Haikus For Everyone!

Easterbrook sucks much
Knows little about football
Who hired this man?

In honor Gregg's TMQ Haiku Edition, I made a haiku about him. Assuming the word "hired" is two syllables, which I looked like an idiot sounding out on my hand for about 2 minutes, it should be in the correct 5, 7, 5 format and there was a haiku for everyone to enjoy about Gregg Easterbrook and TMQ. I hope you enjoyed haikus because that's almost all we get from Gregg this week. I know his TMQ is supposed to be tongue in cheek sometimes, except when he is criticizing players and coaches for their football strategies, but is there really anyone who enjoys an entire column of haikus? Even Rick Reilly is embarrassed for Easterbrook when he does stuff like this.

President Barack Obama said today he was "shocked and saddened" by rising unemployment among NFL offensive coordinators. "This is the worst job loss by NFL assistant coaches since the Great Depression," Obama declared. The president announced a $746 trillion program to train former steelworkers to become offensive coordinators.

(the sound of crickets chirping)

Firing coordinators is a time-honored blame-shifting strategy in the NFL and in Division I football. The head coach can't possibly be to blame for anything -- he's a little-god figure -- so if something goes wrong, the coordinators must be to blame, and never mind the complicating fact that the head coach hired them and supervises them.

To be fair and use facts, which I know aren't exactly TMQ's forte, two of the head coaches who fired offensive coordinators were first year head coaches. These are two guys, Todd Hailey and Raheem Morris, who have never actually coached a regular season game. I would assume the GM's and owners involved might feel it is a bit early to fire the head coaches, so they fire a coordinator.

It's also not that rare for a supevisor to fire someone they hired and the reasoning not be just to shift blame. Simply because a supervisor hires an employee for a job doesn't mean that supervisor should fire himself if the employee doesn't work out. If that was the case in the rest of the jobs in America then there would be weekly turnover in most jobs. The offensive coordinator in each position did not work out like was hoped, so that person was fired. It happens in the real world too and doesn't, and shouldn't, always reflect poorly on the supervisor (the head coach here).

the larger coaching issues is that once again, the NFL is stocking up on head coaches who have never been a head coach at any level, even high school, before becoming the boss in the pros.

List of coaches off the top of my head who were never head coaches on any level before getting a job in the NFL as a head coach: Mike Tomlin, John Fox, Andy Reid, Jeff Fisher, Bill Cowher, Mike Shanahan (who Gregg always complains should get a head coaching job), Vince Lombardi, Bill Belichick, and Marty Schottenheimer. That's just off the top of my head.

My point is that this is not a larger coaching issue at all. There have been plenty of NFL head coaches with no prior head coaching experience at any level who have succeeded in the NFL. I don't know why Easterbrook keeps harping on this point that a coach needs to have previous experience before taking a job in the NFL as a head coach.

The ironic part is that he whines every week Schottenheimer and Shanahan don't have jobs while guys like Raheem Morris are hired, yet under Easterbrook's "you need prior head coaching experience" rule neither Shanahan nor Schottenheimer should have been hired for an NFL head coaching position originally because they had no prior experience in the position at any level. It's this type of irony I can only find in TMQ that brings me back every week.

Steve Spagnuolo, the new coach of the Rams, has never been a head coach at any level, not even when he worked for the Barcelona Dragons...Twelve previous employers -- he must have quite a collection of team apparel! But no head coaching experience before becoming an NFL head coach.

Hey, let's completely ignore the fact Spagnuolo is completely ready for a head coaching position in the NFL, because he has no prior experience. Whoever hired him was a real jackass! Who cares if he ran one of the best defensive units in football over the past couple of years, he has no experience as an NFL head coach! Spagnuolo should go coach for one of those "cupcake" college football teams and earn 1/10 of what he can make in the NFL as a head coach so he can gain experience. That makes a hell of a lot of sense for both Spagnuolo and an NFL team who wants to hire him.

Why does Easterbrook constantly harp on how great players that are undrafted and players that were backups with other teams are, but when it comes to head coaches who have been bounced around and fired with previous teams he consider those coaches as not good enough? There is a double standard of sorts here. He thinks Mike Gandy is a diamond in the rough because he was "unwanted" by the Bears and then he shut down Julius Peppers for one game with the Cardinals, but Steve Spagnuolo is not worthy of being a head coach even though he won a Super Bowl as a defensive coordinator with the New York Giants. How does this make sense?

Can someone explain this to me without beginning the sentence with the words, "He doesn't know what he is talking about..." or "He's an idiot..." If so, thanks.

