Your Head Coach preference?

[Om]

Some red meat ...lol

 

[Chris]

Nobody tap dances faster then Florio and I’m sure Peters in ‘enamored‘ with King Peter referring to him as a “flunkie”.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

This guy is just so worried about covering up for his stupid takes. What a clown. He’s the only person saying that Belichick was going to DC.

 

[Chris]

This guy is just so worried about covering up for his stupid takes. What a clown.

Yeah, Florio was never ‘couching’ anything for his readers to interpret. What a joke.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

He literally made up a story and then crafted a narrative saying that the team is only saying it’s not true on Belichick so they can say he wasn’t their first choice when they didn’t get him. I had to stop listening when King spoke because he's so hard to listen to. He’s seen as this authority on football and I’ve never found him knowledgeable at all. But he’s got that rep, so people think he’s smart. He just has people that will gossip to him and he repeats it.

 

[Chris]

Jumping all over Russini’s reporting that Belichick was ‘considered’. Why wouldn’t he be? I would imagine that a lot of candidates were ‘considered’.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

Exactly. You know else was considered, Ron Rivera. They considered if he should continue as coach and decided no he should not. That’s how decisions are made. Give us a name, we discuss, then decide if we want to proceed.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

Some red meat ...lol

Florio is such a complete horses ass. "Despite no effort from the team to throw water on the widespread belief Ben Johnson would be the next head coach of the team."

Schefter was screaming from the rooftops it wasn't Ben Johnson's job to lose, and the Commanders were seriously interviewing other candidates.

Then the team told both Keim (also from ESPN but a local beat guy) and Bram (team employee and radio host) they were looking at other candidates and it wasn't a slam dunk.

They did literally everything they could to pour water on the "It's Ben Johnson's job" rumor. But Florio and his agenda didn't want to hear it.

Dude is on my **** list of bad media members, and he's pretty high up. I have a lot of beefs with the media, and basically the entire local radio crew is on my **** list.

But Florio is some special kind of scumbag.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

Jumping all over Russini’s reporting that Belichick was ‘considered’. Why wouldn’t he be? I would imagine that a lot of candidates were ‘considered’.

Rusini's report came from Belichick. I'd bet money on that. And I'm sure he was considered.

And frankly, what's the harm in talking to him.

But he was never in contention for the job.

I have to imagine Bill's ego is toast at the moment. I'm sure he thought he could hold up 6 SB rings and somebody would hire him. That didn't happen. Frankly, I'm a little surprised it didn't happen. But here we are.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

A few general Quinn/process thoughts:

- I hadn't heard the "too many cooks in the kitchen" thing.
- I think Harris and company ran an ALMOST perfect process. They identified the candidates beforehand, ran them by Peters, and then talked to them as soon as they could, both virtually and in-person. The rules are the rules, and they were as fast as they could be within the rules.
- I wonder why they didn't interview Miami Dolphins OC Frank Smith, because they had time to do so. But he probably wasn't a leading contender due to lack of experience.
- If they wanted to talk to Johnson, Macdonald, Weaver and Glenn, they couldn't do that in person until this Monday. They set up 5 interviews in 3 days and were flying to Detroit to make sure the logistics worked.
- Ben Johnson might/might not have been the favorite going in, but they let it be known through Schefter, Keim and Bram (amongst others) he wasn't the run-away favorite the national media was running with.
- They probably could have hired Quinn or Raheem Morris last week, but then they would have not had the opportunity to talk to "the big 4" who were coaching in the championship games. (Ironically, all lost...)
- They might have wanted Macdonald over Quinn. It's tough to say, and impossible to know. But Seattle had clearly targeted Macdonald, and they hit him with an offer first, and that was that.
- Based on looking back at what Schefter, Keim and Bram have been screaming from the rooftops the last 2 weeks, I wonder if Quinn wasn't the leader in the clubhouse going into this week of interviews anyway, and one of the "big 4" would have had to have knocked their socks off to replace him as the hire.
- It's really unfortunate Johnson pulled out of the interview, because it would have looked "better," at least not like the settled, if they had a chance to interview Johnson and then chose Quinn anyway.

