Ever have an article/blog in your head for the longest time, but never had the time/proper situation to sit down, type it out and publish it? Ever since the epic fail of Charlie Weiss at Notre Dame, and his termination in South Bend, I’ve thought about how all the mentees of New England Patriots living legend Head Coach Bill Belichick, and how they’ve all deteriorated upon leaving BB’s side in Foxboro.
I even brought this up over a month ago on my weekly radio show when the Denver Broncos failed Josh McDaniels.
Now that the Cleveland Browns have canned Eric Mangini (his second extremely brief stint in the NFL) it’s becoming extremely clear that it’s all about the Jedi Master, not the Padawan learners in these situations. The Patriots are actually the league’s only team without “Coordinators,” or at least the only team possessing no one with the title “Defensive Coordinator” and “Offensive Coordinator.” Perhaps that will keep other NFL teams from poaching their staff, and then watching those coaches fail.
By Paul M. Banks
Like I said, I’ve wanted to write about this for the longest time, but fortunately enough for my time-crunched schedule, the awesomely named “It’s Always Sunny in Detroit” have done so for me:
Here’s an excerpt:
While Belichick might be a great head coach and will definitely end up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame some day, his students have not enjoyed anywhere close to the same success. Can you name his only student who is a current NFL head coach? It’s the Lions Jim Schwartz…
…If you add it up (don’t bother, we did it for you), Belichick’s former assistants have put together a combined 100-153 ledger, a .395 winning percentage. While it can be said that coaches are set up to fail when they take an NFL head coaching gig (they usually come into a losing situation and are expected to turn it around quickly), Belichick’s followers haven’t performed as teams predicted. The jury is out on whether Schwartz is the guy that will lead the Lions back to .500, but the pedigree isn’t on his side.
It also bears mentioning what a piece of cinematic brilliance the film “8 Mile” is (“Well Jimmy moved in with his mother, cuz he ain;’t got not place to go. And now I’m right back in the gutter. With a garbage bag that’s full of clothes.”) because every time I read the name of that blog, it reminds me of how that film set in Detroit contained exactly zero sunlight.
Anyways, despite that author’s obviously blatant (and extremely inexplicable) anti-Belichick bias, it’s a great read highlighting how Romeo Crennel, Nick Saban, Al Groh, McDaniels and the so-called “Mangenius” all fell short of delivering the goods.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net , a Midwest webzine. He’s also a regular contributor to the Tribune’s Chicago Now network, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker Network, and Fox Sports.com
You can follow him on Twitter @thesportsbank
He also does a regular guest spot each week for Chicagoland Sports Radio.com