You would be wrong.
As interesting as the offseason has been, it's been an off year for doing deals because of the potential labor problems of 2011. Only 21 players received contract extensions worth more than $4 million a year. That's less than one player per team.
So let me get this straight...21 contract extensions of $4 million or more out of the 32 teams is less than one player per game? I'm glad to have John Clayton here to help me do basic math or else I would be lost.
It reminds me of what a lady said to me two days ago. She told me her and her husband have been married longer than they have known each other. I would hope that is the case. Maybe this lady is married to John Clayton. I should ask her.
Sure, there will be some extensions. Expect the Redskins to do one with quarterback Donovan McNabb in the next week or two. The only holdup was the contract McNabb did with the Eagles on June 12, 2009. Players have to wait one year before re-doing a renegotiated contract.
(Dan Snyder) "Let's re-sign that new quarterback we traded for...David McDonald or whatever his name is. I read an article in Sports Illustrated that said he led his team to the Super Bowl last year. Give him a 7 year $100 million dollar contract."
(Redskins employee) "He actually led the Eagles to the Super Bowl a few years ago, it wasn't last yea---"
(Snyder stabbing the employee in the chest repeatedly with his finger and standing on a stool to look in the employee's eyes) "I don't give a shit when the hell Donovan McDavid led the Eagles to the Super Bowl. I fucking love the Eagles. They are my favorite band of all-time (starts singing "Take It Easy"). Has that extension for McDavid been signed yet?"
(Redskins employee looking very confused) "You just told me to do it, I just sent the message to Bruce Allen to get it done."
(Snyder talking while taunting a group of school children on a tour of the Redskins facilities who are outside Snyder's office) "Who the hell is Bruce Allen?"
(Redskins employee) "He's the guy you hired to be the General Manager of the Redskins."
(Snyder punches the employee in the face and flexes his muscle in front of the school children) "Don't tell me who the hell I hired and didn't hire, those are my decisions to make."
(Redskins employee mopping up his own blood) "Yes sir, I won't do that again. Just a side note, McNabb is going to be 34 years old soon."
(Snyder) "Well Brent Fark is still playing in the NFL and he is 40 years old, so it sounds like quarterbacks can play until they are at least 40 years old. No more questions, the decision has been made. Good, now go get me Dennis McMasters and tell him to come up here and I will tell him to his face he is getting a contract extension. Since he is only going to be 34 years old next year, let's make it a 9 year $140 million dollar deal. "
I envision every conversation with Daniel Snyder goes this way.
On Friday, McNabb would be free to do a new deal, and you know Redskins owner Dan Snyder won't let him hit free agency next year.
Oh yes, where would the logic be in letting a 34 year old quarterback become a free agent?
Peyton Manning and Tom Brady will get contract extensions at some point, but it won't be soon. Both are up at the end of the season, and both are the most important players on their teams.
Only in a John Clayton mailbag can you learn that Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are the best players on their team. Without information like this from John Clayton, we would all be lost.
Now for the question about new head coaches:
Q: How come when teams hire a new coach, sometimes the argument is made that the coach doesn't have the players to run his offensive or defensive scheme and then takes two to three years changing the roster and releasing good players. In the end, shouldn't a coach try to find the best scheme that fits the current roster and maximize the talent at hand rather than spending two to three seasons changing the roster?
Eric in Montreal
There is a ton of reasons, of which I will just list a few, why a new NFL head coach changes the roster to fit the scheme he wants to run and doesn't keep the old scheme to fit the players he has:1. The head coach won't be releasing any really good players. Most likely he will be trying to trade these players. So any player that gets released can be thought of as not a good player or a player that needed to be replaced.
2. The previous scheme did not work, so why would the new head coach keep the scheme if he doesn't favor that scheme or have experience running it? This just seems logical. The previous scheme didn't work and the new coach doesn't want to run the offense/defensive scheme...so why continue with what is not working and the new head coach doesn't like?
3. Why the hell would a coach find a scheme that reflects the talents of a roster full of guys who got their coach fired? 75% of the time when a coach gets fired, it is because the team stinks or the coach did a bad job of coaching that team. I don't think finding a scheme to fit the talents of a team that went 5-11 is a good choice compared to finding a scheme that fits the most talented players on that team and finding other talented players who fit that scheme.
4. Why the hell would an NFL owner hire a coach that is pretty much going to do nothing different from the coach that got fired? Unless you are the Buffalo Bills of course.
5. Why the hell would a new NFL head coach ruin his (possibly) one good chance of running an NFL team because he didn't want to get rid of too many (most likely shitty) players who got the previous coach fired? If you have been hired as an NFL head coach, wouldn't it make sense to coach that team your way to hopefully maximize your chances for success? I think so.
There's no way John Clayton agrees with this questioner, right?
A: Eric, I agree with you 100 percent.
Wrong, he agrees. I disagree with John Clayton 100 percent.
