There is a saying in business that if you are at the front of the back, you will end up face down riddled with bullets and that if you are at the back of the pack, the cheetah will pick you off and devour you. Better to be in the middle of the pack and be a fast follower of what works.
Evidence seems to suggest that this is the case, that no coach or general manager seeks to innovate markedly because their tenures can be so short and the patience of ownership and fans so fickle and brittle that to dare greatly is to end up out of a job. So most general managers and coaches seem to trend toward the average of what everyone else does. What they expect that is that out of this behavior they will transcend and excel, when, in fact, they probably will not after several years.
What fascinates is that teams do not follow the principles that the New England Patriots do. Talk about establishing a dynasty, and talk about doing it with some stars, a generational quarterback (and there are others out there who could have done the job very well if not as good as Tom Brady over as long a period of time) and many interchangeable parts. It's not as though the Hall of Fame will be overrun with Patriots' players, although many will be worthy because of their outstanding contributions to a dynasty. No, what has worked for the Patriots has been the opposite of wanting to see iconic players play out their careers in Foxboro. Instead, the Patriots let good players go. And they have done it all the time.
The Patriots do not stand pat. They win a Super Bowl and then some good players who become free agents get lucrative deals with other teams. Some players play well, others struggle.. Now it could be that they were good players on a very good team who could not become great players on an average to below-average team. It also could be that they were average players on a very good team who got the most out of their abilities on the dynasty because the coaching staff coached them within their limitations and did not ask them to do what their new teams had to ask them. Whatever the case, Bill Belichick in a way is to the NFL what Schroeder is to Lucy Van Pelt of "Peanuts." Destroy his bust of Beethoven, and he goes to his closet, has an inventory full of them, and pulls out yet another one. In NFL terms, that means if a player falters or cannot perform at a level New England deems necessary, they go into their box of tricks, their list of players who might be available, and they solve their problems in a different way.
Contrast Belichick to Howie Rosemann, Doug Pederson and the Philadelphia Eagles. The Birds won a Super Bowl in 2017-18 thanks to some good leadership. some great play from a young quarterback, the maturity of an offensive line and the fact that they had a backup QB who was ready to shine when the lights shone brightest. The fans were elated, but then everyone -- the team, the media, the players, the fans -- started talking about a "new norm" and how they were going to win more titles.
The fact of the matter is that no one in the organization was ruthless enough to do so. The coaches got complacent, the veterans got complacent, and the front office got complacent. They started to believe too much that they deserved to be where they were and got drunk on the Super Bowl to such a degree that the hangover prevented them from thinking clearly. Jason Peters, who will have a place in Canton, was done perhaps before the big game. He should have been released after the season. Jason Kelce had flirted with retirement after last season -- so much so that you wonder if he had anything left -- and this season has shown that he doesn't have much left. And so forth.
The average age of a player in the NFL is not that old, and players age quickly. Tread on the tires not only means a decreasing physical ability to get the job done, but at times a decreasing emotional wherewithal to do what is necessary to get the job done. And just because someone was on the roster to help you win a Super Bowl does not mean you have to keep them around. For every Matthew Slater there are dozens of guys who for one reason or another cannot contribute at a level to keep the team playing at a high level. The Patriots know this better than everyone else and have enough confidence in their coaching and system to keep the team young and strong and hungry enough. Strangely, it seems that few others, if any, have figured this out.
So the Eagles keep on saying that their 5-7 record does not represent who and what they are. The fans are angry because they are "losing games that they should not be losing." But the question that should be asked is whether this is true? Perhaps they should be losing these games because the talent is not there, the coaching is not there, and the front office has mis-judged who should remain on the team. It is hard to keep players forever, and the key is not to keep them for too long.
When the Eagles went into this season, there was a lot of hype that a healthy squad could return to the Super Bowl. The team believed it, and the press and the fans bought into it. But something smelled from the beginning. The team got older. Did anyone really believe that a 38-year old Jason Peters could play at a Hall of Fame level and could play for more than 10 games? Did anyone really believe that DeSean Jackson would play a full season after not having played 16 games in a season for years? Did anyone believe that the team would get out of the starting gate strongly with so many players not playing a down in pre-season. Finally, did anyone believe that one of the oldest teams in the league would stay healthy enough to win a Super Bowl?
Put simply, the strategy of the team going into the season was bad. They made some big, bold assumptions and let sentimentality get in the way of practicality. By doing so, they chose the easier wrong over the harder right. Yes, the team would have risked some blowback from the fans from cutting loose some key contributors to the Super Bowl.
But I'd bet that their record would be better than 5-7 right now.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment