The Weird, Wacky and Awesome World of the NFL - General Banter thread V3

AbusesToilets · 06-11-2023 10:53pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121334817#Comment_121334817

Success is measured in the post season. None of those coaches outside of BoB did anything of note there. Hence the reason they were all short lived. I don't know what you're arguing against, the record is pretty stark on that

eagle eye · 06-11-2023 11:17pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121334920#Comment_121334920

Well you have a bit of a warped sense of succes for a coach. Would you fire every coach who didn't make the playoffs?

If a team goes 11-6 in the regular season in the NFL and doesn't make the playoffs does that mean the coach didn't have a successful season?

If you win more than you lose that's a successful season in my opinion. It's not a great season but you've had success.

AbusesToilets · 06-11-2023 11:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121335077#Comment_121335077

Yes , I would absolutely fire a coach who doesn't get to the playoffs, in a couple of seasons. It's the whole point of the game. Jaysus wept.

Foxtrol · 09-11-2023 4:09pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121330512#Comment_121330512

McDaniels could absolutely turn down whatever HC role he wanted - he wasn't forced into taking this job, just like he wasn't forced to string along a team and coaches the last time. After taking this job he also wasn't forced to completely misjudge the roster, if what you say is true. Rather than trying to rebuild he made big splashy moves. The guy simply is a disaster as a head coach.

What you're saying makes no sense though when you look at the context. What was the benefit of keeping him on? He'd made mistake after mistake during his tenure and the majority of the team clearly hated him. Why would an owner not pull the trigger in that situation? Even if they strung a few wins together there was no way he getting that locker room back.

eagle eye · 09-11-2023 5:42pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121346755#Comment_121346755

Well this post is a bit late. We all seen how the Raiders players reacted and it spells out clearly how unhappy everybody was with McDaniels.

So you are now using new information we didn't have when we were conversing about it.

As regards taking the job in the first place. He went back to being an offensive co-ordinator for a long time after his previous foray into coaching. I'm sure all those around him told him that he was unfortunate to have taken the job with a bad franchise and even if his confidence was low you'd imagine between his success again as an OC and those around him insisting he was better than what happened previously that he believed he could make a go of it. He turned down the Colts a couple of years ago for family reasons.

He then got headhunted by Davis for the Raiders job. I don't think anybody can blame him for taking the opportunity knowing he had the full confidence of the owner.

Obviously he doesn't have what it takes to be a head coach. That's very clear now.

Prior to viewing the Raiders reaction to his sacking we didn't know or in my case expect this to happen.

My point was simply that their season wasn't over and besides that you are paying him to do a job and personnel decisions will not be made before the end of the season.

Of course we now know that he, to put it mildly, was not liked by the players which we didn't know at the time and it's very understandable that he was fired now that we know that.

As I said previously we were very much in agreement on most of it. Just thinking differently about things from a business sense and I didn't think their season was over.

Foxtrol · 09-11-2023 6:04pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121347226#Comment_121347226

Him losing the locker room isn't new information, I said it in my initial response to your original post on the subject:

When you add to it how the locker room was so clearly lost this was one of the few good decisions Davis has made.

If you listened to the comments of the Raiders players in the week or two before the firing, it was clear they had enough of him.

eagle eye · 09-11-2023 9:51pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121347331#Comment_121347331

But you didn't know how bad things were. You were just surmising.

And if that stuff about the players was on social media I wouldn't know about it. I don't do social media sites, they are full of lies.

If you believe everything you read on those sites you will be wrong a lot more than you are right.

Jolly Red Giant · 11-11-2023 11:56am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121318596#Comment_121318596

If McDaniels goes back to the Pats - or any other team - they can pay him the league minimum (which they would) and the Raiders are still on the hook for the difference.

Jolly Red Giant · 11-11-2023 12:12pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121318972#Comment_121318972

McDaniels was fired because he is a useless ar*ehole - and always had been. There was an open revolt among the entire playing staff and the coaching staff (with the exception of the ex-Pats stooges he brought in) against the McDisaster version of the Patriot Way. The team meeting where players stood up and openly insulted McDaniels was the last straw - they were in freefall.

