By Jacob Sanders
*Little blurb here. I am sorry to those who do follow and read my stuff. I had to take a 3 month long break in order to focus on school, taking care of my students, and working another part-time job. Now that that’s out of the way, I’ll be writing more consistently again. Thanks again to everyone who reads what I have to say. I love doing this as my hobby and I love the feedback I get from those who do read what I put out. Enjoy!!*
Let’s be honest. Winning consistently in professional sports is hard. Doing it every season, is even harder. Even the best coaches have streaks of doing poorly but they usually manage to bounceback. Sometimes though, those coaches never get the chance and usually for good reason. The perfect example, would be this year’s victim of circumstance, Mike McCarthy. The opposite of this case, is John Harbaugh and even Sean Payton just two years ago. But a big question would be just one word: Why? Why did Harbaugh/Payton get to stay and not McCarthy? All three have a Super Bowl to their name. All three have had regular season and postseason success. Yet McCarthy was fired earlier this season, Payton got an extension in the midst of a few down years, and Harbaugh is receiving an extension in the near future. So why Harbaugh and Payton but not McCarthy? Well, we’ll get into that. But first, let’s examine what’s going on with another Super Bowl winning coach, Jon Gruden….
Get Grudened
If you pay attention to anything going on in the bay area, you would know that the Raiders look nothing like the team did six months ago both on and off the field. Welcome to the Jon Gruden era. When it was announced that Jon Gruden was going to be the Raiders head coach for the next 10 years, the NFL community and Raiders fans alike were gearing up for years of playoff contention and, possibly, Super Bowl contention. Then, the Raiders were torn to the ground bit by bit starting with the release of Marquette King. Pro Bowlers Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper were traded away just a few months later. For the final bit of the 2018 season, GM Reggie McKenzie was fired. At the time of Gruden’s hiring, it appeared that the Raiders were in “lock and reload” mode coming off a dreadful 6-10 season in 2017 when they were just 12-4 in 2016. Well, hindsight is 20/20 and it’s very clear that Gruden was given a 10 year contract because he knew he needed time to rebuild the team in his vision. It’s also now loud and clear that Gruden now gets the final say in the team’s roster, no matter who the next general manager of the Raiders is. That’s probably why former Giants 2x Super Bowl winning GM Jerry Reese declined an interview with the Raiders. He knows fully well that he would not have the normal duties a GM typically has because Jon Gruden is there. In a sense, Jon Gruden has become the Bill Belichick of the west. Not in the winning culture kind of way but in the “my way or the highway” kind of way. Whether that’s good or not remains to be seen.
At times, Jon Gruden’s squad has looked awful and other times it has had flashes. As of right now though, the Raiders have the 22nd best offense in the League averaging 344 YPG and 18.6 PPG. Both of those stats are mediocre at best, especially in a passing league. But when you’ve gutted a roster, you can’t expect to have many wins or points to be scored. While it’s a shame that Gruden elected to waste a year of Derek Carr’s prime, it’s too soon to call Gruden’s second tenure with the Raiders a failure. It’s going to take a couple years and Gruden’s goal will probably be to have this squad contending for the playoffs around the same time they show up to Las Vegas. But first, Jon Gruden and the Raiders have to nail the 2019 draft. The combination of giving away 2 NFL stars and whiffing on 3 first round picks will be a quick formula to getting fired and losing a fanbase. After all “Las Vegas is a feast or famine kind of city.”
Harbaugh and Payton’s comeback tours
Both John Harbaugh and Sean Payton have seen it all. They’ve had some losing seasons, mediocre seasons, many winning seasons, and both own a Super Bowl title to their coaching resumes. Despite their successes though, both head coaches in recent years have received backlash from the NFL community and fans. Sean Payton went 7-9 for three seasons in a row from 2014-2016 and, going into 2017, was being called to be fired by many analysts and football fans. Yet, in 2017 the Saints had a resurgent year making it to the NFC Divisional Playoffs before being defeated by the “Minnesota Miracle.” Now? Sean Payton and Co. are 13-2 heading into the 2018 playoffs with the No. 1 seed, home field advantage and are the NFC favorites to make the Super Bowl.
John Harbaugh’s story has been similar missing the playoffs in three of his last four years with analysts suspecting that 2018 would be his “playoffs or bust” season and many Baltimore fans (not me) wishing he had already been fired. Now in the 2018 season, sitting at 9-6, Harbaugh has Baltimore on the cusp of winning the AFC North for the first time since 2012, the last year they won the Super Bowl, and is being handed an extension by the Ravens organization despite not officially clinching a playoff berth.