It's driving me crazy watching all these 4-3 teams bring in new coaches and try to switch to the 3-4.
While still thinking John Clayton is wrong, I will admit it does annoy me when fans of a team just think his/her favorite team can switch to the 3-4 defense and all of a sudden great things will happen. That being said, the Jets ran the 3-4 last year and it worked out well. That is an instance of a team running a new scheme (in that it was a more aggressive 3-4 compared to what Mangini ran) with somewhat different players and it worked out. Now Rex Ryan has gotten rid of some players he didn't like and replaced them with players he wants on his team...and it looks like the Jets have the best defense in the NFL, at least on paper. If you have the personnel for the 3-4 defense and think that is the best fit for your team, I say run it.
The Dolphins switched to the 3-4 recently and it worked out well for them. I am not saying every team should switch to the 3-4, I am just saying if the new coach favors the 3-4 defense and it doesn't fit the personnel, well then tough shit. The NFL is a copycat league, so more teams will be trying to switch to the 3-4 defense, but if the new coach that comes in is used to running that defense I think it makes sense to switch.
Head coaches with Cleveland, San Francisco and the New York Jets lost their jobs while they tried to rebuild their rosters to fit the schemes instead of fitting the schemes to the talents of the players on the current roster.
Eric Mangini, Mike Nolan, and Romeo Crennel all had success previously with their schemes as assistant coaches. It would have been lunacy for them to abandon the principles and scheme they believe in to ensure a team full of players who weren't winning games could have their "talents" fitted to the offense/defense.
It didn't seem like Rex Ryan had a huge problem running the 3-4 defense after Eric Mangini got fired. He changed the Jets defense to a more attacking defense and it paid off. It is fine to take players on the roster and try to maximize their talents, but it doesn't make sense to take players without talent and build the scheme around them...regardless of whether a team switches to the 4-3, 3-4, or the 46 defense. Good head coaches don't get rid of "good" players when they take over a team, they do fit those players to their new scheme. If the previous scheme with the same players failed, why try it again? Why keep guys who fit an old scheme just to keep them on the roster? It would be absolutely stupid.
A new NFL head coach should implement his scheme when he takes over a team, he shouldn't let the current talent dictate how he wants the offense or defense run.
One thing you know about head coaches is they like to pick the players and that's why most new head coaches have 20 or more new players on their roster during their first season.
Why the hell would they not want to pick their own players? Nobody is bitching when Bill Parcells starts running the 3-4 defense in Miami and starts signing players the players he likes. Nobody is complaining when Mike Shanahan starts running the offense the way he likes for it to be run and gets rid of Jason Campbell in the process because he doesn't fit what he wants to do. It makes perfect sense for a new coach to want his own players on the roster.
There is obviously a fine line in overhauling the roster, like I question why Josh McDaniels has gotten rid of talented skill players when I think he could have easily fit them into the scheme of what he wanted his offense to do. There is a difference in getting rid of talented players clean players from the old regime off the roster and trying to implement talented players and it just not working out.
Overall, a new coach bringing in his own players is not a bad thing. Should Raheem Morris have kept Tampa Bay the way it was under Jon Gruden? I don't know, but it looks like Morris is on the right track. Should Jim Schwartz have done nothing to improve the Lions team and just hoped he could find a way to fit the talent on the roster better to the scheme the team usually run? If he had done this, he should have been immediately fired.
Many times when the head coach is fired, there is no benefit in maximizing the talents on the roster, it is time to sort over in some ways.
The NFL doesn't give enough time for complete reconstructions of the roster.
One sentence earlier John Clayton is talking about how some coaches have 20 new players on the roster (about 40% of the team) and now he says there isn't enough time to redo the roster completely. If a coach doesn't get enough time to rebuild the roster, that isn't on the NFL, but that is on the ownership of that team. But John Clayton should decide if teams are making too many changes to their team under a new coach or if they have enough time to make wholesale changes. I am not sure it can be both.
A team with a top quarterback could buy the coach the time to survive but most teams that hire new coaches don't have that quarterback.
Some teams may give up on coaches too early, that could be true, but I thought the question was why new head coaches try to reconstruct the entire roster and John Clayton stated he didn't know why new head coaches do this. Now John Clayton is saying some head coaches aren't given enough time to make changes to the roster.
What doesn't make sense is that Clayton is essentially arguing for a new head coach to be given 5-6 years to make changes to the team, when this isn't realistic. Why would a new head coach take 5-6 years to reconstruct a team when he can get rid of the dead weight and compete in 2-3 years? Does John Clayton want a new head coach to just take longer to get rid of the dead weight? It sure seems that way.
The Dolphins went from 1-15 to making the playoffs in one year. That's why new head coaches cut "good" players and try to bring their own scheme to their new team.
The Panthers went from 1-15 to the Super Bowl in two years with a new defense and offensive scheme.
