NFL - Are You Ready For Some Football?! - Off Season

[Al B. Sure!]

Mark Sanchez has won four road postseason games already in his career, tied for the most all-time. He would set the record for road playoff success in just his second season if the Jets win Sunday to reach the Super Bowl.

That is ****ing amazing. Beat PIT and Sanchez will be the greatest road playoff QB in NFL history... IN HIS SECOND SEASON!

(Flacco also has 4 road playoff wins and would have had the record on Saturday if he and the Ravens had held onto their lead)

[OzzyKP]

That is pretty amazing. I guess the truly dominant QBs always had home field advantage.

[OzzyKP]

La la la la la... I'm not listening!!!

Why are people so down on Lovie? Championship game twice in 5 years, as Urlacher said, is a pretty damn good. Ditka made it three times.

[Al B. Sure!]

But at the same time, all it takes is for a #5 or #6 seed to make it to the SB and that would've been 3 road wins right there (the SB is considered neutral and not road). Guess it is pretty rare for a 5-6 seed to make it to the Super Bowl.

This is the list of guys with 4 road playoff wins:

Roger Staubach 4
Jake Delhomme 4
Mark Sanchez 4
Joe Flacco 4
Len Dawson 4

Sanchez is on the cusp of breaking the record in only his 2nd season but hey Flacco's right there after only 3 years himself.

[Al B. Sure!]

Why are people so down on Lovie? Championship game twice in 5 years, as Urlacher said, is a pretty damn good. Ditka made it three times.

Come to Philly and ask Eagles fans what they think of Andy Reid

Andy Reid might honestly be the second best coach and the most accomplished coach after Belichick and Reid is hated with a passion here.


Reid has had FIVE championship appearances in 12 years, including four straight. Still hated.

[OzzyKP]

Well everyone knows Philly fans are nuts. Hate Reid, hate McNabb, they just are out right insane. I guess I was expecting more of Chicago....

[Demonbinder]

They don't like the way Lovie act's at his postgame press conferences, makes bad challenges, keeps players in who don't do much on field, etc. Maybe Ming can say more as he is one of them.

[Al B. Sure!]

Well everyone knows Philly fans are nuts. Hate Reid, hate McNabb, they just are out right insane. I guess I was expecting more of Chicago....

I bet to a Lions fan, it is incomprehensible that a team could go 118-73-1 in 12 years with a head coach, make the playoffs 9 out of those 12 years, win 1 NFC Championship and play in 5 NFC Championship games, and the fanbase has been demanding the coach get fired for years now! The Eagles have been the best NFC team of the past decade by any reasonable measure but Reid and McNabb must go!

It's funny how Eagles fans seem to have amnesia concerning the late 90's... the Ray Rhodes era when the Eagles QB alternated between Rodney Peete and both Detmer brothers and Bobby Hoying was supposed to be the savior For about two seasons, the Eagles were a joke and Andy Reid changed that as soon as he took over. For the most part, the Eagles have been a successful franchise, though. In the 11 years from 1988 to 1998 (before Reid took over), the Eagles made the playoffs 6 years. That's pretty damn good even considering the Ray Rhodes era slump. And even Rhodes made the playoffs 2 of his 4 seasons coaching the Eagles.

I mean Buddy Ryan coached the team for 5 seasons and went to the playoffs in 3 of those years playing in a division that had the Aikman-led Cowboys and the Simms-led Giants and he still got fired after three straight playoff seasons!

Definitely the most puzzling thing. I think Eagles fans are just spoiled by relative success.

I think there's a little of that "BUT WE'RE NOT WINNING SUPER BOWLS SO HE SUCKS!!!!" mentality in Chicago with Lovie.

[Al B. Sure!]

Actually, Bears coaches since Ditka:

Wannstedt: 1 playoff appearance in 6 seasons
Jauron: 1 playoff appearance in 5 seasons
Lovie Smith: 3 playoff appearances in 7 seasons

Lovie is clearly more successful but the general lack of success since Ditka period has thrown a wrench in my theory of successful enough to be complainers, as opposed to being like Lions fans and accepting suckdom.

The Eagles coaches over the same period have all been more successful, though Reid's predecessors were all fired in shame:

Ryan: 3 in 5 seasons
Kotite: 1 in 4 seasons
Rhodes: 2 in 4 seasons
Reid: 9 in 12 seasons


It's just interesting to see how different fanbases/owners gauge success and where expectations lie. The Eagles seem to have a Super Bowl or bust mentality every year and it has reflected in attitudes towards coaches. I wonder if Chicagoans feel the same way.

