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This past week, ESPN’s Get Up panelist Damien Woody went on a tirade against Cowboys’ linebacker Micah Parsons. In the wake of Dallas’s 34-6 loss to Philadelphia, Parsons said of Head Coach Mike McCarthy, “All coaching aside, Mike can leave and go wherever he wants. Guys I kind of feel bad for is guys like Zack Martin and guys who might be on their last year, on their way out.
“You want to win games and do great things with those type of legends who put in more time and work than Mike McCarthy ever did.”
Woody took issue with Parsons’ brazen comments, essentially saying that he was being disrespectful and out of line. Woody is right, but it is hardly a surprise. In this age of player empowerment, respect can be a lost art.
Players have every right to air their views, let their feelings be known, and seek out the best situation for themselves, but organizations must still maintain checks and balances. Unfortunately, it is usually the coaches who take the fall and pay the price.
Let’s face it. You can’t fire an owner, and it is difficult to break ties with star players without alienating a fan base, enraging the media, and negatively affecting a won/loss record.
In New York, owner Woody Johnson fired Robert Saleh back on October 8, but was it really justified? Certainly, Saleh had not established a winning formula in New York, but it was Johnson himself who genuflected to QB Aaron Rodgers, essentially letting the ex-Packer pick the offensive coaching staff and receiver corps.
Moreover, in signing Rodgers, the Jets put their fortunes in the hands of a man who has seemingly never taken responsibility for any loss in his career.
Indeed, Rodgers is the Pontius Pilate of the NFL, washing his hands of any negative outcomes. ESPN’s Pat McAfee can smooch Rodgers’ backside all he wants, but he should at least ask the guy about the permanent bus tire tracks on many of Rodgers’ past and present teammates and coaches.
In the NFL, it is usually the coaches who take the fall for front office mistakes and player miscues. Look at the Chicago Bears who fired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron this week presumably because of the poor development of 2024 top draft pick Caleb Williams.
Williams was sacked 9 times by the Patriots in a Week 10 game. Mind you, these were not the 2004 Patriots with Willie McGinest, Richard Seymour, Tedy Bruschi, Ty Law, Rodney Harrison, and Mike Vrabel. This was the 2024 non-descript 2-7 Patriots. At the time, Williams had been sacked more than any QB in the league.
Is this Waldron’s fault? Did the Bears even consider that after drafting a quarterback number 1 overall, they should perhaps shore up the offensive line? Analysts have repeated the fact that Chicago has never had a 4,000-yard passer in a single season, and ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky called the current Bears offense “broken.”
The blame, however, does not lie with Williams, Waldron or any other past Bears’ QB or coach. It’s a simple organizational issue. They have drafted and acquired talent poorly. Head coach Matt Eberflus will no doubt be the next victim of this fact.
In 2021, when the Detroit Lions hired Dan Campbell as head coach, many of the media denizens scoffed at the decision. Campbell was no Sean McVay offensive disciple and did not fit the mold of recent NFL head coach hires. During his press conference, Campbell offered some hokey thoughts on creating a tough team, one that would “bite a kneecap off.”
Can we all agree that the choice was a sound one? Campbell absolutely changed the losing culture in Detroit, very similar to what ESPN’s Rex Ryan did with the Jets back in 2009. Coaches make a difference, and Campbell was smart enough to hire great coordinators like Aaron Glenn and Ben Johnson.
To paraphrase an old Jerry Reed country tune, owners and players get the goldmine, while coaches get the shaft. The exception to this was in New England where Inside the NFL, ManningCast, Let’s Go!, and Underdog Fantasy commentator Bill Belichick both coached and chose the talent.
Despite winning 6 Super Bowls with the Patriots, Belichick eventually got fired as well, but it was largely his own fault. His drafting over the last decade in New England was abysmal, and he completely botched the end of the Tom Brady era and subsequent rebuild.
