Nick Sirianni a hack, Bill Belichick a Cowboy(?), and other weird news – Daytona Beach News-Journal
You could always go with a potted plant. Maybe a framed family picture. Orbs are kinda cool, too.
Whatever, do something because it’s not just nature that abhors a vacuum.
If you’re Mike McDaniel or Nick Sirianni, you need to fill the mantel space where you were going to stick your 2023 Coach of the Year trophy.
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Man, talk about whiplash. Even a casual observer of football feels the need for a quick look-see in the blue tent, just to make sure your faculties are indeed intact.
Remember when the Eagles were unbeatable and the Dolphins untameable?
For what it’s worth, Philly fans remember, but at least they’re being reasonable in their disappointment. They’re not actually advocating the tar-and-feather treatment for Sirianni, just a routine one-way ticket to a coordinator job somewhere else. Anywhere else, frankly.
Whatever happened to “what have you done for me lately?” Today, it’s what are you doing for me today and tomorrow. The stymied “tush-push” on that ill-fated 2-point try might’ve been the perfect marriage of symbolism and reality.
McDaniel’s nerdish quality was quirky and downright cute for quite a while. Then his Fins lost four of their last five against capable NFL competition. Now he’s just the coach with silly pants who can’t punch above the bantamweight class.
Remember when the Jags were this close to clinching the AFC South and Trevor Lawrence was a franchise anchor at QB?
When Bill Belichick was going to blow the doors off Don Shula’s all-time wins record — and, of course, do it in Foxborough? The dreamers are now fantasizing about him going to Dallas and replacing Mike McCarthy, who’s produced three straight 12-win seasons, by the way.
Cowboys and Belichick? Is there a physicist in the house? What happens when two polarizing forces come together? And Jerry Jones is the intrusive father-in-law? They’d make Sammy Hagar and the Van Halen boys look like Ozzie and Harriet.
Remember when Jon Gruden was banished from the NFL? He was seemingly sentenced to a life sentence of tee times and the occasional guest spot on a niche podcast where he could rehash his greatest hits, opening with “Spider 2 Y Banana.” Word on the street — Bourbon, that is — says the Saints might hire him as offensive coordinator.
Pete Carroll got the “amicable” boot in Seattle and, good Lord, even Mike Tomlin is sleeping with one eye open in Pittsburgh. Sounds about right, because in Pittsburgh they’re due for a coaching change about once every Mesozoic Era.
All of this makes things look calm and routine over there in college football, where the constants will always be death, taxes and Roll Tide. Right?
Oops, hold the phone.
Is there a more thankless task in the entire world than the one Kalen DeBoer just willingly accepted? Replacing Nick Saban in Tuscaloosa? Might as well follow Sinatra at the Sands.
It was about 10 years ago, give or take, on a stretch of Interstate 10 in a rental car with no satellite radio. The AM dial somehow picked up a call-in sports show from Alabama, where the topic was … what else?
Anyway, a caller was talking about the underclassmen returning for the next season, along with the recent top-ranked recruiting class, and actually uttered the following sentence: “Gotta say, just looking at our roster and the non-conference schedules ahead, I don’t see us losing a game over the next three seasons.”
In Alabama, that doesn’t exactly qualify for outlier status. Good luck, Kalen. Phil Bengston on Line 1, by the way. (Do your own research on that one.)
— Reach Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
