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New episode of "A Football Life" on NFL Network tonight (1 Viewer)

Raider Nation

Raider Nation

Devil's Advocate
How's THIS for a staff? :shock:

Nearly 17 years after the original Browns left Cleveland, their exodus remains a painful wound for the city. It was re-opened last month when former team owner Art Modell died. And it likely will be again Wednesday night when Cleveland '95: A Football Life premieres on NFL Network.

This latest documentary in the NFL Films series focuses not so much on what was as what might have been.

The Bill Belichick-coached Browns were coming off an 11-5 playoff season in 1994 and seemed perched to further buoy a city that saw the Indians reach the World Series in 1995.

Instead, the civic psyche was scarred when financial challenges and the lack of a new stadium led Modell to announce the franchise's re-location to Baltimore.

"You could see that good times were ahead, and it all fell apart," said Mary Kay Cabot of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer.

The Super Bowl trip that has forever eluded the Browns seemed near in large part to the talent Belichick amassed on his staff, one that included nine future NFL head coaches and general managers and three major college head coaches. Ozzie Newsome, Scott Pioli, Mike Tannenbaum, Thomas Dimitroff, Jim Schwartz, Nick Saban, Kirk Ferentz and Eric Mangini are among the names.

"What was Bill looking for in people? Bill was looking for Bill, and he found a lot of little Bills," recalls Newsome, who's quick to credit Belichick's philosophies for his own subsequent success with the Baltimore Ravens.

"When I won in 2000, owe a lot of that to Bill Belichick."

After Belichick resurfaced with the New England Patriots in 2000, he re-hired Pioli and Dimitroff, now the GMs for the Kansas City Chiefs and Atlanta Falcons, respectively.

"We spent a lot of time talking about what was good in Cleveland, what was bad in Cleveland, what went wrong in Cleveland. We kept the core of a lot of the philosophical things. There was a lot of learning from the Cleveland experience," Pioli says of the trio's time together in New England, one that produced three Lombardi Trophies for the Patriots.

The Browns? They're still waiting for their first championship since 1964 and haven't won a playoff game since their 1999 rebirth.

"Bill Belichick was supposed to lead this team to the promised land," says Cabot.

It's a fresh and compelling look at one of the toughest chapters in NFL history and how it affected the men embroiled in it.

Unless you're perhaps from Cleveland, definitely tune in tonight for Cleveland '95: A Football Life at 8 p.m. ET on NFL Network.
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Starts in a few minutes at the top of the hour. :popcorn:
 
1994 Browns:

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/cle/1994.htm

11-5 on the season.

Beat the Pats in the playoffs (ironic).

Then lost to the Steelers in the divisional round.

Led the league in scoring defense (204 points allowed, wow), 7th in yardage defense.

Vinny Testaverde, Leroy Hoard, Eric Metcalf. Pepper Johnson, Eric Turner, Antonio Langham, Carl Banks, Michael Dean Perry. Matt Stover.

 
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What a coaching cadre and support staff they had. They really were on their way that year.

Sad situation for the City and they never have recovered

 
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Watching it right now, wow what a great staff that was in Cleveland. That's got to just kill any Browns fans to watch and think about. Imagine what could have been. :eek:

 
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good reminder --- forgot this was on tonight.

that was a riot listening to those guys talk up belichick -- when asked about this show on his weekly radio spot he said very sincerely that he's sure he learned more from those guys than they possibly did from him.

 
The Belichick Browns certainly produced some great coaches and front office personnel but they were never close to a great team on the field. The Browns were 36-44 over his five years in Cleveland, one winning season in which they lost three games to the Steelers, including 29-9 in the playoffs. Belichick started a reclamation project in Cleveland in 1991, Cowher started his reclamation project in Pittsburgh in 1992. From 92-95 Cowher was 7-2 vs. Belichick.

 
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Fascinating documentary. As a Steelers fan, I vividly remember the camaraderie that was generated following the announcement of the Browns moving to Baltimore. A deep understanding of the loss and grief felt by Browns fans cut through the typical rivalry behavior between the fanbases and created a unique bond and, combined with the resurrected Browns futility, has greatly altered the dynamic between the fanbases. I suppose a Browns renaissance would revert the rivalry back toward where it was in 1994, but probably not quite to the same level due to both the events of 1995 and the presence of the Ravens as an additional and more heated and competitive rival.

