Coach Carousel

This marks another new landmark for the Studly Pastures as we've managed to go a full calendar month without anybody overseas reading a post.

While I'd like to think that maybe the East has finally taken what they've needed from me and are now better for it the more likely reason is that those spam bots have left me alone due to inactivity.  Eh.  The herald of the times can only do so much and he's probably not going about it by writing in an obscure blog every here and there.

I believe in self-employment.  You're the boss and what you say goes.  It's also got great job security because the only way you lose your job is when the whole company goes under and--come on--how often does that happen?

That's probably why I'm not an NFL head coach.  While it might seem like you hold some semblance of power you're really just the guy whose got the puppeteer's hand up his ass the furthest.  And when he tires of you he throws you out and gets another puppet.  Your life is basically Toy Story, except like I said, his hand is up your ass.  The life of a NFL head coach is cruel, wearing, and you better know it before you get into it or else it will swallow you up.  Unless you employ tactics, oh let's say such as spying on the other teams, your shelf-life as a NFL head coach is a little longer than that lactose-free milk which just confuses me to no end.  What's in the container?  Sand?

There's been a number of coaching changes as of late and most of them have left me wondering what the person making the hire is doing to convince themselves of such a move.  Why did this person out of ALLLLLLL others stand out to you as the one that would lead you to the promised land?  Why?!



BUFFALO: I start with you because, let's face it, we know each other the best.  You're the barren wasteland of my birth--the place that God constantly tries to warn humanity not to form a habitat in by burying it for months at a time under pounds and pounds of ice!  Yet, there you stand, as some weird testament to human resiliency or just pure ignorance.  Nevertheless, your old coach abandoned you (and granted he has a history of doing that) but you couldn't really blame him because maybe he wanted to remember what the sun looked like.  It appears now that Doug Marrone would rather not be a head coach in the NFL so that he didn't have to live in Buffalo any longer.  That's a tough pill to swallow and you washed it down with a big, heaping glass of Rex Ryan.

I know you're not the Grand Vizier of Great Decision Making but...come on...Rex Ryan?!  I wouldn't even want that guy to show up to the same bar I'm at--let alone coach my football team.  Has it come down to this, Buffalo?  You're now just willingly raising your hand for Jersey's seconds?

Rex Ryan is a defensive minded coach, something they have the footholds established for in Buffalo but their offense is a huge train-wreck.  Enter Rex Ryan, one-track mind, one-track coach, one lap-band surgery.  Buffalo has basically signed up to become Jersey 2.0.  I expected better from Canadians.



OAKLAND: I must say I like the moves that the Oakland Raiders make because as a sibling I can basically smoke crack and still be a more favored offspring.  They just don't get it, do they?  It's either they all collectively don't get it or Al Davis died so he could become more powerful than we could ever imagine.  To go through their timeline of events in just the last six months would require about five Studly's so we're just going to skip ahead and tell you that they've tapped Jack Del Rio as the 479th head coach of the Oakland Raiders.

I don't like Jack Del Rio because he thinks he looks good in leather jackets and that kind of pompous attitude makes me hate you.  He previously coached the Jaguars for far too long because they're trying to sabotage themselves but for the last couple of years he was Defensive Coordinator for the Denver Peyton Mannings.  There was much ballyhoo last offseason for the attention the Broncos were paying to the defensive side of the ball with acquisitions like Demarcus Ware and Aqib Talib.  And then Andrew Luck came along, marched right into Mile High, and now Peyton has plenty of time to peddle pizzas. (Boom).  Oakland, being in the same division as Denver, has kept close tabs on the Broncos for the last couple of years and has decided to hire the man in charge of the weakest link on the team.  The chain of failure isn't a straight line, dumbasses, it's a circle.

I like Jack Del Rio for a character name on Law and Order but as far as a head coach I'm going to have to question why the Davis family has so much money to burn for such trivial reasons such as hiring and firing a guy two years later.