Time will tell if Payton is any good for the Broncos - he stepped into a mess left by Hackett (and five years of a mess left by Joe Ellis). While the first few games were bad they have won two in a row, including beating the Chiefs, and they seemed to have turned a bit of a corner. In fact, despite losing to the Chiefs a couple of weeks before - they have held the Chiefs offence to an average of 14 pts a game. In their other six games the Chiefs have averaged 30pts a game and the only other team to hold them to less than 20pts were the Jags - the Broncos have done it twice.

Now - The Broncos face a tough game against the Bills on Monday - but then they have four winnable games against the Vikes, Browns, Texans and Chargers and could well end up at 7-6 or 6-7 after that stretch.

Also McDisaster was in his second year - Payton, Gannon (and the Cards are tanking) and Reich are first season coaches - and both Eberflus and Daboll (another Patriot Way guy) are in the hot seat. Their continued employment largely depends on whether the ownership thinks either can fix the QB position this season or next.

Jolly Red Giant · 11-11-2023 12:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121318978#Comment_121318978

The Broncos weren't a 'disastrous franchise' when McDisaster got the job. They had a strong roster with a good QB, good receivers and TEs and strong OL a decent DL, good LBs and a star CB in Champ Bailey.

Mike Shanahan was sacked because Pat Bowlen was suffering from dementia and had given de-facto control of the team of Joe Ellis. Ellis hated Shanahan and his first act was to sack him - which he did during a period when Bowlen was very ill.

What did McDaniels do - he gutted a good roster and brought in a bunch of yes men - including dumping Jay Cutler (a perfect QB for Shanahan's WCO - even if he was an a**hole) and replacing him with Kyle Orton (after first attempting to trade Cutler for that franchise QB Matt Cassell - and he ended up working for another Patriot Way guy in KC - Scott Pioli, who was another disaster). He dumped Brandon Marshall, sent Payton Hillis to the Browns because he thought his wife fancied Hillis, and within weeks had alienated the entire roster apart from his yes-men. Indeed the one move that kicked everything off was his decision to kick out LS Mick Leach, one of the best in the business and a team captain who everyone at Dove Valley respected and replace him with another Pats yes-man, Lonie Paxton. He also dumped Bret Kern as punter, who went on to have a pro-bowl career and brought in a guy who bounced around a dozen teams before Denver (mostly on the practice squad) and never played again after Denver. He behaved like a spoilt child, having temper tantrums on the sideline and constantly throwing his toys out of the pram when he anyone dared to ask a question.

And let's not forget that he also followed that other Patriot trait of cheating - or the fact that this idiot spent a first round draft pick on Tim Tebow.

McDaniels was finally sacked - not by Ellis - but by Pat Bowlen when he was going through a lucid period - after a massive blow-up with Champ Bailey and DJ Williams on the practice field when the two team captains challenged him about the fact that the players were fed up of the nonsense he was making them do during practice.

It took years for the Broncos to clean up the mess from McDaniels.

The Raiders should have known better - because McDisaster cannot be anything other than a disaster and cannot change - he is still a spoilt little brat who throws temper tantrums when anyone dares question him.

But you do have to love the way Antonio Pierce shafted McDaniels at that team meeting when McDisaster thought that Pierce would defend him - payback is a b*tch when you alienate everyone around you.

eagle eye · 11-11-2023 2:19pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121354514#Comment_121354514

Have you no nicknames for Hackett or Ellis?

eagle eye · 11-11-2023 2:46pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121354639#Comment_121354639

I'm not here to defend McDaniels coaching.

I mentioned how you have a nickname for him but not for any of the other crap coaches that you've had.

It's just funny how you rave about the roster he had when he came in, a roster that did nothing for the two years before McDaniels got there. In fact I remember when McDaniels got the job that everybody in the media said that a big clear out was needed in Denver and not only suggesting bad players but a bad locker room.

As for your cheating comments, have you forgotten about salary cap gate, slimegate and the big one Pedsgate?

Nothing that happened in Denver had anything to do with the Patriots, you were a franchise full of cheating for years before he got there and after he left.

Jolly Red Giant · 11-11-2023 5:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121354953#Comment_121354953

Hackett by all accounts is a very nice guy - everybody loved him in Denver - he just wasn't a HC. This disappointing thing about hiring Hackett was that Mike McDaniel wasn't even interviewed for the job.