Specific to Quinn, he's a mixed bag. but I think this is interesting: The Falcons fired their GM at the same time they fired Quinn. The last winning season the Falcons have had? 2017, the year they won 10 games under Quinn to get into the playoffs and then won a game.

Since then, they have been:
2018: 7-9
2019: 7-9
2020: 4-12** Quinn went 0-5, then fired. Morris was the interim coach for the remainder of the season
2021: 7-10
2022: 7-10
2023: 7-10

There are a lot of reasons for Quinn's demise in Atlanta, but the 2 notable ones were the defenses were terrible and Matt Ryan got old. And they had to replace Kyle Shanahan, who was one of the best offensive minds in the league. Some of the bad defense can be put on Quinn, but they had a talent problem down there, and still do. To some extent, they had an Atlanta problem more than a Quinn problem. A note on Shanahan leaving though, they did go 10-6 the year after he left, and even in the 7-9 years, the offense wasn't the biggest problem. They were 12th in scoring offense in 2018, and 27th in scoring defense. As they say, "there's your problem right there."

There are things you can't excuse: they SHOULD have won that SB. My goodness. That was a choke job across the board, and Quinn was the head man and has to live with that. There are things he could have probably done better to get more out of the defense, and at the end of the day, you are what your record says you are.

I would have preferred an offensive minded HC, but I'm not as down on this hire as some. I think with any of them, it's "wait and see."

Putting together the staff is going to be the next most important thing to do. Who's running the offense is going to be critically important.

 

[tomwvr]

Florio hates the organization. He is also a POS. No one should pay any attention to what this idiot says

 

[Chris]

A bit of insight into the Ben ‘Soft’ Johnson drama-

MSN

 

[Bulldog]

You can’t trust Belichick. He may say he is okay working with a GM but ultimately his ego will lead him to either take credit for or pass blame (through leaks) to others for team failures.

Once a coach has personnel power he’s never going to be comfortable leaving that in someone else’s hands.

Jerry Jones in an analogy did that to Parcells.

He promised Parcells no decisions would be made without him.

Then Parcells goes on a fishing vacation and learns through media that Jones signed Terrell Owens to multi year deal.

It’s just in the blood.

 

[Primus Porcus]

More shade surrounding the Ben Johnson non-hire

 

[Om]

lol. Jason Reid and the subsequent replies remind me why I stay away from Twitter. The fact that not one of the actually knows anything does not stop the pontificating.

 

[Bulldog]

The Lions owner is the 72 year old daughter of William Clay Ford.

Give me a break, Ben. If your issue is with ownership, how many owners in the NFL actually played the game or coached?

Jerry Jones, that's about it.

Want to work for him?

Jones would eat Johnson alive if he went to Dallas.

 

[SkinsNumberOne]

The Lions owner is the 72 year old daughter of William Clay Ford.

Give me a break, Ben. If your issue is with ownership, how many owners in the NFL actually played the game or coached?

Jerry Jones, that's about it.

Want to work for him?

Jones would eat Johnson alive if he went to Dallas.

Hm, the thing about this comment is that it could have merit, when you have an opaque process with Harris and Magic potentially involved, as well as Myers; all three could be easily qualified as "basketball" people.

However, the comment is so easily thrown out there, days later. The biases are clear; Ben's agent absolutely need to protect the value of the asset (Ben) given how obviously bad the stories were going.

So, it doesn't really lend any credibility, and yeah I think it can be ignored. Even if it has any truth, I would STILL say (for your reasons Bulldog) that it doesn't even sound that professional still. I mean, a real HC candidate goes into difficult situations and handles them. Even in the description, it doesn't sound like some meltdown place, it sounds like you may have to talk to some guys about football and put up with some annoyances. They don't sound like they will necessarily be in our face. So, even in "the best save-face story" they could come up with, in my opinion, Ben doesn't sound all that great. It could be true given what we know, but the source's bias is too obvious to give it much credibility.

I think Ben (and maybe his agent too) is waiting for a "great" opportunity, and won't walk otherwise. He really helped Macdonald's value though! Always interesting how markets work in different situations.