So why didn’t the Ravens or the Saints let go of their coaches when things looked grim? The matter of the fact is, that Harbaugh and Payton are two of the best coaches in the business. Before Sean Payton came, the Saints were averaging 14.6 PPG. Ever since Payton has become the leading man of the Saints, their offense has never done worse than average 23.6 PPG which was good for 12th best in the League of the 2007 season. Outside of that 2007 season, when Payton is coaching, the Saints have always had a top 10 offense. Part of that is Drew Brees being the quarterback, but don’t let that discredit how much of an offensive genius Sean Payton is when it comes to his scheming and in-game playcalling. As for John Harbaugh, before he came to Baltimore, the Ravens combined special teams units (punting, kickoff, and field goal units) barely sniffed being overall top 10 units. Once he came in 2008, the Ravens have always fielded a top-5 special teams unit and there have been times when his special teams units have been the reason that Baltimore even had a chance of winning their games. No better example of this comes to mind than the 2012 BAL vs DEN AFC Divisional game in Denver that went into double OT and Justin Tucker nailed a 47 yard field goal to send Baltimore to the AFC Championship and, eventually, to Harbaugh’s lone Super Bowl win. You know what? A better example does come to mind. The start of the second half of the Super Bowl when Jacoby Jones ran for a 109 yard touchdown to set an NFL record for longest kick return in Super Bowl history. See what we’re getting at here? Both Sean Payton and John Harbaugh provide boosts to their specialty areas on the teams that they coach. Sure, it helps that Harbaugh has one of the greatest kickers of all time and that Payton has one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. But do you really think either Justin Tucker or Drew Brees would have been as successful without their respective head coaches? Guess we’ll never truly know. Bottom line: Sean Payton and John Harbaugh are really REALLY good coaches who make their teams well prepared whether they win or lose. Those kind of coaches are hard to find and both the Saints and Ravens organizations were smart for recognizing that and keeping them even when everyone else was calling for their jobs.
But….Mike McCarthy?
Okay so many could argue that Mike McCarthy is in the same mold as John Harbaugh and Sean Payton, no? All 3 of them have had incredible regular season success. All 3 of them have Super Bowl titles to their name. And all 3 of them have consistently made playoff squads. So why is McCarthy out of a job while Harbaugh and Payton are busy trying to make runs at another Super Bowl? Simply put, McCarthy “grew old” and wore out his welcome in Green Bay. When I say that McCarthy grew old, I don’t mean literally. When you examine coaches who have been around for a long time like John Harbaugh, Bill Bellichick, Sean Payton, Andy Reid, or Pete Carroll, you start to recognize that they don’t do the same things every year. Bellichick is probably the best example of constant change in his systems. His specialty (defense) remains the same, but his approach every year to the game of football is always different and is one of the reasons the Patriots are always Super Bowl contenders. The same can be said for the other coaches mentioned above. They don’t “grow old.” They change their systems, they adapt to their players strengths and change their playbooks year in and year out. Mike McCarthy doesn’t do this. We’ve seen him use the same offense for 10 years now. When Rodgers was in his prime, it didn’t matter that McCarthy’s offensive system was stale. His play calling genius and Rodgers’s magical quarterback play brought some of the best offenses in the NFL. But over the years, defensive coordinators and players all around the NFL have adapted. Yes, defenses are still dumb-founded by Aaron Rodgers and his “Wow!” plays. And yes, Aaron Rodgers and the offense can still score a lot of points and make some miraculous comebacks. But that isn’t because of Mike McCarthy. It’s because of Aaron Rodgers. When you have the most talented quarterback we’ve ever seen in NFL history, you should have more than one Super Bowl title to your name. When you have a quarterback who could probably do EVERY. SINGLE. play imaginable, you don’t stick with the same stuff you’ve been doing for years. But Mike McCarthy did and the proof is in the pudding. During the magical years of the Packers offense (2009-2014), the Packers put on a show with fielding a top 5 offense every year that Aaron Rodgers was the starting QB (he didn’t start all of 2013 due to a collarbone injury) except for the 2010-2011 season where their offense was the No. 10 offense. And yes, despite it being their “worst” offense they had in the glory days, that 2010-2011 season was the year they won the Super Bowl. Crazy, right? But in the last four years, their offenses have ranked 15th, 4th, 21st, and this year, 16th. At a time when it’s so easy to score and offensive-minded coaches are coming up with some crazy schemes, McCarthy has stayed steady with his same old game plans that defenses have figured out and it has shown both in the stat sheets and on the field. Don’t get me wrong here. I do believe Mike McCarthy will get another head coaching job and I do believe he’ll be extremely successful wherever he goes. But the matter of the fact is, when you stay in one place for a long time, you can’t be stale, you can’t do the same things, and you can’t “grow old.” Otherwise the players will get tired of the same message and the same gameplans, and you’ll eventually wear out your welcome. Thus, if you really did wonder why McCarthy was fired, you now know why. Don’t worry, though. He’ll be a great coach again someday where his message/gameplans will be refreshing for a new team and a new batch of players to hear. It just won’t be in Green Bay.
