Marc Trestman---- fired??

[HardRightEdge]

Yeah Bills should never do that, if they want to get a viable successor to Orton, just stick with Manuel, he will be something special

Manual might get another shot. GM Whaley drafted him and it looks like Whaley will be kept on, which is a good move for the team in my opinion, if not for Whaley, considering the following circumstances.

The new owner Terry Pegula may already be cr*pping the nest. According to local reports he's having Whaley screen coaching applicants while Pegula and his ex-cheerleader trophy wife Kim will be involved in the interview process. It's reported that Kim will be involved in the executive management of the ball club in some capacity.

To make matters worse, it's been reported that the new head coach once hired will report directly to Terry Pegula.

In all of this, one wonders what the head of football operations, Russ Brandon, is supposed to be doing. They tried to get Polian to come back as a consultant for the new hires, but when Marone quit and Orton retired, Polian backed out because, in his words, the job now looked like too much "heavy lifting." Maybe he got a load of Kim, too.

If one could picture Dan Snyder with two heads, that's what this is shaping up to be.

The Pegula's bought the Sabres in 2011 and, with Terry and Kim holding the reins, managed to get them into last place 3 years running with a trial-and-error revolving door of front office personnel and coaches.

The Pegula's are huge fish in the relatively small Western New York pond. They're billionaires with local roots. They've had a big hand in downtown redevelopment. They kept the Bills out of the clutches of a Toronto consortium. So nobody's willing to call them out on their team management clusterf*cks.

Doug Whaley has put together some excellent drafts in recent years and made some very good free agent signings. The Manual pick was a risk that did not work out; then again how many decent QBs have come into the league in the last 5 or 10 years? He's in the vast majority in failing to score in the QB crap shoot.

I would hope Whaley's exploring other options if his contract permits. The Packers appear to have an opening for head of Pro Personnel with Wolf's promotion. It would be a step down for Whaley, but what price sanity?

 

[greenandgold]

It seems like Mike Singletary wants to be the next Bears coach.

Go ahead, he's already failed at that, too as head coach at San Fran.

 

[TJV]

· I was surprised when Doug Marrone opted out of his contract with the Bills. After all, there are only 32 of those jobs. After reading HRE's post, I am no longer surprised.

· My guess is Mike Singletary would accept any NFL HC job.

 

[Sky King]

Most of the rest of can play with our toys, such as boats, motorcycles, ATVs, etc. Conversely, Billionaires can afford to buy and toy with sports franchises. They do it because they can. It's all relative. But I'm amused that people who should know better will foolishly engage in the dreaded practice of micromanagement -- the "Jay Cutler" of management styles: A long proven organization and morale killer. Marrone had something good going but is savvy enough to realize that the leadership would probably be too much of a burden. Too bad for Bills fans. They deserve far better than franchise hobbyists.

 

[HardRightEdge]

For some reason, when writing that post about the Pegulas, I was reminded of Elon Musk of PayPal fame and fortune and his early years with Tesla.

In designing their first electric car, Musk was determined to do it the Silicon Valley way...smart, young, lean, fast, flexible...eschewing hires from the perceived to be ossified bureaucracies of Detroit.

A couple of years into the design process, Musk discovered that 160 IQ Stanford engineering grads had not the faintest clue how to design an automobile chassis as they literally tried to reinvent the wheel. Tesla eventually brought in some seasoned Detroit hands to work on the "old economy" mechanicals, while he stayed in his wheelhouse designing the electronics and software controls.

Whether talking about car companies or football teams, there is an uncommon common sense moral to the tale. Leaders can be, and should be, hands-on and detail oriented in their areas of expertise; where the leader is out of his depth, experts should be hired and allowed to do their jobs. Humility in the face of superior expertise is an undervalued leadership quality.

The Pegulas made most of their money hydrofracking the Marcellus Shale. In the sporting arena, other than the team ownerships, the Pugalas have had success in a couple of specific areas: spearheading downtown redevelopment around the hockey arena with their HarborCenter as an anchor, similar to what the Packers seem to be contemplating with their property purchases around Lambeau; some major renovations to the hockey arena itself; and owning a couple of sports training facilities.

There's nothing in their resumes to suggest they'd know a good coach from a bad one, let alone being able to provide any meaningful input to a coach regarding what happens on the field or who to draft.

As noted in another recent thread, Harlan's signature accomplishment with the Packers football operation, besides hiring Wolf, was to shut down the kibitzing over team operations from the Executive Committee and the 40-odd members of the board and let the football men do their jobs.

I guess for billionaires winning and making money is ultimately unsatisfying unless they can flounder around trying to craft it from their own hands. You'd think fielding a bad product would be an embarrassment when hosting friends, business associates, and sundry power brokers in their skybox. Evidently not.

 

[Mklangelo]

For some reason, when writing that post about the Pegulas, I was reminded of Elon Musk of PayPal fame and fortune and his early years with Tesla.

In designing their first electric car, Musk was determined to do it the Silicon Valley way...smart, young, lean, fast, flexible...eschewing hires from the perceived to be ossified bureaucracies of Detroit.

A couple of years into the design process, Musk discovered that 160 IQ Stanford engineering grads had not the faintest clue how to design an automobile chassis as they literally tried to reinvent the wheel. Tesla eventually brought in some seasoned Detroit hands to work on the "old economy" mechanicals, while he stayed in his wheelhouse designing the electronics and software controls.

