Sports Monday
The reports are that Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels is about to become the next head coach of the Denver Broncos and Scott Pioli is in serious talks with the Chiefs about taking over their football operations. If the latter comes to pass, that would be by far the more serious blow to the Patriots.
First, McDaniels. The 32-year-old McDaniels saw his star rise with the Pats juggernaut offense of 2007. How much of that was him, and how much of it was Tom Brady and Randy Moss playing at the peak of their powers? The honest answer is we have no idea because Bill Belichick keeps all that under wraps.
But this has the potential for disaster for McDaniels. The Broncos were entirely Mike Shanahan’s creation for the last decade-plus. Outside of Bill Belichick, no coach had more internal power than Shanahan, and so McDaniels is not just replacing an iconic two-time Super Bowl winning coach, he’s also stepping into an enormous power vacuum. Belichick has been replacing offensive coordinators since Charlie Weis left for Notre Dame, and there are no shortage of internal candidates to take his place.
But Pioli is a different matter.
By all accounts Belichick and Pioli worked like a hand in a glove. Make no mistake, the entire operation is by Belichick’s design, but throughout recent NFL history personnel teams have had as much an impact on football success as coaching staff’s. Pioli did the grunt work. He scouted the college players, and scoured the waiver wire always keeping in mind exactly what kind of players would fit in Belichick’s system.
Pioli has been rumored to be in the mix for a number of jobs over the years, so this is still a question of if, as opposed to when, but if he leaves this will become yet another referendum on whether Belichick can win without a key piece.
A few minutes after the Eagles took out the Giants, I had this text exchange with our old friend John Gonzalez, who is entertaining the masses in Philly at the Inquirer.
Me: You’re the new Boston.
Gonz: Was just thinking that
Me: Enjoy having everyone hate you.
Gonz: They already do. What’s the difference.
Me: I can’t argue with that. Loved seeing the Coughlin face again.
After the Cardinals game I emailed my weei.com cohort Will Leitch about the Buzzsaw’s big win.
Me: This is the same team that played the Patriots, yes? And that is why sports are awesome.
Will: Absolutely amazing. The mind reels.
The point here, other than shameless namedropping, is that as utterly baffling as these playoffs have been, no one could have predicted the Arizona Cardinals would be hosting the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship game. And Pats fans, if you still want to be bitter about getting shutout of the playoffs do you really think they would have gone to Pittsburgh and won?
You have got to love the Red Sox signing of Takshi Saito to bolster their bullpen. If he is healthy, which is a caveat you will be hearing ad infinitum, the pen could be absolutely fearsome. Yes, it would have been nice if the Sox could have filled their gaping hole in the middle of the lineup, but would you trade the bullpen for anybody’s in baseball?
Let’s not go about conceding anything in the American League East just yet. The unsung key to the Devil Rays success last season was their bullpen and Theo Epstein has constructed a pitching staff with fallback pitching plan upon fallback plan.
