Dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things. And, thanks to plenty of the perennially dysfunctional teams, the league is a current dysfunction mess.<\/p>\n
The current hiring cycle, which at one point seemed like it could be quieter than usual, has sparked turnover with 10 teams. Nearly one third of the league. Two jobs have been filled; with Monday\u2019s termination of Bills coach Sean McDermott, the number of vacancies is back to eight.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how one current NFL head coach put it, in a Monday morning unsolicited text message to PFT: \u201cAt this very moment, [this is] the worst collective of 32 owners in league history.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a strong statement, but the proof is, if anywhere, in the pudding. Bad teams stay bad. They think that they can turn it around by firing the current coach and hiring a new one, because for other teams it happens.<\/p>\n
But the cycle of hiring and firing and hiring and firing contributes to the situation. When the owner has an itchy trigger finger, the coach spends way too much time looking over his shoulder and wondering whether the next decision that doesn\u2019t pan out will be his last.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no competence test to pass in order to qualify to own a team. The paths remain simple (if not easy): (1) have enough money to buy a team; or (2) get your name in the right spot in the will.<\/p>\n
While some of the currently vacant jobs are open for reasons unrelated to membership in the gang that couldn\u2019t own straight, most trace to owners who feel like they need to do something, so they fire the coach. In plenty of cases, three years or less after firing the last one.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the teams with capable owners will benefit. Rash decisions aren\u2019t made. Patience is displayed.<\/p>\n
Aaron Rodgers recently blamed the media for the presence of certain coaches on the \u201chot seat.\u201d The blame goes to those who don\u2019t know what to do (because they secretly don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing), so they do the easiest thing \u2014 fire the coach.<\/p>\n
Even if the coach isn\u2019t the biggest part of the problem. Of course, for the truly dysfunctional franchises, the biggest part of the problem isn\u2019t subject to a pink slip. Because owners can\u2019t be fired for general incompetence when it comes to the on-field performance of the team.<\/p>\n
Financially, they\u2019re all performing well. They\u2019re all winning, even when they\u2019re losing. And those who are losing will feel compelled to keep the fans believing that the future will be brighter (or less bleak) by dumping the current coach, and by moving to the next coach in who inevitably will be the next coach out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things. And, thanks to plenty of the perennially dysfunctional teams, the league is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-423708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}