Monday, December 06, 2010

The Josh McDaniels Era Comes to an End

Denver did what everyone was waiting for them to do in firing Josh McDaniels, and you can take your pick of reasons, for they are several and each individually would be grounds for being pretty pissed with the guy--the forced departues of Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall and Peyton Hillis probably rank pretty high for most fans.  There's the taping of practices and the like.  


To me, though something that has gone unmentioned as far as I can see is the way the Broncos lost this past Sunday.  Losing to the Chiefs even though the Broncos held them to 10 points has to annoying, but the game management down the stretch was just so unbelievably chickenshit that it demanded action.  I think if are winning games, you get away with a videotape scandal (see Belichek).  If you are winning you can get away with rubbing players the wrong way a lot of the time (see Parcells).  


But if you are down 4 with 3 minutes left to play, and you are facing a 4th and 5, and elect to punt even though you have only 2 timeouts left?  You are either a horrible game manager, or you are playing simply to not lose worse than you are already losing.  What's the point of keeping a coach who makes bad personnel moves, hires a guy who gets caught cheating, and can't even summon the balls to go for it when a game is absolutely on the line?


Denver Owner Pat Bowlen knew the answer:  there is no reason to keep a coach like that.

2 comments:

Andrew Wice said...

McDaniels was, demonstrably, a tremendous douche.

Meanwhile, the Broncos continue to operate like a chicken with its head cut off.

Up next ... Gruden? Or Cowher? Then again, I hear Wade Phillips is free.

Big Blue Monkey 2: The Quickening said...

John Fox, who has already completely overhauled the entire offense with the exact same cast of characters. Knoshown Moreno is about to become a star, maybe.