[-Jrabbit]

Take away this season, look at Lovie's record, and you'll see a .500 coach who got lucky one year. As a coach, he has been pretty abysmal at in-game tactics/mechanics (challenges, clock management, etc.), which is frustrating to watch. And he will never be known as an innovator or strategic genius.

The good news is, he's getting better, addressing his flaws. And yes, his players love him and work hard for him - and that's important. Another key to success was investing in quality staff. Rob Marinelli, Mike Martz, and Mike Tice (O-line) are all ex-head coaches who are back to concentrating on their specialties, and it's hard to argue with the results. Much as it pains me to admit it, that's good management.

If the Bears win this week, that's a pretty damned good year, one that only the staunchest of kool-aid drinkers predicted. And it turns Lovie from .500 career coach into a multi-Super Bowl coach. A pretty significant difference.

I would have no problem with an extension -- after the season is over and the CBA is addressed. He's under contract for 2011, so there's no reason to rush it. That's the kind of thinking that stuck us for Dick Jauron for an extra 2 years after his 13-3 season in 2001.

[Donegeal]

It's not just in-game abilities. It's his player personal choices as well.

For years us Bears fans heard, and vomited at, Lovie's slow souther drawl as he said "Rex Grossman is our quarterback."
We watched un utter disbelief as he brough in Adam Archuleta and claimed that his defense was complete with him.
After the Superbowl, we watched as he let go of a Pro-bowl Runningback to be replaced by a bust of a first round pick. He replaced a legitemate top DE in Alex Brown with a pass rush specialist (Mark Anderson) that had one good season (and who I think is no longer playing). He also let Ron Rivera go from the Defensive coordinator position (and we watched his #2 defense slide to #20 the next season). He did this while drawling out the phrase "Trust me."
Now just this past season, we had him spouting off again in that annoying slow southern drawl "Chris Williams is our Left Tackle."
Oh... and he still thinks that making Devin Hester a focal point of the offense was not only a good idea, but a success.

Like I've said all year long; he is a great figurehead coach. Just don't let him make personel descisions, throw the challenge flag, call time-outs, run the offense, run the defense or do anything with the special teams.

[Al B. Sure!]

I wanted to see what you're talking about (and I know there's no love for Jerry Angelo either), and I found this video from just after the 2009 draft in which Lovie and Angelo talk about their two highest drafted players that year.

What's funny is that this video wasn't made ironically because it was right after the draft and there was no way to know what would happen but it so happens that as best as I can tell, the players being praised were Jarron Gilbert (now on the Jets practice squad) and Joaquin Iglesias (now on the Vikings practice squad).

I know there's always high praise for guys who end up being busts but it was amusing that neither of those players would be on the team beyond their rookie seasons.

[-Jrabbit]

I remember Iglesius well. He was a training camp sensation, much like Cruz on the Giants this year. Caught everything in sight, fast and shifty.

As for Donegeal's comments, I would reiterate that Lovie has shown significant progress in several areas the past couple years. I can't blame him for being a company man and standing behind his players; many of those decision were Angelo's doing, often based on cap space, not talent. Lovie's loyalty is a big part of why the players go to war for him. He's at the mercy of his booth spotters on challenge flags. Meanwhile, Chris Williams looks like a natural at guard (making lemonade), Cedric Benson showed (too late for us) that he can run, and people conveniently forget that Thomas Jones wanted some long green (got 4 yrs, $25million from the Jets). As for Lovie's Texas accent, not much we can do about that. I know people percieve slow talkers as less intelligent, but this man is no dummy.

In my view, Lovie got a bad rap because he was so obviously learning on the job. But after 7 years of excruciating patience, we seem to be seeing clear progress. IMHO, lack of continuity has been a huge problem for this team in the post-Ditka era. The Bears may be turning the corner under Lovie, so why not reap the benefits?

An extension is, at this point, premature. But I'm off the haters wagon with Smith. (Can't say the same for Angelo.)

[Donegeal]

The only 'progress' he has made is getting his medling hands off of things. When Rivera got the boot, Ba***** was promoted and the defense dropped to around 20. The next season Lovie decided he was going to run things... and the defense got worse! Bring in Marineli (spelling) this season and a hands off approach and the defense has soared.

You're not going to get any argument from me about Angelo. He needs to go more than Lovie.

[-Jrabbit]

Learning to delegate - and hiring a staff of ex-head coaches who can handle it - may seem like very little, but it's actually a huge step forward in learning to manage an organization. The quality of the coaching staff is light years ahead of where it was 5 years ago, and if you don't give Lovie some credit for that, you're just being an ass.

Spelling: Babich, Marinelli