their delicate sensibilities are only responding because the cover has been violently ripped off of the realities of what happens in some NFL lockerrooms.”

There’s a case for that and it can be made intelligently, without having to resort to the cheap tactics that Bruce used. Now, instead of a furthering of the discussion, Bruce got the attention he wanted and he might lose his job because of it.

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The Jonathan Martin Case Puts the NFL in a Precarious Situation

Jonathan Martin of the Miami Dolphins having left the team due to what’s been referred to as locker room bullying has put the NFL in a delicate situation on how to regulate their players.

Years ago, this wouldn’t have been an issue. Martin would be declared weak and told that if he wanted to be an NFL player, he had to toughen up. As a former second round draft pick, the young offensive tackle has obvious value. He’s 6’5”, 310 pounds and teams don’t waste second round draft picks on players they’ll dispose of for a solvable problem. If this had happened before the NFL tried to become such a fan-friendly entity with crossover appeal, it’s doubtful it would have been a story at all.

Times are different. The simplistic approach says that when dealing with a group mentality with people in an aggressive, high-pressure environment, the way to put a stop to this type of behavior is to handle it physically. Fights within a sports team happen all the time whether they’re reported or not. The only time they are reported are when they occur in public or there’s an injury of some sort. Other than that, they’re occasionally necessary to clear out bad blood or, as in Martin’s case, to make his teammates cease being so abusive.

Could Martin have taken the supposed ringleader, Richie Incognito and given him a beating to send a message to him and the rest of the team to knock it off? Incognito is about the same size as Martin, but usually just the effort is enough to make a bully back away.

Perhaps Martin doesn’t want to resort to that.

Martin went to Stanford and both of his parents are attorneys who went to Harvard. When a physical confrontation is necessary, it’s not fear that stops the more cerebral and intelligent person from acting. It’s the potential consequences and weighing the results that keeps them from taking that step.

“What if I really hurt him?

“What if I go to jail?”

“Do I want to play this game if it makes me into something I’m not?”

They’re legitimate questions.

For whatever reason, Martin chose to take a different route and walked away. The whole episode is being portrayed as “Martin was picked on and he left the team.” It might not be that at all. No one knows the whole story. It could be a combination of issues that led to his departure. Whether or not he’ll be back is up to him.

To believe that the intra-team treatment of players is an isolated incident is naïve at best and stupid at worst.

The public response to a cellphone video that Giants punter Steve Weatherford made of Prince Amukamara being dumped into ice water by Jason Pierre-Paul was indicative of the culture. Weatherford posted it on Twitter and it became an “incident.” Was this hazing? Was it bullying?

If it’s guys goofing around, it’s one thing. If it reaches the level where the target doesn’t want to come to work, it’s another. It’s hard to blame the players because how are they supposed to know when to stop if there’s not a baseline criteria and standards of which action is in what category?

There’s a fine line between hazing and abusiveness. There’s also a fine line between looking like the school kid saying “I’m telling on you” to have it handled by a person in position of power and reporting a workplace violation. Many times, telling the boss or the teacher or the police about it is going to make matters worse. In the case of the Dolphins, what precisely is coach Joe Philbin going to do about it? He’s not exactly intimidating and doesn’t have the personality of someone the players will be frightened of. Much has been made of Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano and his staff violating what’s supposed to be a “players only” sanctuary of the locker room with spies and perceived inappropriate venturing into their territory. If the coaches aren’t supposed to go in there, then they’re not supposed to mess with the hierarchy of the room and any rituals that might go on either.

In the Giants incident, coach Tom Coughlin said that he didn’t know about it until he was told and would take care of it. Rest assured he did. Will Philbin? Or will he hem and haw and be wishy-washy about it hoping it goes away? Would anyone be scared enough to listen if he told them to stop?

A strong-handed head coach doesn’t necessarily have to be a stern, glowering taskmaster like Coughlin or Mike Tomlin; it doesn’t have to be someone whose personality permeates the room and the players know he’ll be ruthless in dealing with a problem as Jimmy Johnson was. Andy Reid and Mike Holmgren are soft-spoken puffballs, but the players know they’re in charge. And that’s without mentioning the Emperor Palpatine of the NFL, Bill Belichick.

With a coach, it comes down to this: Is it affecting the team? Since Martin left, it’s affecting the team, therefore it’s a problem that must be addressed. Other than that, they probably wouldn’t notice if they knew about it at all.

Given the nature of this story and the mere use of the word “bullying,” it puts the NFL in a precarious position on how to proceed. The NFL is taking part in anti-bullying campaigns and trying to educate young people on why not to do it and what to do if it does happen. So what is the NFL’s recourse if it’s happening with one of their own franchises to the point that the player who was reportedly subjected to the bullying got up and left?

