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Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Lack of quality candidates may help Mora
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
Barring an implausible confluence of results this weekend, the Falcons will miss the playoffs. They have underachieved by any stretch of the imagination, possibly even Jim Mora’s.
Their owner is upset.
Their players are venting.
Greg Knapp and Ed Donatell — broken down for kindling.
In short, you don’t need to look hard for a reason to fire Jim Mora. But as any owner or administrator outside of Tuscaloosa will tell you, it’s never wise to fire somebody without a plan, and while there are several reasons to change coaches, there is one significant reason not to:
Who’s next?
This isn’t a lobbying effort to keep Mora. But if Arthur Blank next week decides to give more fire-breathing speeches about demanding more, blows up Mora’s staff of assistants but decides to keep his head coach, it’s because there are exactly zero gotta-have candidates available.
I understand the obvious counter-argument: Either you keep a coach because he’s right for the job or you fire him because he’s not. But Mora at least has his tippy-toes in the gray area — folks, he was pretty good for a year and half — and the field of candidates might be making Blank go, “Hmmm.”
Understand something. When Mora was hired three years ago, he was a relatively obscure choice floating in a pool of obvious qualifiers. Joe Gibbs, then a member of the Falcons’ board of directors, decided to return to coaching, but with Washington, not here (how hard Blank tried to keep him is up for debate). Nick Saban would’ve taken the Falcons’ job but was never offered it (he accurately wasn’t perceived as a “consensus” guy). Lovie Smith, then the St. Louis defensive coordinator, apparently didn’t wow anybody in the interview. (Oops.)
And now? Look around:
• Jimmy Johnson: Not happening, certainly not here as the third wheel below Blank and Rich McKay.
• Steve Mariucci: Why do you want him? He was 15-28 in Detroit. The final straw: a loss to the Falcons. He was 60-43 in San Francisco but only 3-4 in the playoffs, with an organization that had been accustomed to Super Bowls. (He also lost a playoff game to the Falcons.)
• Pete Carroll: Hasn’t proved that he can coach in the NFL. If anything, he has proved he can’t.
• Steve Spurrier: Kidding.
• Ken Whisenhunt: Pittsburgh’s offensive coordinator easily is the best assistant out there, and he’s a Georgia Tech alum. But he’s Bill Cowher’s heir apparent, and Cowher might be finished Sunday.
• Mike Martz, Jim Haslett, Dom Capers: All were great coordinators. All had a screw loose as the head coach.
• Norm Chow: He developed great quarterbacks at USC and is doing the same with Vince Young at Tennessee. But some guys are made to be assistants. Chow is 60 years old. Think there’s a reason he’s never been a head coach?
• Mike Singletary (San Francisco), Ron Rivera (Chicago), Cam Cameron (San Diego): All have credentials as assistants. All are Jim Mora, three years ago.
• Kirk Ferentz (Iowa), Bob Stoops (Oklahoma): Neither has shown any inclination to leave his college job.
Blank fired Dan Reeves with three games left in the 2003 season. The reason he didn’t wait until after the season: He wanted to start interviewing candidates and knew that word would leak. So he chose to be up front with Reeves.
Conversely, Blank has yet to say a word to Mora about his future. Is that merely because of a long-shot playoff chance?
Blank can fire Mora, hire any of the aforementioned and likely invest three seasons, hoping it works out. But that’s starting over with a risk that is at least as big as Mora.
Or, Blank can keep Mora one more season. The obvious risk: further franchise decline and fan alienation. The potential upside: The candidate pool next season presumably will get better.
Mora has not handled things well. Saying, “I’m proud of this football team” in the midst of a 7-8 season makes him look dumb. He would be better served to forget about empty statistics and just win a game this week. Because Blank might be looking for a reason to avoid jumping into a shallow pool.
Permalink | Comments (217) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Jeff Schultz
Knight’s milestone belongs in Indiana
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Bloomington, Ind. — To the dismay of those into truth, justice and The Bob Knight Way (like me, for instance, along with anybody in Monroe County who knows a pick from a roll), he’s gone forever as the highly efficient dictator of Indiana University basketball.
What a shame. Courtesy of Knight’s ouster from the Hoosiers six years and many self-inflicted controversies ago, he could do the disgusting as soon as tonightin Lubbock, Texas. That’s where Knight could become the winningest coach ever in men’s hoops, and here’s the disgusting part: He can reach such immortality wearing the red of Texas Tech instead of Indiana.
Let’s pause for a moment of silence. They’ll do so a few miles to the east in Belmont, where Knight often ate breakfast at a bait-and-gas store called Knight’s (no relation) Corner. They’ll do the same a few miles to the west at a doughnut shop (the only doughnut shop) in Bowling Green that Knight used to frequent along the way to Terre Haute. They’ll do so at Janko’s Steakhouse downtown, Knight’s favorite supper spot. They’ll also do so at that other eatery around here that Knight visited more often than them all, a low-key deli inside a supermarket located a couple of fast breaks from Assembly Hall.
For now, consider this: Even Knight’s slew of bashers have to admit that his record 880th victory should have come at the school that he helped make famous and infamous with his habit of throwing things and grabbing the body parts of others between national championships. He was Indiana basketball. He is Indiana basketball, and that will never change. You can tell by how his shadow continues to engulf the five or six tables at the deli.
During the latter part of Knight’s 29 years at Indiana, this was his eternal place for lunching. Between bites on a steak or a piece of fish, he’d study the small television set that hangs nearly as high as the five red banners dangling from the ceiling to represent Indiana’s national championships, and then he’d watch the latest rerun of ESPN’s SportsCenter.
“There weren’t any pictures of Knight in the place, because he was so low-key, I’m not so sure that he would have come in here if there were some,” said Rusty Littell, among those who used to see Knight arrive with a tiny entourage that included one, two or all of his assistant coaches. An hour or so later, Knight would leave, either to perfect his motion offense and man-to-man defense or to throw a chair after punching somebody, depending on whether you view the guy as Gabriel or Lucifer.
Knight’s deli routine ended in 2000 after former Indiana President Myles Brand fired the white-haired ball of energy for violating his zero-tolerance policy.
“I still haven’t gotten over that [firing], and I never will,” said Roy Pope, 67, shaking his head, between sighing over a soft drink near Knight’s old seat in the deli. “Bobby was here in town for [nearly] 30 years, and IU presidents come and go. I resent the fact that somebody [Brand] who is here for just a few years can come and kick an icon out the door. Bobby would have stayed here forever.” After a pause, Pope said, “Not that Bobby wasn’t at fault for getting fired, but I still resent how it was done.”
Kelly Gall nodded nearby. After her 41-year-old eyes danced while joining others in praising Knight and panning Brand who eventually left to become head of the NCAA, the mother of two asked me to wait while she rushed to her car. She returned with an old color picture that was wrinkled and torn. She pointed to a faded person who either was Knight, Phil Donahue or Captain Kangaroo. “Yeah, that’s Bobby Knight, sitting at a banquet, right after they won the [1981] national championship, and I got him to smile,” said Gall, pointing at whatever. “I’ve been carrying this picture of Coach Knight around in my purse for years, and I really don’t know why.”
She knows why.
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