Coach bags

The end of the NFL regular season brings with it two things ... the start of the playoffs with Wild Card weekend and the end of some careers with the coaching firing squad. The Monday after Week 17 is often littered with coaches canned for either one disastrous season or a string of bad ones. It's a reminder for Pats' fans just how lucky we are to have Bill Belichick.

There's usually two or three coaches fired on Monday morning, but yesterday there were seven coaches sent packing. A surprising number and a few surprising names on the list:

• Andy Reid, Eagles, after 14 seasons.
• Ken Whisenhunt, Cardinals, after 6 seasons.
• Chan Gailey, Bills, after 3 seasons.
• Lovie Smith, Bears, after 9 seasons.
• Pat Shurmur, Browns, after 2 seasons.
• Romeo Crennel, Chiefs, after just 1 season.
• Norv Turner, Chargers, after 6 seasons.

That's a lot of coaches. There were also a few GMs canned (like Tannenbaum of the Jets) but who really cares about GMs getting fired unless it's your team?

Looking at the list of coaches fired, it breaks down into two categories. The first category is guys who have been with their team for a long time and who have had some success but their teams were clearly heading in the wrong direction. The other category are guys who have only been in the job for a short time and were obviously bad choices when they were hired.

Let's take the second category first. Pat Shurmur was hired by the Browns two years ago billed as one of the games best young offensive minds. He played offensive line at Michigan State and he learned NFL coaching under Andy Reid for 10 years. Not a bad teacher. He moved to St. Louis to be offensive coordinator in 2009 and did that for two years before getting the Cleveland job. Two years as a coordinator is not nearly enough experience to become an NFL head coach unless you had done some head coaching in college. Shurmur had not. But the Browns gave him the job anyway. Which is fine. Why not take a chance on a young guy? Tennessee did that with Jeff Fisher in 1994 and he turned out to be a great coach. But if you are going to hire a guy like Shurmur, you have make a commitment to him for more than two years. Otherwise, why bother?  And that's why the Browns have been bad for years. Eric Mangini ... two years. Romeo Crennel ... three years. If you are only going to give a guy two or three years to get the team headed in the right direction then don't bother hiring him. It's just stupid.

Speaking of stupid... the Chiefs hiring of Crennel and the Bills hiring of Chan Gailey fit that description because they both had head coaching jobs before and had proven they were not head coaching material. Not even close. They are both good guys and great coordinators. But there should be restraining orders preventing them from getting any where near a head coaching job. And yet the Chiefs and the Bills gave them another shot. And not surprisingly, their teams underachieved. Especially the Bills. If Buffalo hires a real coach for next season, with the talent they have, they could win ten games. But since it's Ralph Wilson and the Bills there's a good chance they will mess it up.

My guess is the Bills will probably hire one of the other guys fired yesterday. I'm really hoping it's Norv Turner. It would be great to have Norv in the division. Don't get me wrong. I think Norv is actually a pretty good coach. But he's one of those good coaches whose teams always make crucial mistakes. Which I guess means he's not really a good coach. It's tricky. Same thing with Andy Reid. He's a very good coach. But you just know his team is going to blow it. Reid took Philly to four straight NFC title games, the first three times his team fell flat on its face. The fourth time the Eagles finally won only to lose the Super Bowl to the Patriots. Reid will get another job very quickly. He learned from Mike Holmgren. He's a winner. But it was time for a change after 14 years in Philly. I don't want to see him in Buffalo.

The two other guys fired, Lovie Smith and Ken Whisenhunt, were a bit of a surprise. Smith's Bears went 10-6. It's very rare when a coach gets fired after a winning season. But they were 7-1 halfway through the season and went 3-5 the rest of the way. The Bears were not as good as 7-1 and not as bad as 3-5. They were 10-6 and considering Jay "Goober" Cutler is their QB that's pretty good. Lovie took his team to two NFC title games and the Super Bowl in 2007. But the Bears have only made the playoffs once in the last six years. That will eventually get you fired no matter how nice a guy you are and how much your players love you.  It's the same with Whisenhunt. The Bill Cowher-trained coach got off to a great start with Arizona, taking the team to the Super Bowl in his third season (2009), But since then the Cards have gone 5-11, 8-8, and 5-11. They started off 4-0 this year, including a win at Gillette in Week 2, but they lost nine in a row after that. I think the Cards should have stuck with him another year because it looked like he was building something there with a tough young defense. But that's why teams like the Cards are usually not very good. They are not patient. So now they will be looking to start over.

There was one name not on the list of coaches canned yesterday. Rex Ryan. I'm pretty happy about that. For the second year in a row Ryan's team not only missed the playoffs, but the season ended with the locker room is complete disarray. A team always reflects its coach. And the mess that are the Jets is a mirror image of Skinny Rex. I can't wait to hear what he has to say about what happened this year. But I'll have to wait a while because he decided not to hold the NFL mandated end-of-the-season press conference and head to the Bahamas. That's right. Rex Ryan passed up an opportunity to talk to the media. I know. I can't believe it either. But don't worry. Talk he will. And at some point in his press conference he will be asked about next season and he will make some statement about catching the Patriots and winning the AFC East. That's what I love about Rex. He never learns. And I'm glad his name wasn't on the list.

Reading material

I work Saturdays. I have Mondays off. It's ideal during football season. (Not so much in the summer). Between the many, many chores I accomplish each and every Monday, I take a little time to watch the NFL Network's day-long recap of all the Sunday games, catch the replay of ESPN's NFL Primetime, watch the Monday Night preview shows, and surf the tubes to check out what fans and columnists are saying about their teams in other towns. That last part is always entertaining. People say -- and write -- the darnedest things.

So as a public service, I'll link to a few stories every Wednesday for your reading pleasure.

• The Chiefs were supposed to become the Patriots West. Scott Pioli, second only to Belichick in importance in building a dynasty where one never even seemed imaginable, took over Kansas City with the goal of returning the franchise to the top of the NFL. It hasn't worked out so far.
• One of the main themes of the 2011 season has been back-up quarterbacks. From the Colts waking up Kerry Collins from his couch to replace Manning, to Houston losing Schaub and Leinert for the season in back-to-back weeks, the topic of quality back-up quarterbacks -- or the lack thereof -- has come up in town after town. One of the latest is in Chicago.
• Speaking of back-up QBS, Tim Tebow won again. Tebow also failed to complete ten passes -- again. Touchdown Jesus ("I just want to thank my Lord and Savior." Apparently God's not into passing) is the story of the NFL right now. The Broncos are surprisingly in the playoff race. Suddenly I can't wait till the Pats travel to Denver in a few weeks.
• The Jets beat the Bills in the battle for second place in the AFC East. It's yet another game the Jets could have/should have lost. To their credit, the Jets players were quoted after the win acknowledging they aren't playing nearly well enough. But it was the antics of Bills' wide receiver Steve Johnson that was the focus in Buffalo.
• Finally, there's the Philadelphia Eagles. Their nightmare season continued with the 38-20 beating at the hands of the Pats. Eagles fans were chanting for coach Andy Reid's job. If there's one city where losing takes on an extra level of disappointment, it's Philly.

Oh, and don't forget to check out the comment boards at the end of each story. Fan really is short for fanatic.