NEW JERSEY: You know why I saved you for last.  The Twilight Zone is very cruel and unforgiving.  Back in the Suck for Luck year in 2011 when the Dolphins fired Tony Sparano in December, Todd Bowles became our interim head coach.  The Dolphins subsequently went 2-1 under his stead and far missed out on a lottery we were in prime position to get from the start of the season--Andrew Luck.  The Colts sucked a little bit more that year and now they're in the AFC Championship.  I knew that we weren't getting Andrew Luck that year but at least there was potential in Todd Bowles.  He had coached with us for several years prior, the team loved him and responded to him, and he seemed like a bright young mind.  Then Stephen Ross went and hired Joe Philbin as head coach and there was no place for Todd Bowles anymore and I slunk even further into the Twilight Zone.

Now Rex Ryan is in Buffalo, Todd Bowles is in New Jersey, Andrew Luck is in Indianapolis and I'm stuck with Joe "I need to do a better job coaching" Philbin and Ryan "Fuzzby" Tannehill.

The gang's all here.

As much as I bashed Buffalo for hiring a guy that was defensive-minded on an already defensive heavy team I simply can't do the same for the New Jersey Jets.  Yes, Todd Bowles is a defensive-minded coach--but if anybody can juggle with one hand while learning the other I gotta go with him.  Buffalo hired a sideshow, Jersey hired a prodigy.

I'm just glad he went to Jersey because not even they can take advantage of his raw power.

You better be floatin' on, graceful swans.

The Things We Miss

Dearest children of the ever expanding Internet,

I'm mad as Hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore.

It's my solemn duty in life to make sure that you all grow up understanding the joke and I feel like I might be letting some of you down.  I was naive enough to think that I could go once or twice a month with imparting you with my words of wisdom but apparently that's just not gonna cut it anymore.

Well, I apologize, I really do.  I vow to step it up.

In less than 51 hours it will be the annual celebration of surviving another 365 days and the annual countdown to death for me, so forgive me if I am flooded with several strange emotions and thoughts.  I don't handle mortality well and I'm working on a cure.

It's just too damn tricky with all the scientists tied up working on various ways to create bacon flavored objects.

So, instead of using this space to lament my time here spent on Earth, I figured I might as well give you some sports musings.  At least this way you'll be entertained and I'll be distracted and then maybe one day I'll whore out enough to make a profit.  Too droll?  Eh, screw it.

Watching today's linebackers in the NFL makes me really miss Zach Thomas.  What an under-appreciated, over-achieving sonuvabitch he was.  His career was cut short to concussion trouble and his solution is to donate his brain to science when he dies so scientists can break away from the bacon stuff and find a solution to all the brain trauma NFL players are going through.

Speaking of retired players that I really miss: Daunte Culpepper.  I bought a Dolphins Culpepper jersey online a few years back.  I paid for the large youth size because I have the body of a thirteen year old girl.  The shipping cost more than the actual jersey.  I rocked that thing to sports bars for years until this past year it bit the dust in the dryer.  R.I.P. Culpepper jersey.  Maybe I'll upgrade and get a Jay Fiedler jersey this year.

4/5 of sports analysts were wash-outs in their respective sport...why should we care what they have to say?  I think we should have a complete changing of guard in who we listen to when it comes to sports.  Dolphin fans don't want to hear Tim Hasselbeck or Herm Edwards telling us the Dolphins suck, they want to hear people like me that go into depression when they lose.  Would you rather listen to a guy getting an undeserved paycheck or a guy that will honestly tell you like it is?

Things that seem like coincidences but aren't: The New York Jets are the only team so far this preseason to not score an offensive touchdown.  This isn't a coincidence because they hired Tony Sparano as Offensive Coordinator and they have Mark Sanchez and Tim Tebow as their quarterbacks.  Together they form the unholy trinity of attempting field goals.  When Sparano was head coach of the Dolphins, our MVP was our punter.  Pair him with two guys that have a better chance of being day-shift managers at a gift shop in a hospital and you're not going to have a good time.

