weeks, since the regular season ended Super Bowls overall, five
jobs are filled. We talked about this a little bit
yesterday. Let's take a look back at the hiring cycle for
2023
Panthers Texans, Broncos, Colts and Cardinals.
They have made their hires,
which team do you think made the best
head-coaching higher of those? Five individuals will be taking
over those five teams. Wow, gosh I did. No, I don't look at
any of them and think they're bad. I don't, you know,
the horrible thing is this is where it
stopped. Do you have there was candidates out there to deserve
another chance that got screwed over in their first chance. But
I can't sit here and look at any of these guys and go. They
don't deserve to be a head coach,
man. There's there's some real
you know perfect match with what the team needs right at
this moment, right? Carolina is quarterback, quarterback
quarterback. All right, well you got an ex NFL quarterback
who,
you know, played with some Legends and I
understand he's gonna find that guy.
And also there's
there's there's a lot of I feel like
matches that make sense between the organization and the head
coach, but it's hard not to just focus in on you know, Sean
Payton
that to me, you know, when all said and done I don't know if
he was their top choice, but thank god. It worked out though
way
because now it's going to save the investment of Russell Wilson
and he's going to turn around this organization. I just have no.
No doubt about this. This is one of the great coaches of
this era, so I like them all I really do.
But, but yeah, Sean Payton. I think Takes the Cake, Just
because of his background and kind of the, the, the obstacles
he has in front of him. I have the most faith in him.
We know that two or three. I'm going to fail. That's just
the way it goes. Peyton is the one who's the most accomplished.
He's the most proven, and we both believe in his
eye for detail, his attention to detail, the work ethic the
fact that he Awesomely pushes to try to find a way to get
ahead of the team that he's playing that weekend and it's
a constant struggle explain that to us last week. It was
Mesmerizing the way he was explaining the things he does
to try to gain that edge
and the breadth of the net that he casts looking for ideas. We
told the story about the play card that he sent me after,
I was expressing to him. Amazement at just this idea
that you can spend as much time as you want, you can stay
up all night. All night, you're only limited by the fact that
the game starts when the game starts you otherwise can work
and grind and look at film of them of you and if anyone and
that's one of the things he does he looks elsewhere. He
found that play from Patriots bears that he thought would
work in a Sunday night game against the Vikings. He drew it
up, he dropped it in the mail, used it in the game, and scored
a touchdown with it. A little jet motion touch pass against
the
Vikings defense. That he knew based upon the system, then
Mike, Zimmer, and it would work. And it did work. So
that's what he's always looking for. And that's why I think
he's going to be a Difference Maker for
the Broncos and whatever Russell Wilson, currently is
Chris, whatever he has left physically
Hayden is going to get the most out of it. And Payton has
the best of both worlds. He's either gonna be the hero for
turning around Russell Wilson. Or if Russell Wilson, doesn't
turn it around. It's not Peyton's fault. Yeah, you're
right about that. You're right.
Great building. Excuse if Wilson stinks. No one is going
to blame Peyton. If Wilson, can't get it done because it's
the second straight year that Wilson Wouldn't have gotten it.
I'm with you there.
Agreed there. There it is. A nice little cushion for him.
All right, so wait. We both agree on Sean Payton but like
art. So who's next? Who's the guy? You look at they go? Okay,
I
you know I don't think any
either one of us, look at it, these guys and go. Oh, that's
a bad hire anything, but who's the guy that other than Sean
Payton, you're most excited to kind of see what they do or
what they can be?
Well, look, I'm not going to say bad hire. Good higher when
I'm going to say is this for three of these guys? We just
don't know. They are stepping into a job, they've never done
before. We don't know that they have the skills necessary
to Parlay being effective coordinator into effective head
coach. It's not just X's and O's. Now, it's everything you
have to be able to lead. You have to be able to motivate.
You have to be able to talk to the whole
room effectively, you have to be able to communicate with
the individual players.