Mike McDaniel was hired as an intern by Mike Shanahan in Denver - then hired by Gary Kubiak in Houston where he worked with Kyle Shanahan - then he went to Washington again with Mike Shanahan where he worked with Kyle, Matt LeFleur and Sean McVay - before ultimately ending up in SF with Kyle Shanahan again. He was as close to a Bronco as you can get in terms of the coaching tree - one of the most successful coaching trees ever. Yet - for some reason or other George Paton chose not to even interview him for the Broncos job - Paton was too focused on getting Rodgers and he thought hiring Hackett would do it for him.

Ellis doesn't need a nickname - he is just a prize scumbag. He single-handedly repeatedly attempted to destroy the Broncos -

He sacked Mike Shanahan and hired Josh McDaniels
He attempted to stop Elway hiring Gary Kubiak as HC and Wade Phillips as DC
When Kubiak retired he blocked Elway hiring Kyle Shanahan - who went to SF instead (John Lynch would have ended up in Denver as well, groomed to replace Elway as GM in 2018).
After Vance Joseph proved useless as a HC Elway put together a package that would have seen Mike Shanahan return as HC, Phillips as DC and Gary Kubiak as OC (and bringing in Kirk Cousins as QB - who Shanahan had drafted in Washington and wanted to play ahead of RG3) - only for Ellis to block the move and threaten to fire Elway as GM. The Broncos ended up stuck with Joseph for another year.
When Elway hired Fangio he did so with the plan that Gary Kubiak would return as OC - Elway knew that Fangio would be HC in name only and would focus purely on defence - he needed Kubiak to run the offence. But after Fangio was hired once again Ellis forced Kubiak out of the building - Kubiak ended up as OC with the Vikings (with Cousins as QB and having his two best seasons as a QB) and the Broncos were stuck with Rich Scangarello.

The guy let personal animosity and revenge result in the Broncos being mired in wooden-spoon land for years. Kubiak won the SB in 2015 despite the antics of Ellis and it is one of the best single season coaching jobs ever in the NFL. Ellis is utterly despised by every Broncos fan I know.

Jolly Red Giant · 11-11-2023 9:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121355034#Comment_121355034

There is a nickname for McDaniels because the guy is not just incompetent - he is an arrogant petulant child who treats other adults with contempt.

Since I became a Broncos fan the team has been fortunate to have good coaches - Dan Reeves, Mike Shanahan, John Fox, Gary Kubiak and now potentially Sean Payton. There was a hiccup with Wade Phillips before the McDisaster - but it has been since 2016 that the wheels came off, almost exclusively thanks to Ellis.

It is rubbish to say that a big clearout was needed - the only people touting that scenario were the McDisaster mouthpieces (the same people who were denigrating Derek Carr and others last season). You suggest that the Broncos 'did nothing' for the two years prior to McDisaster - but you are clearly not aware that the Broncos community were going through a difficult time after the shooting of Darrent Williams, who died in the arms of teammate Javon Walker, and the subsequent death of Damien Nash during a basketball game. These deaths, particularly that of Williams, had a deep impact on the Broncos team that took a long time to get over the tragedies.

Your attempt to try and smear the Broncos is pathetic -

salary cap - the Broncos got zero salary cap benefit from the decision by John Elway and Terrell Davis to defer some of their salary. Unlike Kraft who is a billionaire - Pat Bowlen had no other outside financial interests than the Broncos. At the time the Broncos were building a new stadium and had cashflow issues. Bowlen asked Elway and Davis to defer some of their salary to when cash flow improved. It has zero impact on the cap which was based on the players actual contracts - indeed they would have significantly benefited the Broncos in cap terms if they had made it official. This was nothing more than sour grapes from Al Davis.
So called slimegate - every single OL and DL player has, and most still do, use silicone spray on their jerseys. Every receiver uses additives to make it easier to catch the ball and every RB uses similar to keep hold of the ball. This has been going on for ages and will continue as long as the NFL continues. Furthermore, the NFL does allow the use of vaseline in certain conditions, namely extreme cold, and that game was in the top ten coldest games in Broncos history.
Pedsgate is a joke - players get suspended for PEDs all the time. Here is the difference - Invariably after getting suspended for PEDs the Broncos released the player involved - DJ Williams, Ryan McBean, Orson Mobley, Matt Prater, Carlos Henderson, Dale Carter, Lee Flowers, Todd Sauerbrun, - all gone. The only two prominent Broncos to escape the chop were Virgil Green and Derek Wolfe, both of whom took medication before they received sanction from the NFL to take the medicine. Several Patriots players have also been suspended for PEDs - the difference is that BB has no problem welcoming cheats back with open arms (including signing Todd Sauerbrun after he was cut by the Broncos).