The NFL Players Association is looking into it and there’s no doubt that Commissioner Roger Goodell is monitoring this closely. In combination with the league-wide efforts to take part in anti-bullying initiatives and that it’s making the league look bad, this happening so publicly will get some results. Whether it will stop throughout the league is the question. The answer is probably no.

Like the code red in the Marine Corps and made famous in A Few Good Men, these hazing rituals are part of the culture. On some level, the players, coaches and participants might think it’s a necessary part of building a bond and indicates acceptance into the group. Once something happens to draw it into public scrutiny, there will be the pretense of responding to the issue to prevent it from happening again, then it will be forgotten about. It’s been part of the dynamic forever. One story about a football player who decided he’d had enough won’t alter that fact.

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Belichick Won’t Be Blamed For Hernandez’s Mess

Bill Belichick is one of the few coaches who won’t get any of the blame for the current predicament that Aaron Hernandez is facing. You can read about the latest with Hernandez here, but at best it sounds like another player who got involved with “associates” who he would have been better served not to have been involved with. At worst, he’s in a lot of trouble.

Regardless of that, what would be said if this were another incident in the long line of incidents that occurred with the Dallas Cowboys under Jerry Jones and company? What would be said if it was Rex Ryan and the New York Jets with their overt lack of discipline and seemingly fundamental need to embarrass themselves with loud talk and little on-field action? The Cincinnati Bengals have had their share of off-field turmoil. The Oakland Raiders have a long history of actively seeking out players who would be in jail if they couldn’t play football—and they might be in jail anyway.

Fairly or not, there are organizations for whom the players’ behaviors are seen as an entity unto themselves with no responsibility doled out on the team or the men who signed them, tacitly agreeing to take the personal problems in order to try and win. That the Patriots, under owner Bob Kraft, were the team that drafted Christian Peter claiming not to know his history of misogyny and then chose not to sign him once they “found out” about them created the image of a team that doesn’t do it “that” way meaning the Jones way or the Al Davis way in not caring about personality as long as the player can help them.

The image failing to jibe with the reality is meaningless. If the coach of the Patriots were a Barry Switzer-type outlaw, then of course the blame for Hernandez’s predicament would be dropped on the desk of the coach because he couldn’t “rein in” his player as if that’s even possible with grown men. Since it’s Belichick, he has the power to do the things he wants and if that includes dumping a player who can still produce because he’s mouthy and violates team rules, so be it. Other coaches without Belichick’s resume and the organizational track record of success would have to make certain compromises and bend the rules to try and win to keep their jobs and have the fans come to the games. Belichick has the best of both worlds: he can dump the player or he can sign the player and no one will say anything either way.

Belichick can sign Randy Moss, Chad Johnson, Albert Haynesworth and other players who’ve had on and off-field issues and see if they’ll fit into his program. He can sign Tim Tebow and not worry if it’s going to lead to a huge media circus around his team, nor be frightented of Tebow’s legions reacting negatively if he cuts him. If these players don’t help his team, he can dispatch them with no harm, no foul. If they do, it’s more evidence of Belichick’s “genius.” In truth, it’s still a compromise, but the compromise doesn’t have to be buttressed by putting up with the same behaviors that got the players in trouble and made them available to the Patriots on the cheap in the first place.

No matter who the coach is, how scary he can be and the rigid discipline he displays to keep his house in order, there will always be players for whom trouble is a magnet. Some skirt it and rejuvenate themselves, dodging the bullet sometimes literally and figuratively, as Ray Lewis did; sometimes they end up in jail for the rest of their lives like Rae Carruth. When dealing with grown men making the money amid the fame that NFL players are today, there’s nothing a coach can do to keep his players completely in line during their off-hours. Nor should it come as a surprise if a vast majority of professional athletes are carrying firearms. In fact, given the history of people seeking out athletes to rob because their salaries are so prominent, they’re irresponsible if they don’t take steps to protect themselves. Given today’s debate regarding guns, it’s not politically correct to say that, but there’s a difference between a person who has a need to protect himself and a mentally unstable person who is able to acquire weapons for the express purpose of committing mayhem.

A coach can’t tell a player not to take steps to keep himself safe and no one—not even Belichick—has such omnipotent powers to shield a key to his team like Hernandez from what happened in this case. Belichick has protection as well: the championships absolving him from any questioning and blame. Other coaches don’t have that. That’s his weapon if he chooses to use it and, unlike what might have happened with Hernandez, it’s not going to get him sent to jail if he does.

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