If a team like the 2009 Colts have the pieces in place already, then radical changes aren't needed for a new head coach, but if a new coach takes over a team like the 2009 Bills, then it is obvious a new scheme and new players are necessary. Not doing an overhaul of the team is just begging for your team to fail.
That's why teams such as Detroit and Buffalo have been down for as long as they have.
They also haven't hired the right guys to get the appropriate quarterback and make the appropriate changes to the team. Both of those teams didn't need minor fixes, but major changes, and that is what Jim Schwartz has brought to the Lions and what Chan Gailey needs to bring to the Bills.
I still don't know why John Clayton agreed with this questioner. Crappy NFL teams are generally crappy for a reason. Keeping players "with talent" who fit the scheme that was previously run probably isn't a smart move. Continuing to do what you have always done will usually get you what you have always gotten.
The bottom line is that it isn't too hard for an NFL team to turn around its fortunes quickly in the age of the salary cap, so the smartest move for a new coach is to trust in the scheme he has run and get rid of the players who don't fit the scheme and don't have the talent to fit the scheme. Why the hell would a new coach stick with the old scheme and old players? It doesn't make sense for a new head coach going to a team that wasn't any good to do this and expect to succeed.
I am disappointed in John Clayton for not understand that a team which has been struggling would benefit from new players and a new offense/defensive scheme.
I'm not a big Bill Parcells fan, but he is pretty adamant about coming in and having a team full of his kind of player, and it's worked out well for him. Some times, a new coach needs to get rid of decent player who have gotten too used to losing.
ReplyDeleteThat's the biggest thing also. Some teams are used to losing and a good coach comes in and makes changes that make the team better.
ReplyDeleteI don't like Parcells, but he has proven a coach should come in with the players he wants on his team and do things his way. Obviously the coach has to know what he is doing, but I think John Clayton is very wrong by stating a new coach should design his schemes around the players. It shouldn't work that way in my mind. If the players fit the scheme, fine, but continuing the same thing that failed previously is crazy.
I think coaching is usually one of the biggest reasons teams fail.
ReplyDeleteOne reason I hated the JaMarcus Russell hatapalooza was because it disguised just how terribly coached the Raiders were. I should know, because much of that bad coaching (especially relying on a quarterback to fix your stupid playcalling) is so reminiscent of Atlanta Falcons during the Mora Jr years.
Because look--If a running back who's a granddad in running back years goes off and and makes a pretty athletically capable saftey his bitch on the way to a long touchdown, that's bad coaching. When linebackers refuse to figure out which gaps need covering, that's bad coaching and not necessarily bad players.
Raiders are the epitome of it, but as I look around the league, the biggest reasons why football teams suck is because of bad coaching and indifferent prep (after injuries, of course). So I think the change players are merely a kind of politics.
--shah8
...bytheby, Andy Reid is a pretty good coach in the Denny Green style. Why he gets so little respect should go beyond the whole "It's Philly!" explanation.
Coaching is one of the biggest reasons teams fail. Russell is failing/failed for reasons that did go beyond coaching though. Sure, someone should have kicked his ass in gear, but he also didn't have a great worth ethic anyway.
ReplyDeleteI do think changing player is a way of doing things a different way, but sometimes I think it brings in a different culture as well. The Raiders probably should blow it all up and try to hire a good, new coach...Cable isn't the guy.
I would agree with your examples that there is bad coaching in there, but part of good coaching is find the right players to implement what you want to do as a coach. So I do think they go hand-in-hand. A good coach helps a football team a lot, but he also has to have the right players on that team.
I don't think Andy Reid is a terrible coach really. His game clock management could use some work, I will say that.
Blah, most sports writers are tards.
ReplyDeleteRegarding coaching, also recall that firing and hiring new coaches is a parlor trick to fans, to show action being taken. It's cheaper than overhauling the roster, because you don't have to pay out salary cap dead-weight.
I suspect that's what the Bills and Skins are doing.
One thing to note: Mike Tomlin came to the Steelers and essentially did not overhaul the team with his 4-3 Tampa preferences. This highlighted intelligence, as he took over a good team with coordinators that had been there and had good schemes in place.
I think Crennel, Mora (jr and sr), Cable, and McDaniels would all have screwed that job up, trading Polamalu cuz he doesn't train with the team (oh noes), or traded Ward cuz he badmouths the coaching at least twice a season.
ultimately though, wins and losses come down to players knowing their roles, and performing them.
Firing the coach does bring some added enthusiasm to the franchise sometimes, unless they hire an idiot for a coach who probably won't make things better...which is what the Bills are doing.
ReplyDeleteSmart coaches either work well with the players they have or bring in players who work well within the system that coach wants to run.
Tomlin is a good example and I am not saying coaches always have to change things around. If there are older coordinators and a good system in place it would be stupid to change things around. Tomlin was smart to not change anything in that situation. There's no reason to make changes just to say you made changes.
You are right, it comes down to the players, and I think smart coaches know whether to make the changes or not.