[sportscurmudgeon]

Smootsmack:

Be sure you are sitting down and have a glass of water nearby. I'm going to say something nice about Danny Boy.

While I do not think Jim Fassel is on the fast track to have his bust cast for enshrinement at Canton, he's a better than average NFL coach. If he comes in and blows up that 20-man coaching staff that was out there last year, he'd almost have to improve the situation. There were way too many coaches with way too many "areas of authorith" and way too many "lines of command". Some of the coaches held their jobs only because they traced their coaching lineage back to "Gibbs First Era". Keep an eye open to see just how many of those guys get multiple offers from the other NFL teams such that they can bid up their new contracts. With Gibbs here, even Danny Boy couldn't clean out that mess without indicating clearly that his boyhood idol had really screwed the pooch here.

Gregg Williams is a better than average defensive coordinator. His track record as a head coach is not good at all; he lost about two games for every game he won. He did not finish out his contract; the Bills let him walk and take money with him. Maybe some day he'll be a head coach and succeed; maybe he's one of those guys who is a really good ccordinator and not a good head coach. Should Danny Boy take a chance? Why? He has other options.

Jim Zorn was a successful coach in Seattle and was a damned good QB in his own right in the NFL. I don't see where losing Al Saunders is such a big deal. If a guy has a 700-page playbook and can't teach it to players a bit at a time so that they have a cohesive offense while they are learning the whole package, then he's not such a great teacher. Danny Boy saw a chance to get someone here who has had offensive coaching experience AND offensive playing experience and it looks as if he's going to land him. Unless Jim Zorn is a complete dolt and/or a psycho who can't get along with anyone here, this is a very reasoned move.

About all those players who "endorsed" Gregg Williams... That's called "front-running". He was the leader in the race and they all decided it would be a good idea to make nice with the guy who looked as if he would be the big boss next year. Listen to those same players if any other coach is named as the HC. They won't say the new guy is a dumb-ass and or that they don't know how the team can possibly win more than 3 games next year; they'll say they are ready to bust their ass for the new guy. These players may not be MENSA members, but they do know who makes the decisions as to whether or not they stay on this team.

Danny Boy dragged this whole thing out and got lots of publicity while doing it. If the final line-up is Fassel and Zorn and "someone else", that deal could have been done a week ago. Neither Fassel nor Zorn has been jetting all over the country juggling 20 different interviews for jobs. I've said that Danny Boy would want this coaching search to provide him with face time on TV and publicity; he made that happen. And in the end, he made a couple of reasonable decisions. How they work out will depend just as much on his decision to give Vinnie C. an unfettered hand in the football operations world as it does on the coaching staff.

Oh, and by the way, when Richie Kotite was hired by the Eagles it was an internal promotion. When he was hired by the Jets, he was an outsider.