Since the Cavs don’t play again until Wednesday, most of my Cleveland sports focus has turned back to the Browns’ debacle.
Since we last posted about this topic, four names have emerged as Randy Lerner’s supposed “wish list” for the football czar post meant to oversee the coach and new GM. Those four names are Mike Holmgren, Ron Wolf, Rich McKay, and Ernie Accorsi.
Before I go any further, I have to mention that the other thing that’s emerged in the few days since our last post on this topic is an official Jose Mesa Is Dead nickname for Randy Lerner. Thanks to the vortex of complete confusion that seems to surround his every decision, Randy Lerner will henceforth be known as “Lost In Space.” I am so proud of this particular handle that it has almost completely consoled me for the loss of my previous favorite, KokGini.
Back to business.
Considering that McKay already turned down an interview with Lost In Space the last time he had the plan to hire someone for this job, I don’t consider him to be a realistic candidate. It’s not as if something has happened to make the organization somehow more appealing in the 11 months since he got the last call.
If McKay is removed from the conversation, here’s what I can tell you about Holmgren, Accorsi, and Wolf: they’re all old. Holmgren is 61 and has been out of football since January of 2008. Accorsi is 68* and retired from full-time football work in June 2007. Wolf is 71 and has been out of football since June of 2001. (*Note: I don’t have an exact age for Accorsi, but I’m estimating based on the fact that he graduated from Wake Forest in 1963.)
I don’t want to generalize, because there’s certainly precedent for men in their golden years to still serve competently in these types of front office positions. Bill Parcells, the Biblical Abraham of NFL coaching and personnel, is a ripe 68 years old and currently in the midst of making the Dolphins look competitive for the second straight year.
However, I also think that in football, relying on the past can be very dangerous.
Consider that there are at least 4 “superstar” coaches available this offseason: Bill Cowher, Mike Shanahan, Marty Schottenheimer, and Jon Gruden. (Some would also throw Tony Dungy into the mix, but based on what I’ve read from SI’s Peter King and other reliable sources, Dungy is very happy with his studio job and his mentoring programs and won’t be coming back to coaching any time soon.) Two of them were only canned at the end of last season, and the other two have been out for at least two seasons.
With the exception of Tampa Bay, it’s really difficult to say that any of the teams that fired those “superstar” coaches is worse off because of it. In his 2+ seasons as head coach of the Steelers, Mike Tomlin has gone 28-12 in the regular season, won the AFC North twice, and brought home a Super Bowl ring. By comparison, it took Cowher 15 years at the helm to win one Super Bowl.
Meanwhile, Josh McDaniels’ Broncos are at 6-2 after last night’s loss to the Steelers. With 1 game against the Redskins, 1 game against the Raiders, and 2 games against Kansas City remaining on their schedule, it’s really hard for me to imagine them not getting to ten wins and the playoffs right now. McDaniels looks like he has all the tools to lead the Broncos to sustained success for the rest of the season and potentially the next decade. On the other side, Shanahan’s Broncos were 24-24 over his last three seasons, didn’t make the playoffs once, and had a spectacular, Mets-like late-season collapse last year to give the division to San Diego.
And while Norv Turner isn’t anything resembling a young upstart coach, he’s managed to help engineer three Charger playoff wins in the past two seasons. Marty Schottenheimer — my dad’s favorite coach of all time — never won a playoff game in his seven years as the Chargers’ boss.
You could certainly argue that there are significant differences between Lost In Space’s new job opening and head coaching. But my point is that eventually age gets everyone in every field, and certainly at every level of pro football. At the beginning of the NFL season, analysts were raving about how Ray Lewis was a fountain of youth still playing at an elite level. Today, a mere eight weeks later, I read the first column declaring that his career as a dominant player was over. Joe Gibbs was once the messiah of football in Washington. His final coaching stint with the ‘Skins ended with people calling him a relic. From 1967-1985, Al Davis’s shrewd judgment led the Raiders to 13 division titles, an AFL Championship, and 3 Super Bowls wins. Now he’s known mostly as a punch line floundering at the head of one of the most dysfunctional franchises in sports history while Oakland fans literally wait for him to die.
As the saying goes, Father Time is undefeated.
Continued success depends on continued evolution, continued engagement with new ideas, and continual attempts to anticipate what comes next. None of the candidates currently on Lost In Space’s list scream that they have those qualities. They all have credentials. They all have experience. But they all came from a different era. As a result, it’s difficult for me to imagine any of them leading us into a new one.
But since I don’t anticipate any revolutionary new candidates to crack Lerner’s interview list, I really hope I’m wrong.
-T
