Looking to uphold Bill Cowher's legacy as the most complained-about-by-dads coach in Pittsburgh history, the Rooney family has presented the following questionnaire to the Steelers' final three coaching choices - Russ Grimm, Mike Tomlin, and Ron Rivera - in the hopes of determining the one with the highest potential for dad complaints.1. Are you Chuck Noll? Circle One: ( / NO)
2. When will the Steelers win the AFC North again?
-A- Within the next three seasons, so we can say you just inherited good players.
-B- Not within the next three seasons, meaning you'll be fired and demonized.
3. How would you describe your general offensive philosophy?
-A- Aggressive: Always going for it on fourth and short and never kicking field goals in the red zone.
-B- Too Conservative: Punting for field position, running when you have a lead, and NEVER WINNING A SUPERBOWL (except for when you win the Superbowl)
-C- Balanced: No such thing, same as B.
4. One of your players takes a late cheap-shot at the opposing quarterback. What do you do?
-A- Discuss the matter with the player privately and defer questions from the media, meaning you've lost control of the team.
-B- Assure the media "It will never happen again," even though you know it will because you've lost control of the team.
-C- Tell Jack Lambert "nice play"
5. How visibly emotional emotional can you get?
-A- Extremely emotional (if you choose this one, your being emotional crap has already gotten old)
-B- Never emotional, meaning you don't care and/or you've lost control of the team.
6. Of the following players, whom would you choose as your starting quarterback?
-A- Bubby Brister
-B- Neil O'Donnell
-C- Kordell Stewart
-D- Tommy Maddox
-E- Whichever one you're not starting
7. Which of these following hypothetical situations can be blamed on the head coach?
-A- Your quarterback throwing four incomplete passes inside the 10 yard line on the final possession to lose the AFC Championship to a greatly inferior Chargers team.
-B- Your quarterback throwing two interceptions to lose the Superbowl by 10 points to the winnegest franchise of the 1990s.
-C- Your quarterback throwing three interceptions to lose at home to the Superbowl-bound Denver Broncos.
-D- Your quarterback throwing two interceptions in the final three minutes and your special teams allowing two touchdowns to lose to the Superbowl-bound New England Patriots.
-E- Handing the ball off to Jerome Bettis in an attempt to seal a playoff victory on the road against the Colts and having Bettis fumble. You won the game, but still, I mean, come on.
-F- All of the above.
8. Who is your coaching mentor?
-A- Bill Parcells. You wish.
-B- Marty Schottenheimer. Not sure exactly how he taught you to choke like that in the playoffs every year, but he obviously got the message across.
-C- Don't try to pretend you weren't Schottenheimer's disciple in Cleveland. We're not stupid.
9. What do you believe is the most important position to address in the draft?
-A- Offensive Line. A lineman, again? How bout we draft a damn receiver?
-B- Wide Receiver. You really want to waste some picks on guys like Troy Edwards and Plaxico Burress? Give me a break.
-C- Cornerback. Why bother, you know whoever's back there is gonna suck.
-D- Linebacker. What?? We already have good linebackers. How bout a damn tackle, our O-line sucks.
10. Finally, how would you best describe yourself?
-A- As a hard-nosed, no-nonsense, blue-collar, cut-and-dry, hard-collar, matter-of-fact, down-to-earth, guy who literally wears a blue collar that is really hard and whose nose is also really hard and possibly with a second blue collar underneath the first if it's cold.
-B- If you even glanced beyond A, get the fuck out of our city.
(Originally Posted 1/16/07)
19 comments:
Brilliant. As a Cowher Doubter for many years, someone who watched him blow every important playoff game with his Marty-Ball karma, it was a pleasure to see him get lucky then get the hell out of town.
Absolutely spot on.
Doesn't anyone remember that the Steelers went 15-1, the year before they won the Super Bowl? They didn't get lucky, they are a good team.
What's even more interesting is that Marty's other famous pupil, Tony Dungy, seemingly has the same playoff losing properties
I didn't realize until I read question #7 how many Super Bowl opportunities the Steelers blew since 1995. Ouch! We should have 7 or 8 Super Bowls by now. Bring on Russ Grimm!!! And yes, for God's sake please draft two offensive linemen unless Grimm can still suit up.
Don't forget that Grimm worked under Cowher the past few years and Mike Tomlin got his first chance with Tony Dungy. These two seem to be the leading candidates. Cowher might have come “close” a lot, but he did keep Pittsburgh a contender for many years. Still, interesting stuff and good points.
I think you people completely missed the point.
Yeah! The point is Cowher sucks.
Right?
http://www.webster.com/dictionary/Irony
Hey thank God Kent Graham isn't on that quarterback list.
oops..
It is such a pleasure to stumble by mere chance across virtually unknown, funny, and well-written blogs.
Do you know of any that fit that description?
Cowher did O.K. - not great...but O.K.
The day may come when you would wish he were still here. At least he kept them competitive the majority of the time. Steeler fans are really spoiled.
I agree that Cowher blew a lot of big games. I'm still upset about getting beat by the Cowpokes (anyone but Dallas)in the super bowl. I'm upset about loseing Rod Woodson. The list goes on and on. If Cowher didn't win a Super Bowl I belive no one would care about him and we all would be rejoycing and hailing the new king.
Bill didn't win the Super Bowl, Jerome Bettis did. It was his inspiration and motivation that led us there. Ask Hines Ward, Big Ben, or anyone else on that team. They wanted one for the Bus.
We need the Rooney's to spend some money, get great players, and just for a change, hire a real football coach.
Amazing how many Steeler fans showed up at Panther's game. Amazing how bad the Steelers could lose and win one this season. Cowher should have never let Ben start till Ben's head was right. AND starting 11 days after that operation, whose decision was that? Ben will be a better QB but keep Charlie just in case he decides to go helmetless again.
So.......how do you REALLY feel about Bill Cowher and the Steelers? I expect you're just another sore loser from a city that never wins The Big One.
There is a place in the world for simplicity.
It is way oversimple to assess the Steelers in terms of Cowher. The Steelers are a way of doing things. Cowher, the #5 winning coach in terms of percentage the day he walked, will soon (no later than Dec., '08) be exposed for the system guy he was. Without the player-personnel resources of the Steelers organization, Cowher having signed with more money than sense in his new front office will enjoy a sow's ear year to initiate a sow's ear phase in his career.
As for Mike Tomlin, we know little more about him now than we did about Cowher more than fifteen years ago. Simply, I look forward to watching him grow.
Blame Cowher all you want. He did make some bonehead calls during his time in Pittsburgh but he also made some pretty good calls as well as some gutsy calls at various times. But I think the problem goes deeper than the coach. Until the Rooney's open up the checkbook and start retaining some of the guys that make this team go, they are never going to be consistently good. Just about the time they get everything going, somebody jumps ship for more money on the free agent market and the team starts over again. I'm so sick of the team reaching the point where they should dominate for a few years only to have 3 or 4 of the starters leave because the Rooney's wont pay them what they deserve. It was very obvious this year. The d-line sucked, the running game was anemic for most of the season and there was generally no depth at receiver or secondary. I hate the Patriots but they are good every year because they retain there players or get good quality replacements when one leaves. I don't think it is going to matter who the coach is because the story will be the same.
Well maybe we finally got Coach Knolls replacement. Best of Luck and Knowllege to Coach Tomlin. Hopefully he will not qute after one and go for the threepeat! Bill McD.
Hahaha holy shit, these commenters just exponentially reaffirmed the already brilliant initial post.
Post a Comment