Numerous Pittsburgh sportswriters speculate that the Heinz Field negotiations between the Steelers and the city of Pittsburgh were aided by the obvious, but previously inconceivable, move of the Browns out of Cleveland.

 
I have a few thoughts on the "great staff" that I believe are going to be contrarian opinions, but that's what the Shark Pool is all about, right?

Clearly, the staff of the 1995 Browns has gone on to great success in terms of getting head coaching and general manager positions. How much of the future success of this staff was due to their innate ability, how much was due to tutelage and mentoring by Belichick, and how much (for some of them) was due to the success of the Ravens and Belichick and their known association with them?

To me, this was really a prequel to the original Football Life Belichick documentary. And it was brilliantly done. I'm not trying to discredit what the staff has accomplished in the following two decades. However, I'm trying to point out that college and pro teams don't beat the doors down trying to hire coaches from losing teams. I think a number of these hires owe at least as much to the 2000 Ravens and 2001/03/04 Patriots championships as they do to their own individual contributions and resumes.

These are all my opinions, obviously, but I think they are interesting discussion points.

Ozzie Newsome has demonstrated, in my opinion, that he is a top executive on his own. Naturally he learned from Belichick and credits him quite humbly, but nearly every successful coach or GM has a series of mentors and peers from which they learn. Nick Saban has already and built a juggernaut in Alabama, even if his brief stint in Miami was underwhelming, etc. These two coaches have clearly been successful long after their time alongside Belichick has ended.

In the next tier, Tom Dimitroff and Kirk Ferentz have been successful, but not to the extent of Newsome and Saban. Dimitroff has crafted a strong team in Atlanta, and perhaps this is the year they break through in the postseason, but until that happens, there is a sizable elephant in the room. Ferentz has been a strong coach at Iowa, and perhaps he has taken the Hawkeyes about as far as they can go, but they have clearly regressed in the past few seasons.

The next category is mediocre/incomplete, and time will tell enable us to evalutate more clearly and completely. While Scott Pioli was a large part of the success of the Patriots 2000s run, he has not shown that he can have the same deft touch when away from Belichick. The Chiefs have had consecutive horrid starts to their 2011 and 2012 seasons, but it's only fair to give Pioli more time to see where Kansas City ends up under his leadership. Jim Schwartz has only coached 53 NFL games. After trending up for his first 38 all the way to a 6-0 start, Detroit is now 5-10 in the Lions past 15 games. More troubling is the fact that they have shown a consistent lack of discipline and in the past two weeks, two memorable losses. First, failing to kick a tying chip-shot FG in OT, and then completing back-to-back punt and kick return touchdowns allowed this week.

The final pairing are below mediocre, although I'm sure some will fight that opinion. Mike Tannenbaum has at best run the Jets sideways. They had two remarkable postseason runs to the AFC championship game, so perhaps I'm being unfair, However, strip away the bluster of Rex Ryan and the sideshows of the past (Burress, Braylon Edwards) and present (Holmes, Tebow) and there isn't much substance there, at least when it comes to success. The Jets are closer to catastrophe than championship in his 7th year there. Yes, he's aggressive in adding talent as many quotes about him suggest, but the sum of the parts so far has nearly always ended up far below the individual components. Eric Mangini is easier to categorize. He had a good rookie season, but at this point in time, Mangini's most likely contribution to NFL lore will be providing the impetus for Spygate. Mangini was 23-41 from 2007-2010 following his 10-6 record in 2006.

Of course, what was compelling about this staff was the shared experience of the 1995 Browns season, truly a remarkable trial of fire. Again, I'm not saying these coaches have not accomplished a lot with their careers, but it's also true that they are not universally successful.

One thing I must say is that I was not aware of the caliber of the Browns 1995 staff until hearing about and then seeing the documentary last night. It is an impressive group. As far as the greatest staffs in NFL history go, I'd argue for the 1990 Giants (Parcells, Belichick, Coughlin) ahead of it, although truly this staff is arguably a branch of the Parcells coaching tree. The Bill Walsh tree is the only one comparable in terms of league-wide impact.

(An interesting discussion of the Parcells and Walsh coaching trees) NOTE: written before last year, so it's now Parcells 8, Walsh 6.

For pure star power, championships, and NFL history, how about the late 1950s Giants? Coach Jim Lee Howell, with offensive coordinator Vince Lombardi and defensive coordinator Tom Landry.

 
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Really neat and interesting documentary. It was like seeing A Football Life: The Prequel of Bill Belichick including almost similar shot to shots (the exercise bike for one example).

Loved the insights into the room and think one of the more interesting tidbits was what could've happened if Baltimore had taken RB Lawrence Phillips instead of Jonathan Ogden.

 
I found that show to be less about the Cleveland Browns as much as I found it to the prequel to the Bill Belichick "A football life" that aired last year.

I especially found the revisionist history that tried to paint the 2000 Ravens as BB's work and insinuating that would have been his SB in Cleveland as appalling. While I do believe the Browns relocation announcement killed BB's last season in Cleveland it took the Ravens 4 years to produce a winning record. More than anything the core group of players on that Ravens team were added after they left Cleveland.

 
Interesting perspective from long-time Browns beat writer Tony Grossi. This article was printed the day the Patriots lost their perfect season in 2008.

Remember when?

Published: Sunday, February 03, 2008, 7:39 AM

By Tony Grossi, The Plain Dealer The Plain Dealer

A victory in Super Bowl XLII against the New York Giants would be New England's fourth NFL championship in seven seasons under Belichick. That would equal Chuck Noll's record of four Super Bowl championships with the Pittsburgh Steelers, won over a six-year span in the 1970s.

Moreover, a win would complete the league's first 19-0 season, surpassing the 17-0 mark of Don Shula's Miami Dolphins in 1972 -- the only undefeated season in NFL history.

The question imbedded in the minds of Browns fans today is: Could this have happened in Cleveland?

"You could see that he was going to be a good coach, but who could predict four Super Bowls?" said Ernie Accorsi, the Browns director of football operations when Belichick was hired.

"We never saw this potential in him, going to four Super Bowls," said former running back Kevin Mack. "We all knew he was a good coach, a great defensive coach. It's just surprising, really amazing, what's happened in New England. But there, he had a little more experience and got to reflect on what he did wrong.

"It seems like he pushed all the wrong buttons here with a lot of people, mostly players."

A tough fit

Belichick was hired by former owner Art Modell on Feb. 5, 1991, at the age of 39, making him one of the league's youngest head coaches. He never had been a head coach at any level of the sport.

He inherited a 3-13 team loaded with aging, yet popular, players. Belichick's cold dismantling of the team alienated players, media and fans. Some of those same players give him the respect now that they did not then.

"He was a young head coach doing it for the first time and he didn't really grasp all the things he'd have liked to. He's learned from his mistakes," said former receiver Reggie Langhorne, the first player Belichick picked a fight with in 1991.

"He had some stubborn veterans who wanted to do it their way and he wanted to do it his way," said former running back Eric Metcalf. "That made it a tough fit in the beginning.

"A coach comes into his first coaching job and he has to get some control, some sort of order, to get the group to go his way. Unfortunately we had guys, including myself at the time, who just didn't see it his way and it didn't work out for us."

The defining moment of Belichick's reign occurred at the middle of his tenure when he released local icon Bernie Kosar midway through the 1993 season.

The Browns were 5-3 and Belichick's handpicked successor, Vinny Testaverde, was sidelined with a separated shoulder.

The demoralized team slumped to a 7-9 finish.

The release was an abrupt explosion of a feud simmering behind the scenes, the climax of a power struggle that neither man could back down from.

"To see the little arguments going on between Bill and Bernie, it was kind of tough," said Mack. "Through all the years of playing with Bernie, I never really saw him react to a coach that way, or talk to a coach that way."

Metcalf said: "Bernie had done a lot of good things and everybody knew that, whereas Bill was just coming in. And Bernie was used to having his own way. Not to talk bad, but that's what he was used to. It wouldn't have worked over a long period of time. I just thought the timing was bad."

Kosar did not return messages for comment for this story. He and Belichick have talked respectfully of each other long after their breakup.

Fans and media lambasted Belichick for sacking Kosar. Modell experienced a precipitous drop in corporate support, too, steering him toward personal bankruptcy.

The most amazing thing about Belichick's reign is that his team went 11-5 the next season and won a playoff game against New England, coached by his mentor Bill Parcells.

