As I look back at the 2011 NFL season, the question I have to ask is "Where have all the gonads gone?" I'm thinking of those in the ranks of coaches and owners. As the behavior, both on and off the field, of multi-millionaire players continues to make adolescents look mature by comparison, not a single professional coach nor owner stood up to the bush league behavior of their employees.
Witness Deshaun Jackson's unfathomable taunting episode that nullified a 50 yard play that Vince Young and the offensive line engineered from their own one yard line against the now Super Bowl contending Giants. It was in week 11 and the Eagles desperately needed something to turn their season around. It was at a point in the game when the Eagles desperately needed something to get them in the contest. Jackson caught the 50 yard pass near the Giants sideline, stepped out of bounds, flipped the ball to a Giants' coach and began to taunt the entire blue-clad brigade. The only other color visible, besides Jackson's green and white Eagles jersey, was a yellow hanky that an official threw, landing the Eagles back on their own 1 yard line.
So what did highly respected veteran coach Andy Reid do about this? Absolutely nothing. He didn't pull Jackson off the field; he didn't confront Jackson when the team eventually punted and Jackson came over to the sideline; Reid apparently didn't even call Jackson into his office after the game. And team owner Jeffrey Lurie acted with equal nutlessness.
Then there was Ndomakong Suh's stomp the yard moment against the Packers on Thanksgiving Day. After a play ended, Suh stood up and intentionally stomped on the arm of Packer offensive lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith. It was caught on tape, flagged by the official, and resulted in Suh's immediate ejection. But like Deshaun Jackson, when Suh returned to his own sideline, he was not reprimanded by his coach Jim Schwartz. When he returned to his locker room he was never confronted by his coach nor Lions' owner William Clay Ford. In the days following Suh's inexcusable behavior, the only official words we heard were that the Lions were "waiting to hear from the league" as to whether and how Suh would be punished.
Waiting to hear from the league? But whom, exactly, does Suh represent? Whose uniform does he wear? For whom does Jackson work? Who signs his paychecks? Why would any self-respecting coach or owner of such a player, a player who is responsible for his actions, wait for some other body to enact punishment? Suh represents the Detroit Lions. He wears the Lions uniform. His behavior is a direct reflection upon his coach, his owner, and every other person who wears those colors. Suh's actions were and still are an absolute disgrace. And yet Jim Schwartz did nothing. William Clay Ford did nothing.
I know Suh is a great player. I know that having him miss games might well cost the Lions some wins. (In fact it did.) But what message is being sent to other Lion players by the coach's and owner's conplete abdication of their adult responsibilities? What message could have been sent had Schwartz chewed Suh's shorts off and sent him to the locker room and then suspended Suh, himself, pre-emptively, without any regard for what the League might do subsequntly? What if William Clay Ford had come into the locker room the second that game ended and addressed HIS team saying, "What Suh did is a disgrace to me and my organization, and here is what I am going to do right now to Suh and what I promise to do to any of you if you ever pull this kind of amateurish garbage while wearing my colors. I am suspending him for 4 games. I don't care what the league wants to do on top of that. The Detroit Lions are my organization and I won't have this crap around here." Do you think that might have taught these immature, millionaire primadonnas a lesson?
I believe that I have some license to speak to this issue, for I coached at the high school level for 15 years. Early in my career, I took my high school tennis team to the state championship in Ohio in the early 1990's. The way it worked then, the Ohio High School Athletic Association had two ways to win a state championship. An individual singles player or doubles team could qualify to go to state and compete for an individual title, and entire teams could qualify to go to Columbus and compete for the team state title. In our case, we sent 4 or 5 players down as individuals each year and our team qualified to play for the team title as well. The individual titles were determined Thursday and Friday, while the team title would be decided Saturday. During the individual competition in Columbus, our top singles player lost a match and behaved badly. He got on the line judge during the match and actually went after her verbally upon the match's completion. After getting him under control, my assistant coach and I immediately decided that we would suspend him and not allow him to take the court the following day with our team as we vied for the state team title. We went and informed the OHSAA officials of this decision before they had even had a chance to meet to discuss and act upon our player's behavior. We told the player in question and then our team of OUR decision and the rationale behind it. We had emphasized sportsmanship all season long and we weren't about to compromise our standards now. The players understood and agreed to move forward without our #1 singles player. That meant that our number 2 player had to play the other team's number 1 and so on down the line.
I have never looked back on that decision with anything other than pride and a sense that it was the only appropriate action to take. Our players represent us as coaches and they represent our school as well. And yes, some things ARE more important than winning, and if ethical, sportsmanlike behavior isn't one of those things, I have no idea what is.
So my question for Andy Reid, Jeffrey Lurie, Jim Schwartz, William Clay Ford and the dozens of other "professional" NFL coaches and owners who failed to stand up to bush league behavior and conduct unbecoming to their teams is this: Where have all your gonads gone?
The owners, coaches and would-be rulers have been neutered by player arrogance and empowerment that was granted them at the same age you were doing the right thing with the tennis brat. Combine that with a public that really enjoys bad boyz and violence and what do you have?
ReplyDeleteJim Schwartz hollering and threatening Suh does little, he's still on his Subway ads and getting invites to Gameday panels, because he's an articulate bad ass -- a marketer's dream. Each of these guys is an independent corporation whose talents are outsourced to ball clubs. Thus free agency; they know if a team gets sick of them, somebody else will take a chance. By the time their options are exhausted, they're so wealthy it doesn't matter.
Only chastisement/retribution from the locker room -- those more sensible and committed players who seek titles -- is going to have any effect.
It's a business with a bad edge sharpened by -- groomed -- hedonists. And keep in mind, Ford's selling tix with Suh on the field