Friday, September 04, 2009

The NFL Truly IS A Copycat League

Anyone that follows the NFL knows the old saying about how it’s a copycat league. When the Bears unleashed their ferocious 46 defense in the mid-80’s, several teams copied it. When Bill Walsh and his coaching protégés unveiled the West Coast Offense, it took the league by storm and everyone had to follow suit. Ditto Dick LeBeau’s zone blitz scheme, the Parcells-Belichick 3-4 defense, and even the ill-fated Run-n’-Shoot experiment of the early 1990’s.

Why do I bring this up? Because in the span of one week, three NFL teams – Kansas City, Tampa Bay and Buffalo – have fired their offensive coordinators. Think about that for a second. With less than two weeks to go until the 2009 NFL season gets underway, three separate NFL teams thought it would be a good idea to seismically and dramatically change the constitution of their coaching staffs.

We’re not talking about the assistant strength and conditioning coach or the defensive quality control intern here, we’re talking about one-half of the brain trust that a head coach must lean on in order to survive an NFL season. Apart from the head coach, the two coordinators (offensive and defensive) are indispensable to a team’s success. Poor coordination on their part and the season goes down the tubes.

What the hell are the Chiefs*, Bucs and Bills thinking? Who’s next on the chopping block? How many more teams will copy-cat these three rudderless franchises?

*As an aside, I’m most surprised by the Chiefs firing of their o-coordinator. Considering new Chiefs GM Scott Pioli comes from New England and was part of the most stable and well-run franchise in the NFL, I am seriously shocked that he thinks this is the best way to go into the ’09 season. I’m fairly certain we’ll find out that Belichick was the brains of the operation after all…

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