Look, I know I recently said that I thought Coach Whiz isn't a good head football coach. But you have to believe I want him to be. He has such a cool demeanor, and he obviously has the respect of the players. He has a lot of things to like. Except one glaring deficiency: he's blindly stubborn. And that's what's killing this team right now.
I have to laugh when I hear countless media members say that Kolb just hasn't picked up the system fast enough. Really? You think? The sad part is that they really think its Kolb that has the problem. I haven't heard one media person question Whiz's offensive playbook. Has it ever worked? I mean apart from Warner? This offensive playbook is 6-15 without Warner. He has thrown Leinert, Anderson, Hall, Skelton, Bartell, and Kolb into the fire since then, only to see all of them fail miserably. But not once has the media come out and said that this playbook is too complicated for any Card QB to master. Wait, forget master, how bout just being average at it?
According to the Republic, today he said,
"But I know what I believe in, what we believe in, works. And I know you stick to it. I remember probably four years ago, a lot of people banging on us, saying we weren't a very good team, and we went to the Super Bowl. I believe in sticking with what we know works . . . We're going to continue to work the way that we know can be successful for us and at some point, it will start working."
Does anyone else see what I'm talking about? He says that it worked 4 years ago (it was actually three) so it should work now. In other words, Warner wasn't all that important to the success of that team and any other QB can just step in and should be successful. That's stupid. That's like saying Pete Myers should be able to fill Michael Jordan's shoes easy enough. This is laughable stubborness. Its not even the kind of stubborness that you admire. Its the type that gets you fired and then ten years down the road you wonder why you didn't just change.
Let me comment on three years ago, by the way. If I remember right, the Cards were one of the worst teams I've ever seen make the playoffs. There division was bad and they were barely an average team. The two things they had going for them was the Kurt/Fitz/Q/Breaston offense and that amazing run defense that showed up strongest at the end of the year. They had little to no run game and were poor against the pass. However DRC had just shown up and was starting to turn heads. They go into the playoffs as a running joke and then do the unthinkable: they win. I don't know what kind of magic Kurt had going, but he was unbelievable in those 4 games. Larry was unguardable. And they stuffed 3 of the top run teams in the NFL.
But here's the problem: Whiz thought it was his system that won it. Really? First of all, it was Tod Haley's system. And secondly, it only works with Kurt. Whiz got high off of that offense and never came down to reality. My buddy James had a great analogy for this. Have you ever played a pick up basketball game with a guy that really sucks? Then on his first 3 point attempt he gets lucky and makes it and stares everybody down like he's a good player. Only to see him gain some misguided confidence and then miss his next 13 shots... badly. James and I would always look at each other with pained expressions when that guy would hit his first shot, because we knew the rest of the game he was under the impression that he should keep going with what worked. That's Whiz right now. He got lucky. ONCE. He had a good one year run (literally, from the playoffs of 08 to the playoffs of 09. There's no way you can argue they had a good regular season in 08. In week 15 of 08 they got beat 35 to 14 by the Vikings, then in week 16 they got beat 47 to 7 by the Patriots) After an amazing Superbowl run, he gained some misguided confidence in his system. He arrogantly thought he could hand it over to Matt Leneirt only to shamefully mishandle him. He then thought he could get D.A. to do it. Only to become the laughing stock of the NFL. This system isn't built for anyone but Warner, but Whiz is too stubborn/arrogant to modify to a new QB.
Again, I truly hope that Whiz humbles himself enough to hire a real O.C. that can come in and mold an offense around this team (Jim Fassell?) But I don't see him doing it. Sadly, he's going to get fired. And the worst part about it is the Bidwell's will go right back to the way they use to be and hire some nitwit that will get fired at the end of his contract. And then we'll all be truly back to the same old Cards.
No comments:
Post a Comment