Pelletier's Perspective 9.12.06: Headsets and Hoodies
Posted by Justin Pelletier on 09.12.2006
This week the Perspective takes a look at some of the best (and worst) of NFL sideline supervisors. Plus a look at the 411 expert fantasy football league after Week 1 and what exactly made me throw up in my mouth a little.
Week one saw 11 road teams head home with a victory under their belts. The NFL is a super competitive league where just about any team can beat any other (with the obvious exception of Oakland). That means home field advantage should be a key factor to winning games. So what accounts for the success of a team that should be behind the eight ball in hostile territory? Believe it or not it all comes down to the most important man on the team. No not the quarterback. I'm not thinking about what happens on the field but rather on the sidelines. Today I'm going to look at the best, and worst, coaches in the NFL. (Thanks to Perspective supporter John Bryant for the idea).
Bill Belichick - Like it or not Belichick has separated himself from every other coach in the league. He has superior schemes and a superior ability to identify players who will best fit his scheme. Honestly, he's won three Super Bowls with Tom Brady and a bunch of role players. There hasn't been another SUPERSTAR on the team since Lawyer Milloy left.
You may not like his rules that prohibit his coaches from talking or his refusal to disclose injury reports (I know I don't) but face it he's lost the best offensive AND defensive coordinators in the game and still has a top five team. They're strategies he's learned from Bill Parcells (who we'll get to later) and now he's taken over Parcells' mantle as best coach in the game.
Bill Cowher - You don't keep a job as a coach in professional sports for 15 years with being VERY good. Cowher is more than that he's great and fortunately he got his Super Bowl so now everyone realizes that.
Cowher has managed to lead his team to the Super Bowl with Kordell Stewart as one of Neil O'Donnell's primary targets, to playoff victories with Tommy Maddox slinging the ball all over the field and a championship with a 24-year-old quarterback and a 5-9 receiver/quarterback hybrid, all the while maintaining a punishing ground game and a dominating defense. That kind of ability should surely have one recognized as one of the best at his craft.
Jeff Fisher - Forget about last season's debacle and whatever struggles the Titans may encounter this year. I don't care. Never in his entire tenure as Tennessee head man has Fisher had one of the most talented teams in the league yet he's still managed to have a very good career, including a Super Bowl appearance. The current Titans are a sorry group though and not even Lombardi could right that mess. Give Fisher a squad with even marginal ability and you'll have yourself a division contender.
Marvin Lewis - Hey you lead the Bengals to the playoffs and you have to be doing something right. It takes a special person to instill confidence in perennial loser like Cincinnati. Lewis has done that, not with his trademark defense but, by leading a lights-out offense. Sure having Palmer and the Johnson boys helps but you have to find those guys and Cincinnati doesn't exactly have a history of that. David Klingler and Ki-Jana Carter anyone? Additionally Lewis has managed to make an effective, ball-hawking, defense with players who really don't fit his system. That's a pretty good job of coaching if you ask me.
Jack Del Rio - The most underrated coach in the league. First of all Del Rio is a young guy with not much coaching experience, then he took over an aging team that had been ruled with an iron fist and renovated them in his own vision. A recipe for disaster if you ask me but Del Rio managed to not only keep the Jags a float but has allowed them to flourish.
He has to replace his starting running back every year when Fred Taylor's inevitable, season ending, yeast infection springs up. Then he retooled the defense with one of the best front-fours in the league and now has to replace the best player in team history with Jimmy Smith's abrupt retirement. With all that he still manages to make Jacksonville a contender and even downed Parcell's "vaunted" Cowboys in the opener. This guy will have a Super Bowl ring before it's all said and done.
So there's my top five. As for a few who just missed out:
John Fox - Good coach with good schemes but just doesn't have that "it" factor. Herm Edwards - Has the "it" in spades but is missing the success necessary to be elite. Tony Dungy - His teams have under achieved everywhere he's been. If he doesn't win the big one soon he'll soon find his name in the next section. Nick Sabin & Lovie Smith - Give them a few more years. Mike Shanahan & Mike Holmgren - Rings yes but don't you think they should each have more? Bill Parcells & Joe Gibbs - They are two of the greatest of all-time true but can the game really be passing them bye? The difference? Gibbs is man enough to relinquish some control.
So there are to best (and some of the better) but who are the worst? Well it's really hard to decide on a worst because coaches aren't given the time necessary to truly display their inadequacy but if I had to pick three they'd be:
Andy Reid - No he's not awful but those Philly teams were very good and great coordinators had a lot to do with it. I mean can you really call a coach great when he forsakes the run like Reid? Marty Schottenheimer - Successful? Sure. Underachieving? Definitely. Maybe you can blame it all on John Elway. Maybe those Browns teams would have broken through if not for The Drive. But can you blame that for the Chiefs', Redskins' and Chargers' failures? Brian Billick - I know he's won a Super Bowl but that was solely on the shoulders of a defense he had nothing to do with. He's coached an awful offense for a while now. Can we please stop calling him an offensive genius?
So there are three very successful but three very overrated coaches, in my view.
I got a little heat for saying that the Raiders will be the worst team in the league this year. Well if you watched Monday night is there any way you can argue with me now? That was an awful display. I covered high school sports for seven years and the talent gap between the Chargers and Raiders reminded me of those high school games where a big 4A school completely demolished a little 2A squad. Very rarely in the NFL do know from the opening drive that one team has absolutely no shot.
We'll finish with a little fantasy update. My Chosen Ones picked up a comfortable victory over Sean Garmer's Ninjas, 57-45. I can pretty much thank Brian Westbrook for my victory as he picked up 12 points and I can thank Joe Horn for making it so close as he only tallied one. Sean can blame his receiving core who only scored seven between the three of them, including Brandon Stokley, who didn't play.
Others winners included, Ben Moser's Super Winners, The Cook Regime, the Sheriff's led by Midani, Bornstein's Big Ben team, Marcus' appropriately named Curveballs & Sliders, another music guy in Morgan Marx but the man leading the way after one week is Mike LaFave and Getting Over who scored 78 points.
The big moves were my dropping Joe Jurvicius, who went down with injury, and adding Jericho Cotchery and Sean who, like the Pack, picked up Koren Robinson.
The top match-ups for week two will be a pair of undefeated clashes as Borenstein and Moser hook up as well as a Cook/Marx showdown.
That's all for his week guys. Look out for the Perspective next week when I'll probably take a look at how the baseball season is doing coming down the stretch. That is unless Clarett goes ape shit again.
