Jon Gruden Fired By Bucs! WTF? Chuckie’s Gone!!

And so the blood letting continues among the coaching ranks.  Biting the dust tonight?  None other than Chuckie himself, notorious bad sleeper Jon Gruden.

Gruden was done it, it seems, by the Buccaneers end of season collapse.  Tampa slid from 9-3 at one point to missing out on the playoffs completely.  For that sin, so ends the Gruden Era.  And for good measure, the Glazer family canned GM Bruce Allen too.

So there you go.  No internal power struggle in which ownership sided with someone other than their coach.  Pure and simple the Bucs decided that 9-7 just wasn’t good enough.

Part of me says good for them.  Sure, Jon Gruden won a Super Bowl with Tampa Bay and not that long ago. But, he’s been mediocre since.  Gruden’s records since his first glorious year in which he went 12-4 and won a title are as follows:  7-9, 5-11, 11-5, 4-12 and then back to back 9-7 records.  He’s gotten to the playoffs twice since winning it all and both times Tampa lost in their first and only game.  Last year, he seemed to make a serious error by resting his starters way too early in the regular season and dropping late season games and losing at home to the miracle Giants in round one of the playoffs. 

The other part of me says who the heck does Tampa Bay think they are?  Tony Dungy, who preceded Gruden, had guided the Bucs into respectability.  Four times in his six years in Florida, Tony Dungy got his Tampa teams into the playoffs.  They had talent.  They just never seemed to be able to put it all together for a sustained post-season run.  When Dungy went 9-7 in 2001 and got slaughtered in round one of the playoffs by the Eagles for the second straight year, the Glazers fired Tony Dungy.  Next, they ponied up a ton of cash and draft picks to bring boy genius Chuckie to town.

It worked.  I know I said it earlier in this post, but Gruden managed to win a Super Bowl in Tampa in year one.  It’s true that Dungy had handed him a winning organization and deserves a great deal of credit for Tampa’s title he didn’t get to see.  Still, it bears repeating Gruden won it all in Tampa Bay of all places.

And now he’s gone.  Only in his mid-40s, you get the feeling there’s a lot more football left in Jon Gruden.  It will be interesting to see how his availability changes any plans teams with coaching openings have.  For my money, the Rams and Jets could do a lot worse.  It’s fitting, of course, that Detroit just hired somebody and so won’t be in the hunt for Gruden, a guy who’s won in both Tampa and Oakland.  Who’s to say he couldn’t turn around Detroit?

As for Tampa, it’s a gutsy move on their part and tells us who they think they are.  The Glazer family wants their franchise to be one of the upper echelon teams and is signaling they won’t settle  for less.  The Glazers have always liked big names.  How many times, after all, did they woo Bill Parcells only to be left at the alter embarrassed and humiliated? 

Names like Cowher, Shanahan and Parcells (doesn’t he always find a way out of his deals?) are out there.  It will be interesting to see what big fish Tampa tries to reel in this time.

D’Antoni Vs. Johnson… Who’s The Right Re-Tread Coach For Your NBA Team?

In most sports leagues, heck in most corporations, the head jobs are usually tough to crack.  Most sports teams out to hire a head coach go with someone who has done the job before.  The NBA is no exception.  It’s all about cutting down the risks when making a big hire. 

Whenever a vacancy is announced, it’s never long before the management looking to fill that opening is calling up guys who’ve done the job before.  You know, re-treads.  Never mind that often times the re-treads fail miserably on their second or third or fourth chances.  Sort of like most hollywood stars and marriage.

So, it’s always exciting when a new coaching re-tread becomes available to the NBA’s general managers.  For that reason, Phoenix Coach Mike D’Antoni is getting a lot of attention now that his boss GM Steve Kerr (remember his deadly 3 point shot?  He’s been a lot less accurate as a GM so far) is letting him talk to other teams.  Word is the Bulls and Knicks are interested.

My question is why?

First off, and I know it’s a surface thing, but there’s the bad mustache.  Memo to Mike D’Antoni.  1974’s come and gone.  Let go of the ‘stache.

Cheap shot?  Maybe, but do you think today’s young athletes are respecting someone with  ’70s porn facial hair? 

Whatever. 

Let’s move on.  The more important factor is what D’Antoni’s managed to do in Phoenix.  There’s no arguing with the regular season record. It’s pretty impressive.  Speaking of pretty, the style of play he advocates is fun to watch and play. Players and fans alike dig it.  (PS – I’m using 70s slang as a subtle tribute to the D’Antoni mustache)

Yup, you know the problem.  The nice regular season stats and the powerhouse offense has meant nothing come playoff time.  A team that has featured the now departed Sean Marion, Amare Stoudemire, Steve Nash (and his bad hair), Shaq and Grant Hill among others has never made the finals.  Not once.  And if memory serves, they’ve never even made it to a game seven of a conference finals.

As his core ages, the post season woes have gotten worse.  Now, the Suns are making first round exits.

The trouble with D’Antoni is his teams don’t play defense pure and simple.

For my money, if I was a GM looking for rookie re-treads, I’d go with Avery Johnson.  Johnson’s regular season record holds up nicely to D’Antoni’s.  Johnson has coached a team to a finals appearance, even if Dirk and Co. did choke it away. 

Most, impressively, Johnson changed the culture in Big D.  Suddenly, they were focused on D.  Taking the reins from Don Nelson and getting a team to buy into defense is one big accomplishment.  For that, re-tread Johnson deserves a second shot way before Mike D’Antoni.

Pretty basketball be damned.  And besides Avery doesn’t have as cheesy a mustache…