Alright, Shanahan is gone from Denver. I cannot believe it. They had a collapse of huge portions this year and have not been good the last few years. Still, I can not believe it. Shanahan's record in Denver is 138-86 and has only two losing seasons in 14 years of coaching. He coached the Broncos to back to back Superbowl Championships. Firing him was a mistake. Jeff Fisher went three years without a winning record. Bill Cowher went three years without a winning record. Neither of them got fired and did pretty well after those years. Who is Denver going to bring in that is better? The only person I would be a little happy about bringing in is Gary Kubiak. Too bad he was born and raised in Houston and now coaches there.
Let me paint you a picture. Bill Parcels is the Executive Vice President of Football Operations for the Miami Dolphins. Tony Sparano is their head coach. Mike Shanahan is BOTH OF THOSE IN DENVER!!!!!! WHY????? I don't know. It happened a couple years ago. Basically, Shanahan was doing everything for the team. That was the fatal flaw. As soon as they fired Ted Sundquist, and gave his job to Shanahan, I knew they were in trouble. This did not work in Seattle with Holmgren. It did not work with Parcells when he tried it as well.
Now, if I were the owner of the Broncos (happiest person on earth would be me), I would have stripped Shanahan of his football operations job and kept him as head coach. If Shanahan refused, then fine, he is gone. It makes no sense for one person to do the job that takes two people 20 hours a day each. Well, coaching at least is a highly demanding job hours wise. I am sure the other is too.
He is one of the greats when it comes to coaching. He will go down as the Bronco's greatest coach to date. GM - Well, Shanahan was not too good there. Actually, I am not sure. Trying to do two jobs at once probably caused both jobs to suffer. He had too much responsibility.
It is reported the players are stunned and the players were behind Shanahan. Where is this organization headed? I have no idea but this move seems a bit extreme.
Advice to anyone wanting to hear about this - Please listen to Mark Schlereth. He nails this!!!!!
Good-bye Shanahan and thank you for the years! See you in Canton (if the hall of fame didn't hate the Broncos...that is a whole different post).
Prediction: If Shanahan goes to a team as just the head coach - watch out!
3 comments:
I agree with all of this. Good points. It's especialli dismaying that he tried to do both jobs given how smart so many of these GM's are getting. The NFL isn't quite to the level that MLB is in quality of executives, bit it's getting there.
I am going to disagree with both of you.
1) If he was concerned about the quality of his coaching he would have turned down the executive position. If Denver would have fired him for turning down that position, they would have been idiots, but he didn't, so their not.
2) Regardless of whether he took the exec job or not, he has gone 24-24 in the last three years without a play off appearance. Last Sunday was a dismal capper to his legacy in Denver. He has been reminding me more and more of Marty Schottenheimer. That isn't a good thing.
Do I think Denver will do better without him? Probably not, but there was going to be a parting of ways sooner or later and I guess the Broncos chose sooner.
Huge mistake! Who out there is better? Other than Cowher- nobody. I don't care what is said publicly by the Broncos. The bottom line is this, Shanahan was asked to give up GM powers- he refused and was fired. Why did he refuse? EGO. He didn't want to admit he failed. I agree his record was affected by the time spent as GM taking away prep time as coach. Please stay away from Cleveland. I don't want to face him twice a year.
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