Effectively, you've got to deal with the media.
Effectively far different from anything you've ever done. So,
between D'Amico Ryan, Shane. Steichen. And Jonathan Gannon.
Will they be another Nathaniel Hackett
or will they be the guy who steps into that job and gets it
done? We know that,
you know, it's all the great coaches at some point.
We're coordinators,
you know, every once in a while you find a college coach of
comes to the NFL and hasn't been an assistant and does well
doesn't happen very often. Jimmie, Johnson's last one
I can think
and I can't remember
much about his resume pre Cowboys, but he was established
college coach, who figured out the NFL game without having
been. I think a coordinator. I don't know, again, it was
before I was covering the NFL
and I just don't remember if I ever knew what his background
was, but most of these guys have become great. Coaches, one
of the boxes they've checked along the way is Be
an Effective coordinator. We just don't know
whether that's going to make them. Good head coach until
they do it. So I'd say right then because he's been a head
coach, he's shown he can do the job.
And Frank Reich with Andrew luck. Got them to
the divisional round in Kansas City, 2018 and then luck
retired, and they got thrust into this revolving door of
Veteran quarterback and it just didn't work out. And Jim irsay
got
impatient. I still think there was some lingering blaming a,
Frank Reich for Carson Wentz. Yeah. Right. Absolutely fake.
It or say wanted to fire Reich after the 21 season and hired
Jeff Saturday, then
and he was talked out of it
and then just Help himself halfway through the 22 season
and just said, that's it for Frank Reich.
Let's try this again. So, I think ripe, you get him
a quarterback
that he can work with that, he can count on again. I don't
mean that in a pejorative way toward Andrew Luck, if you're
not ready to play football, for whatever reason, physically,
mentally emotionally, spiritually, whatever you
shouldn't be playing,
but it caused Frank Reich to be dealt a rough hand. If he gets
dealt a better hand at quarterback and Carolina, he
get a better outcome.
Agreed. I mean I With you there. Uh,
well like you said it, right? I mean, of course, Peyton's
the guy that's proven himself, Frank Rex proven himself to
a degree and, you know, yeah, he had the deck stacked against
them a few times to.
And I don't think he knew really necessarily deserve to
be fired this year. I don't. So I think there's a lot of
potential that I am excited for all of them in a D'Amico Ryan's
going to bring great energy to that organization and get them
back. Going in the right direction.
Get that defense team playing fast. They got to get
the quarterback. Situation figured out to right, Jonathan Gannon,
saw big adjustments from him
and just one year's Addie, coordinator,
simple as hell, and you're one in Philadelphia. You're too
kind of doing everything
Shane. Stike is the guy I'm probably out of the newcomers
the most excited to see just because hey, I'm a quarterback.
And as I said yesterday, had my eye on his offense here for
the last few years, I think it's one of the better
most well-orchestrated offenses and football. And again,
an outside-the-box thinking, Sure. But you know, to your point
there's no
there's no guarantee that you're a great coordinator and
you're going to be a great head coach, every we've talked about
what, you know, Vic fangio, who on the one of the greatest
coordinators of all time, head coach at, you know, wasn't
the best.
The guy we saw when the Super Bowl this weekend,
Steve spagnolo is one of the greatest D coordinators in
the history of the game, period.
I mean, it's it's like it's three
Super Bowl. Unbelievable defensive game plans,
You know, to win it. All right, but it didn't necessarily
translate to him either, so we'll see what happens with
this group but certainly some potential
and he was seven and 10 in his second year with the Rams, 1
and 15 is first year 2 and 14 is 30 and then get fired. As
I said the other day,
that Rams team, I believe may have been more concerned about
laying the foundation to leave for La, then to win a Super
Bowl or to be as good as they could be. And sometimes a coach
gets caught up in the gears and agenda
other than building and sustaining the best possible
team and having the best possible.
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