Now - the Broncos did engage in outright cheating in 2010 when they secretly filmed a 49ers walk-through practice - during McDisaster's tenure and carried out by another ex-Pats yes-man that McDaniels brought with him. The cameraman was sacked on the spot and McDisaster was sacked within a week.

You say 'Nothing to do with the Patriots' - McDaniels learned from the master of the Patriot Way. The Patriots have their own PEDsgate - Spygate - cheating with the IR list - Snowploughgate - IR gate a second time - Deflategate - BB is the master at cheating in the NFL and teaches all his underlings in the Patriot Way.

Jolly Red Giant · 11-11-2023 9:36pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121330548#Comment_121330548

And he really wasn't that successful - he was barely 0.500 and won two play-off games in 8 seasons, never getting beyond the divisional round. The Texans have been a hot mess since he left - and it was going down hill well before that.

And where is BoB now - back under the wing of BB with a 2-7 record.

eagle eye · 11-11-2023 10:01pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121356500#Comment_121356500

There you go defending all the big gates that the Broncos had but then you go and say that spygate was serious when many coaches came out and said that everybody did it. Deflategate is the biggest joke of all time with science proving the balls would deflate that much in one half of football in that weather. Nobody has ever disputed the scientific findings.

So you are a complete joke, a hypocrite.

And IR gate was nothing. One disgruntled ex-player saying they put him on IR without an injury. They credited Aqib Taking with backing it up but he said they put him down with a hip injury when it was a quad injury which finished his season. He was genuinely injured.

Jolly Red Giant · 12-11-2023 10:03am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121356616#Comment_121356616

So I outline that your allegations about the Broncos are nonsense and you accuse me of being a hypocrite - and then you go and dismiss the greater number of allegations against the Pats - are you not a hypocrite by your own definition?

The Broncos and the Pats operated with a different culture while Pat Bowlen was alive (we will have to see how things are with the Walmarts) - and I have been openly critical of Joe Ellis who was in the upper echelons of the Broncos organisation for many years, including six years running the entire thing. I also had and have a serious problem with the hiring of Vance Joseph as HC when it happened because of pre-existing allegations of sexual assault while he was at UC and Sean Payton better not do anything like bountygate in Denver.

I will go back to one issue to demonstrate the difference in culture between the two franchises - when a player at the Broncos cheats using PEDs then the Broncos invariably released/cut the player and he never plays for the team again - when a Pats player cheats using PEDs they are welcomed back with open arms by BB.

And let's not forget - Josh McDaniels denied knowing anything about spygate in Denver (which I think is bullsh*t) but he was still sacked a week after it happened. When the Pats got caught engaging in the same thing nobody was held responsible.

adrian522 · 12-11-2023 11:59am

@eagle eye @Jolly Red Giant Can we move on from this topic please?

Itssoeasy · 15-11-2023 6:42pm

hynesie08 · 17-11-2023 8:48pm

6 starting QBs out for the season now, I can't remember that before.

Realt Dearg Sec · 17-11-2023 9:50pm

Makes a balls of the season

el Fenomeno · 21-11-2023 9:59pm

Shaq Leonard released by the Colts is a big surprise to someone like me who hasn't followed them all that closely.

But Colts fans appear to be united in the opinion that his back injury has resulted in him going from being one of the best LBs in the league, to one of the slowest and underperforming on their team.

A real shame.

eagle eye · 22-11-2023 6:35am

Yeah, reports over the last while have not been good. It's a new defensive system there so hopefully he can get into a better setup for him and recover his best form. An outstanding player before that injury. He's still pretty young