WTF Buffalo!? Not Even The Rooney Rule Can Protect You From Chan Gailey!

What is going on up in Buffalo?  They’ve got an owner who is 112 (which isn’t even that big an exaggeration) and wants to win now allegedly.  They started their coaching search with Mike Shanahan & Bill Cowher.

And today, they ended up with Chan Gailey. 

According to multiple reports, Buffalo’s GM who doesn’t even merit being referred to by name here, wanted someone who had been a head coach before and had offensive expertise.  

Or as I prefer to look at it, he wanted a retread who doesn’t know defense.  Be that as it may or may not be, here’s a list of people off the top of my head who would have been better choices, although admittedly some didn’t meet all of Buffalo’s criteria.

First up, Leslie Fraizer who is  the defensive coordinator of a Viking team that just cracked the NFL’s final four behind his stifling defense.  Apparently, Buffalo could not wait around to let Chan Gailey go somewhere else while Frazier’s team continued to make its way through the playoffs. 

I believe in the Rooney Rule and I believe in it because it’s good for business and good for football.  I’m unclear if Buffalo interviewed Frazier but here’s a clear cut case where the Rooney Rule could have helped Buffalo by introducing them to Leslie Frazier. 

(PS – Before Buffalo hired him, Chan Gailey was not going anywhere quick…)

Here’s the rest of my off the cuff list of better choices than Chan Gailey:

Jim Fassel – got a team to a Super Bowl. Gailey’s watched a Super Bowl (on TV).  Ok, I’m kidding.  I think he might have been on the staff of some of those Super Bowl Champ Cowboy teams, before he took over and proved he wasn’t a fantastic NFL coach.

Denny Green – sure looked burned out in Arizona, but did some great things in Minny and so quotable and so better than Gailey

Gregg Williams – New Orleans D – Coordinator & 3 “G” name!

Herman Edwards – he’s been successful overall in the NFL

Jim Mora – had success with Atlanta and rug pulled out in Seattle

Brian Billick – Won a flippin’ Super Bowl and was a Match Game contestant.

I could go on but you get the point…

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.