Rex Ryan, the new head coach of the Jets, has been an assistant at Eastern Kentucky, New Mexico/Highlands, Morehead, the Cardinals, the University of Cincinnati, Oklahoma and the Ravens. Lots of colorful track suits -- but no head coaching experience before becoming an NFL head coach. Jim Schwartz, the new head coach of the Lions, has been an assistant at Maryland, the University of Minnesota, North Carolina Central, Colgate, the Browns, the Ravens and the Titans. Lots of team baseball caps -- but no head coaching experience before becoming an NFL head coach.

I am pretty sure Gregg Easterbrook just named three of the top defensive coordinators in the NFL. If these guys aren't ready for a head coaching job then there aren't many assistants who will ever be ready for a coaching job. Why should any of these three have to take a head coaching job at a lower level before becoming an NFL head coach?

Meanwhile Jim Fassel, Jon Gruden, Dan Reeves, Marty Schottenheimer and Mike Shanahan -- a combined 701-536-4 as NFL head coaches -- aren't working in the NFL this season.

What a travesty! Out of this list of 5 "wonderful" head coaches that Easterbrook likes, only Jim Fassel had previous head coaching experience at another level before being named an NFL head coach. Again, under Easterbrook's theory that you should have head coaching experience before reaching the NFL as a head coach, only Fassel should have been originally hired in the position of head coach due to prior experience at another level.

Only four active NFL head coaches have at least 100 victories (Bill Belichick with 153, Jeff Fisher with 133, Tom Coughlin with 123 and Andy Reid with 107).

Only Tom Coughlin had prior coaching experience. Anyone see a trend here? Isn't there anyone at ESPN who can publicly call TMQ an idiot's column? Bruce Feldman basically called Mike Lupica an idiot for saying on Sports Reporters USC has "underachieved," why can't someone do that for TMQ?

Speaking of Mike Lupica, does anyone like him? I need to pay more attention to him on this blog.

But other factors are at work. One is inexperienced gentlemen earn less than experienced head coaches.

It makes sense. Why hire Mike Shanahan for $8 million per year when you can hire a young assistant who could be a young Mike Shanahan for $2 million per year? IT MAKES SENSE! I will continue yelling periodically in caps lock form until Easterbrook understands this.

For bureaucratic reasons, some NFL front offices prefer a head coach in weak political position. Successful experienced coaches such as Shanahan project significant ego fields.

Well, that and the fact these experienced head coaches want TO BE the General Manager as well as the head coach. So if a team has a GM already and are looking to hire Shanahan, they will need to fire the current GM or face an interesting organizational structure that will most likely not work. It's not that the team wants a coach with a weak political position, having a head coach who is also the GM hasn't really worked too much in the NFL over the past couple of years and a few of the coaches Easterbrook listed are going to want to be GM and head coach.

Also, most of the coaches Easterbrook listed right now have either had bad history with General Managers (Schottenheimer and Gruden) or have generally failed as GM/Head Coach (Shanahan and Gruden was a pseudo-GM due to bad relationship with Rich McKay). Reeves voluntarily quit coaching with the Falcons and Jim Fassel has reportedly turned down jobs so I am not sure how much on the market they currently are. Of course this doesn't matter to Easterbrook, he doesn't do research, he just starts listing names in a desperate attempt to prove the point owners only choose coordinators because they want less money, which is only partially true.

But bear in mind: Roughly two-thirds of coaches whose first head coaching experience comes in the NFL fail. That suggests of Haley, Morris, McDaniels, Ryan, Schwartz and Spagnuolo, four will be busts. Then their employers will look around to hire someone else who has never been a head coach at any level!

Just remember in Gregg's bizarre brain because Haley, Morris, McDaniels, Ryan, Schwartz, and Spagnuolo have previous head coaching experience in the NFL, they are more qualified for another head coaching job than an NFL assistant once they do get fired.

Does this make sense? Of course not! Welcome to TMQ for those uninitiated.

Eli, careful! Don't
put playbook in your waistband.
Jersey/A Giants.

Huh? What the hell does this mean? This was the haiku for the New York Giants. I may be too stupid to understand this one but it makes no sense to me.

Disclaimer of the Week: Disclaimers for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" warned of "some violence." How, exactly, does "some violence" differ from "violence?"

I know it sounds crazy for a guy who nitpicks sportswriters to criticize someone else for nitpicking, but "some violence" means there is a little bit of violence. "Violence" indicates there are substantial parts of the movie that contain violence. It's really not hard to differentiate between these two if you just try and use your brain.

Since its inception, the Virginia Lottery has taken in $20 billion and paid out $11 billion in winnings. This means suckers fork over almost $2 for every $1 that comes back. Some $2.3 billion of the Virginia Lottery money has vanished into overhead,

The lottery has ONLY paid out $11 billion dollars? That's it? I feel bad for whichever sucker bought a ticket and won some of that money hoping it would change his/her life. Really what can you do with only 1% of that money? Besides pretty much anything you want of course...