Belichick is great on TV, but he certainly had some kind of nerve recently criticizing the Giants for letting Saquon Barkley bolt to Philly over a couple of million dollars. Belichick regularly did this with his player value system in New England costing the team at least two or three more rings and going 10 years without a title between 2005 and 2015.
We all know that ESPN’s First Take superstar Stephen A. Smith is a Pittsburgh Steelers’ fan, but why has this organization stayed relevant for decades? I point to one answer: Head Coach Mike Tomlin. When Pittsburgh hired Tomlin in January of 2007, they set the tone for their future. Tomlin’s honest, in-your-face, candid, and frank press conferences are legendary. In this way, he is the anti-Belichick.
Moreover, his record of not having a losing season in 17 years in Pittsburgh is one of the most underrated achievements in sports history. Give credit to the Steelers organization. When Le’Veon Bell was pouting or Antonio Brown was spouting, the Rooney ownership did not fire the coach. In fact, they empowered Tomlin, not the players.
Tomlin comes from the Tony Dungy coaching tree. Dungy, now an NBC Football Night in America analyst, couldn’t win a title in Tampa, but was the missing ingredient in Indianapolis and won Super Bowl XLI. Dungy’s successor with the Buccaneers was also the final piece to a puzzle as Jon Gruden led the Bucs to a win in Super Bowl XXXVIII. The bottom line? Coaches matter.
The perils of player empowerment and organizational dysfunction are nowhere more vivid than in Las Vegas with the Raiders. Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy, QB coach Rich Scangarello, and offensive line coach James Cregg have been fired, and the Raiders are once again in last place in the AFC West.
If the losing continues, the only encore head coach Antonio Pierce will see is the casino resort at 3121 S. Las Vegas Boulevard.
It was a nice media story last year when Pierce replaced the fired Josh McDaniels and had a decent end to the season, but making Pierce the permanent head coach was an act of pure folly. Star defensive end Maxx Crosby and other Raiders flooded multimedia platforms with threats to leave or revolt if Pierce did not get the job, and owner Mark Davis crumbled.
Davis was lame enough to let the players pick the head coach and then compounded the problem by filling Pierce’s quarterback room with Gardner Minshew, Aidan O’Connell, and Desmond Ridder.
Davis seemed more concerned with wooing FOX NFL analyst Tom Brady to join the Raiders’ front office. It’s pretty sad when the best quarterback in the building is your new part owner. These are, however, the Raiders – an organization that has been living off of the fumes of Al Davis’s Brylcreem for years.
As I am writing this, the ESPN First Take crew is debating whether the undefeated Kansas City Chiefs can win a third straight Super Bowl despite their less than spectacular play. Of course they can, and it is not just because of stable ownership with the Hunt family and a Hall of Fame quarterback in Patrick Mahomes.
The glue of that team is Andy Reid. Fired coaches like Matt Nagy come back and are successful. Disgruntled, banished, or underutilized players like Kareem Hunt, Mecole Hardman, and DeAndre Hopkins return or come to KC and thrive. This is what Reid is all about, and what good coaching is all about.
Damien Woody’s reaction to Micah Parsons comments was refreshing given that he is an ex-NFL lineman who, on many occasions, has justifiably supported outspoken players.
What Woody was saying is that there is a line between player empowerment and coach disparagement. He put the debate into final and factual perspective when he looked straight into the camera and said to Parsons, “Bro, you been missing all these games with the injury, and last time I checked, (Mike McCarthy) is a Super Bowl-winning coach.”
John Molori is a weekly columnist for Barrett Sports Media. He has previously contributed to ESPNW, Patriots Football Weekly, Golf Content Network, Methuen Life Magazine, and wrote a syndicated Media Blitz column in the New England region, which was published by numerous outlets including The Boston Metro, Providence Journal, Lowell Sun, and the Eagle-Tribune. His career also includes fourteen years in television as a News and Sports Reporter, Host, Producer working for Continental Cablevision, MediaOne, and AT&T. He can be reached on Twitter @MoloriMedia.