Whether talking about car companies or football teams, there is an uncommon common sense moral to the tale. Leaders can be, and should be, hands-on and detail oriented in their areas of expertise; where the leader is out of his depth, experts should be hired and allowed to do their jobs. Humility in the face of superior expertise is an undervalued leadership quality.

The Pegulas made most of their money hydrofracking the Marcellus Shale. In the sporting arena, other than the team ownerships, the Pugalas have had success in a couple of specific areas: spearheading downtown redevelopment around the hockey arena with their HarborCenter as an anchor, similar to what the Packers seem to be contemplating with their property purchases around Lambeau; some major renovations to the hockey arena itself; and owning a couple of sports training facilities.

There's nothing in their resumes to suggest they'd know a good coach from a bad one, let alone being able to provide any meaningful input to a coach regarding what happens on the field or who to draft.

As noted in another recent thread, Harlan's signature accomplishment with the Packers football operation, besides hiring Wolf, was to shut down the kibitzing over team operations from the Executive Committee and the 40-odd members of the board and let the football men do their jobs.

I guess for billionaires winning and making money is ultimately unsatisfying unless they can flounder around trying to craft it from their own hands. You'd think fielding a bad product would be an embarrassment when hosting friends, business associates, and sundry power brokers in their skybox. Evidently not.

Wow. Your posts can be very long. I can't read most of em for that reason.

Go Pack!

 

[TJV]

Wow. Your posts can be very long. I can't read most of em for that reason.

Wow is right. I understand attention spans are getting shorter in this age of twitter but rarely do you see someone admit to it. Perhaps you could read a paragraph at a time?

 

[HardRightEdge]

Your posts can be very long. I can't read most of em for that reason.

Then don't. There's an ignore button if you find them a burden on your attention span.

 

[paulska]

I don’t there’s a serious NFL fan who doesn’t realize Cutler is a coach killer but how did Trestman get the coach killer to lead the Bears offense to their tie for the #2 ranking in scoring last season? And then how did they fall so far in the next season going from tied for 2nd in scoring last season to 23rd this season? The league catches up to new schemes and the Bears had some injuries but do those two things alone explain that deep drop? (All honest questions – I’m not trying to make a point with them.) Trestman got Cutler under control enough to get them near the top of the league in scoring – maybe Cutler’s a ‘time bomb coach killer’?

Lovie Smith wasn’t a Ditka-like Godzilla clone either, so I don’t think that played a part in their house-cleaning. If their offense would have stayed about the same and their D improved, my guess is both Emery and Trestman would still have their jobs. As for Trestman to the degree he was responsible for the Bears offensive plunge this season, that’s obviously on him. If he had the power to fire Mel Tucker and didn’t, that was a HUGE mistake. In the end both he and Emery probably fell victim to the organizational cluster schtoop that thankfully is in place in Chicago. May it never change…

When it comes to Trestman's first year, I wonder if that doesn't fall under the "honeymoon" clause- that teams often play above their level in the first year under a new coach when the possibilities are intoxicating. HRE hit it on the head that the Bears' pass blocking has been god awful for as long as human memory permits- despite being insanely athletic, Cutler is not a good open field on the move passer, and he seems to lack the shiftiness within the pocket other less overall athletic QBs like Peyton and Brady possess that allow them to make plays with far lesser mobility. Remember that Cutler has played effectively in spurts before under other regimes, only to come apart in the long run. I think Trestman got several good months out of Jay before the real Jay asserted himself. I think you nailed it- Jay has an expiry date on disciplined play- he can do it for a while before he goes left fast and long...

As for Lovie Smith, I think a major reason he was let go was because he was a staid, calm, cool type. Bears fans want monsters- fiery Singletary, Urlacher, Ditka. Lovie was in it for the long haul, doing things right because that yields success over time. Stability offers a far greater opportunity to win consistently than constant upheaval. Lovie didn't light people up, and like Jay Cutler turns people off with his introvertedness (fair or not), Lovie's calm demeanour was taken to mean he wasn't firm or passionate or visionary. Coming from the Dungy tree means you need an owner who is invested for the long run and a personnel leader who will bring in talent that fits the shared plan. Lovie didn't have that, and he lacked the charisma to keep fans on his side. Ditka is an institution because of his persona, not because his teams were universally dominant. In the absence of a winner, fan bases yearn for the strongest flavours of the most recent meal of success. I think Lovie was victimized because he simply couldn't give fans that.

We won't ever know whether Trestman had any say over his staff. He's not the spill the beans type, and unless one of his underlings get vocal (and why would they when it likely stands to notch them down in the eyes of future employers), we won't get the full story. It seems like he was handed a handpicked group of talent and brains and expected to make it all work right now. In Montreal, he built his team over time with extraordinary control over his culture and approach. I know he had to take this shot, but in retrospect, I don't think it was a great fit. Buffalo would have been a better place, with a chance to influence a young Manuel and harness Watkins, et al, but it wasn't offered him. Now Buffalo is without Marrone. Two franchises adrift- yuck...

 

[PikeBadger]

Franchises adrift is good for us. There is and always will be 6-10 of those in the league. It takes the right combination of a plan, good management and good coaching to implement the plan to be consistently successful because the NFL is structured in a way to be a roller coaster of up and down seasons. We and a few other franchises have cracked the code.