Only about $6.7 billion -- a third of the overall pot -- has gone to the ostensible purpose: education.

I can't believe only $6.7 billion has gone to education! It's not like public schools are in a position where they need every penny of this money. I think Virginia should just drop the lottery idea and hope the citizens of the state just want to pay more in taxes or just give donations to help out with education...especially if ONLY $6.7 billion goes to education.

Conside Texas, for example.

I NEED AN EDITOR HERE! STAT!...unless "Conside" is actually a word, which I am pretty sure it is not. I even did research and "conside" is not a word.

Part of the cynical nature of state-run lotteries is that substantial numbers of machines are physically located in lower-income neighborhoods -- especially convenience stores and liquor stores in poor neighborhoods.

What a smart move by the lottery. All poor people drink liquor AND hang out at the liquor store!

The poor are seduced by convenient, flashing lotto machines that advertise "mega millions."

The poor are also like little lemmings, show them something bright and they will follow you anywhere. Sometimes when I am bored I take a flashlight and start moving it around a room and watch poor people follow it everywhere. It's great fun!

Stereotypes are somewhat built in reality but it doesn't mean you can go ahead and print the stereotype as fact. I am insensitive person but even I would feel kind of like a jerk printing what Easterbrook wrote here. Of course poor people can't read, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Experience Says No: An unusual total of four teams -- the Bills, Broncos, Lions and Packers -- held two first-round choices in this year's draft. Will any of them achieve better records in 2009 than in 2008?

Why does Gregg sometimes try to find a correlation between two events that are in no way related? Simply because a team has two first round draft choices doesn't mean that team will necessarily be any better, and if they are better, it doesn't mean it was because they had two first round draft choices. A good team could have three first round draft choices and still not be any better the next year because those first round picks were on the bench for their first year. First round draft picks aren't the only determinate on whether a team will achieve better records from year to year.

Also, the Lions HAVE to be better this year than last. They can't get any worse.

Bonus Obscure College Score of the Week: Maine 34, St. Cloud State 27. Located in St. Cloud, Minn. -- a lilting town name -- St. Cloud State calls itself "one of the most highly accredited institutions" in the Minnesota college system. A school is either accredited or not! St. Cloud State may have meant "highly acclaimed," not "highly accredited." If you're running a college, you should know this sort of distinction.

Completely agreed. Much like if you are writing a column for ESPN about the NFL, you should know why some teams cut veteran players, you don't need head coaching experience to be a good NFL head coach, and it is NOT wrong to go for a field goal on fourth-and-one at home down three points with less than 5 minutes to go in a playoff game.

How odd for Easterbrook to write that last sentence since I have probably written, "If you are writing a column about the NFL, you have to know things like this. If not, you should be fired," or some variation of that 100 times. I am sure there are tons of other things Easterbrook "should know" that I have forgotten, yet he chastises a school and criticizes them using the same criticism I use on him. I am sure someone out there can tell me something else TMQ has not known over the years but should have known. I can only remember the last three things I have criticized him about.

Note 1: Haley couldn't get along with Gailey, though Haley's college degree is in communication.

Gregg just wrote the non-word "Conside" even though he has a Master's Degree in Journalism.

$5 Cupcake Update: But the cupcakes had their revenge, with William & Mary defeating the University of Virginia, and at Virginia no less, while Northern Iowa came within a field goal attempt on the final snap of defeating prohibitive favorite Iowa.

Maybe this means William & Mary and Northern Iowa were not cupcakes then? It could also mean that Virginia and Iowa were not that good of teams? Either way, I think it pretty much means there was no "cupcake" involved in either of these two games and neither Virginia or Iowa should be criticized for scheduling "cupcakes" on their schedule. That would mean Gregg was wrong about them originally being "cupcakes," but that's not possible is it?

Oklahoma did not schedule a "cupcake" in their first game. Out goes their starting tight end and quarterback with injuries and now they are pretty much out of the National Championship race while Texas, Florida and other teams who scheduled easier teams are still in it. It is very noble to schedule hard teams on your schedule but when you are in any of the major conferences you get enough competition in your own league, so it doesn't always make sense to schedule harder teams at the beginning of the season. It's the sad state of football but is true.

Boise State beat Oregon and now there is already talk of them going perfect because they have an easy in-conference schedule. How should they be commended more for scheduling a Top 25 team to begin the season when they don't have a hard schedule for nearly 75% of the games from here on out, but Florida is criticized by Easterbrook for scheduling a "cupcake" when they have to play Top 25 teams in conference? I don't get it.

Next Week: To celebrate the start of a throwback-oriented NFL season -- a throwback Tuesday Morning Quarterback.

I can't wait to read his misinterpretation and criticisms of the first week's games. I am lying, I can wait.