Hey guys,
I’m delighted to be here this week talking about the NFL playoffs, or, as I call them, the Super Bowl Championship Series. The SBCS is like the Bowl Championship Series, only it’s Super. As for the many barbs from both of you about my Chiefs, I have only this to say: If the Indianapolis Colts win this year’s SBCS championship game, I’m going to take a page from Michigan Wolverines fans and assert that we don’t really know whether the Colts are better than the Chiefs, because the two teams never played on a neutral field. The Colts are 9-0 at home this year! I support a “plus one” modification to the SBCS, so we can have a game after the Super Bowl to rectify injustices like this. We could play it a month and a half after the real Super Bowl, sometime after the beginning of the NCAA basketball tournament.
And if the Colts don’t win (as they surely won’t), I think it’s time for Tony Dungy to adopt my radical strategy to win the Big Game: Replace Peyton Manning with Tee Martin. It worked for the Tennessee Volunteers!
As a Chiefs fan (and a nonresident Kansan, Josh), I am well-acquainted with both playoff disappointment (though this year’s team exceeded expectations by even making the playoffs) and with now-Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer. At the risk of sounding like Grand Moff Tarkin right before Luke Skywalker blows up the Death Star (“Leave? In our moment of triumph?”), I think you’re overestimating the Patriots’ chances, Seth. I think this is Schottenheimer’s Larry Brown season, when he transforms from having a reputation as an itinerant Mr. Fix-It to that of an all-time great.
My Theory of Schottenheimer Playoff Failure is that he has typically taken teams that should have been 9-7 or 10-6 and turned them into 13-3 teams. When these teams reach the playoffs, they revert to the mean and lose. Marty isn’t known for “boneheadery” in the postseason. He’s known for tragedy: John Elway driving 98 yards; Earnest Byner fumbling at the goal line; Lin Elliott missing three field goals in a 10-7 loss; Elvis Grbac failing to get the ball into the end zone at the end of a 14-10 loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos.
Remember that name: Elvis Grbac. To win the Super Bowl, you need a great coach and great players. Don’t forget, Marty took a team that was quarterbacked by Steve Bono—yes, Steve Bono—to a 13-3 record. In his long, tortured career, Marty has never had the talent to prove his coaching genius. Until now, he’s been Jimmy Johnson coaching the Miami Dolphins, or Bill Walsh coaching the Stanford Cardinal. Yet Schottenheimer has still turned three separate franchises (the Browns, Chiefs, and Chargers) into Super Bowl threats, and his one year in Washington was the most promising season for the Redskins since Joe Gibbs retired (including last year’s playoff season). Isn’t that worth something?
On the other hand, there is one example of legitimate Schottenheimer boneheadery in the playoffs: his decision to start Grbac against the Broncos in 1997 after Rich Gannon had led the team to a 13-2 record while Grbac was injured. I’m sure Schottenheimer thought he was taking a page from his hero Don Shula’s book, but Elvis Grbac is no Bob Griese, and the 1997 Chiefs weren’t the 1972 Dolphins. Bill Belichick’s truly great coaching move was his decision to keep playing Tom Brady over Drew Bledsoe in the 2001-2002 season. It’s easy to forget how crazy most people thought that decision was at the time. So, maybe Belichick is a genius. Somehow I doubt it, though. I remember his record as head coach of the Cleveland Browns. And I remember the record of another so-called genius, Mike Shanahan, after John Elway retired (one playoff victory in eight years). You can’t be a great jockey if you don’t have a great horse to ride.
So, that’s my case for Schottenheimer. It’s his turn to win the SBCS, just like it was Bobby Bowden’s turn, and later Tom Osborne’s turn, and even Mack Brown’s turn, to win the BCS (or whatever they used to call the college-football national championship). If a great coach sticks around long enough, eventually things will break his way. (Though I suppose not always. What’s the difference, for example, between Marv Levy and Bill Belichick? The difference between Scott Norwood and Adam Vinatieri.)
Things we need to discuss: Is there anything to say about the Seahawks-Bears game? Easily the most skippable game of the weekend, though I, of course, will watch them all. Do the Colts, who are .500 on the road this year, have any chance at all against the Ravens? And Seth, you can’t really think the AFC East is “underrated.” The only reason the Jets made the playoffs was because the teams in the AFC West and the AFC North had to play each other, which diluted their win totals. And Josh, should the Saints be allowed to count their bye week as a playoff victory, thus doubling the franchise’s playoff-win total? More important, if the Saints lose to the Eagles, will you still have fond memories of this season? Or will the whole thing have been, to quote a former Saint, diddly-poo?