I guarantee that the Miami Dolphins will score more points than the New York Jets but lose more games.  Sometimes it sucks living in the Twilight Zone.

This preseason Andrew Luck has done nothing to dissuade me from the fact that he is the next psychotic robot quarterback of the NFL.  He'll be Rookie of the Year and will start racking up MVP's as soon as four years from now.  It really is disgusting.

My final musings tonight, after two weeks into the preseason?  My Super Bowl prediction.

From the NFC, I like the New Orleans Saints.  This is a team that embraces the "fuck everyone else, we're going to rally together and we'll show them!"  Drew Brees will probably throw for 6,000 yards this year just to prove a point.  They're making the big show for sure.

From the AFC, which is a perennial crap-shoot between the New England Patriots and everyone else, I'm taking the Baltimore Ravens.  No, this isn't a ploy to make my girlfriend smile, it just seems like this team is on their last hurrah as a team that's been primarily together for a decade.  They rose up and embraced it before and I think they'll do it again.

Saints and Ravens.  There you have it.  By the way, if it turns out that I'm way, way off...it's because I'm hammered.

Love you guys.

Flipper Turns Flopper

A rule of thumb that is generally used throughout journalism is to keep an unbiased opinion and stay away from things that would be considered a conflict of interest.

This is why you will not find very many things on this blog dealing with the Miami Dolphins or the Tampa Bay Rays.

Those are my favorite two teams in sports and I can get a little...passionate...when writing, speaking, or shouting about the two of them.

However, the actions of the Dolphins front office staff over these last few weeks cannot go ignored, not even by this biased, crappy piece of publication.

And, Hell, if Bill Simmons can get away with writing about all things Boston all the time, I should be allowed a freebie every now and again.

So, quick recap, Miami ends what should have been a promising season with a 7-9 record, compounded worse by the fact that they only won one game at home all year long.

Naturally, rumblings starting coming about that head coach Tony Sparano would probably be losing his job.

Enter into the mix things like retired coach Bill Cowher stating to the media that he would be interested in coaching the Dolphins and Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh announcing that he was ready to go to the NFL and now we have ourselves a few options to the heir apparent in Miami.

So, Stephen Ross, the owner, flies out to California to meet with Harbaugh and to reportedly make him an offer that would make him the highest paid coach in the NFL.

Now, here's where if you were my editor you would point out to say that I forgot a huge chunk of information here. The only problem is, I didn't

Ross never fired Sparano.

He went to find Sparano's replacement, while Sparano was STILL on the job. This is the kind of shady, under-handed stuff you could get away with in the 60's and 70's when the media was severely limited but in this day and age, you get your bullshit called on you.

What a tasteless, gutless act by Ross. It reminded me of those jerks in high school who would be dating a girl and then see a prettier one and go up to her and say, "Hey, when I dump her, you wanna go out?"

Poor Sparano didn't do anything but sit there with the mud on his face, waiting day and day for somebody to decide his future for him.

And in the end? Harbaugh went to the 49ers and Sparano was resigned for another year extension.

Are you kidding me? How are we supposed to believe that he's going to go ahead and give himself 100% to a team that clearly has no interest in reciprocating?

The whole situation is a nightmare. Ross was never man enough to bite the bullet and do what he wanted to do and now we're stuck in this weird "we're married but we sleep in separate beds" scenario.

Look, Sparano is a good coach. It wasn't his fault that Chad Henne had some sort of embolism and regressed about fourteen years in his progress as a quarterback. Plus, the offensive coordinator last year was ancient and out of touch with today's NFL and didn't know how to utilize the weapons he had. He's already gone and Henne most certainly won't be the starter next year.

But would you blame Sparano for mailing it in next year as some big eff you to the ownership?

I sure wouldn't.

Ross would certainly have it coming to him.

It just sucks that, in like most marriages on the brink of divorce, the ones who suffer the most are the children.