No media darling

By then, Belichick was receiving little credit for the improvement in his teams.

"Me and Belichick had a very similar problem," said former cornerback Frank Minnifield.

"And that is we didn't always have good answers when the media asked the questions. In the NFL, when you don't have good answers when you're losing, it's a devastating blow to your career.

"I don't think he's changed at all. Looks to me from afar that he's dealing with the media in New England the same way he dealt with [Cleveland media]."

Belichick rises to a different level on the national stage of the Super Bowl. But over the grind of daily press briefings with local beat reporters, Belichick's dour demeanor and his refusal to say anything illuminating about his team takes a toll on the press.

Michael Felger of the Boston Herald described Belichick's relationship with the New England media as "fractured."

"Some get along with him, some don't. Once you cross him, you don't get him back," Felger said. "But he could run for governor, literally."

And win in a landslide.

Patriots owner Bob Kraft cares less about Belichick's communication with the media than Modell did.

Belichick's phenomenal success and popularity have helped create a financial empire for Kraft. Gillette Stadium has been sold out for every game since it opened in 2002, and Kraft is overseeing development of a shopping and entertainment complex on the stadium grounds.

"When I was thinking of hiring Bill, I know a lot of people thought that I was making an error and they based it on how he dealt with the media, and they sent me tapes from his experiences in Cleveland," Kraft said here this week. "But in the end, I am into substance. I am not into lipstick.

"To be good in the business of football today -- and good to me is not being good one year but try to sustain it year in and year out -- you have to understand economics and you have to understand value and the salary cap.

Bill understood value and how players fit under the cap. "

Modell certainly did not have that same sense as Kraft. And as he slipped closer to bankruptcy, he meddled more into Belichick's domain and eventually turned on him.

Modell demanded the acquistion of a big-name receiver after a 1994 playoff loss to Pittsburgh.

Circumstances brought him Andre Rison. Modell talked up Rison so much to the media that his signing bonus demand increased from $1 million to $5 million overnight.

When Belichick questioned the steep price, a source with knowledge of the deal said, Modell lashed out, "Just coach the [bleeping] team."

Modell had to take out personal loans to pay Rison's bonus, expediting his financial doom.

Six weeks into the next season, with the team at 3-3 Modell announced the move of his team to Baltimore.

"I don't think Bill would have involved himself in that situation had he known how things would end up there," said Scott Pioli, New England's vice president of player personnel, who joined Belichick first in Cleveland.

"The foundation was starting to get laid. The team was getting better. There was a future. We had some good players. We didn't have time to finish the job.

The moving of a franchise, it was so surreal. I don't know how you prepare for that."

Belichick was fired over the phone by Modell shortly after the 1995 season.

An eye for talent

His five-year record in Cleveland was 37-45. He is 105-39 with the Patriots -- but 5-13 without the remarkable Tom Brady at quarterback. There was no Brady on the horizon in Cleveland.

"Obviously those two people coming together at the same time was all the stars lining up in a straight line," said Minnifield. "I'm sure Belichick's done great things, but I'm sure there have been other coaches who worked as hard and knew as much and didn't accomplish what he's accomplished."

Ozzie Newsome, general manager of the Baltimore Ravens who was groomed by Belichick, said Belichick enjoys the art of identifying players more than any coach he's been around. But his skills at that were undeveloped in his Cleveland years.

"We were all young. We were all learning, and we'd all been taught by Bill," Newsome said. "Now, maybe Bill learned something the two-three years he got away from there to make him better. But we were all headed in the right direction."

In the book "The GM", Accorsi disclosed a phone conversation with Belichick in 2000 in which a suddenly humbled Belichick blurted out, "I really screwed that thing up in Cleveland, Ernie."

Accorsi maintained then and now that Belichick did not fail.

"I told him when he came in that he needed to rebuild the team and I was not going to be there long. I left after one year," Accorsi said. "The year I was there, the team was competitive.

And in '94, it was a damn good team. And then the next year, the team was moved and fans were rooting against them."

As he climbs the Mount Rushmore of football coaches and farther from his Cleveland days, Belichick receives fewer questions about his experience with the Browns. The one time he was asked about it this week, he chuckled and said sarcastically, "Another softball . . . I love it."

He answered: "Certainly the five years in Cleveland taught me a lot about managing a team, although I had some help . . . let's forget about that for the moment.

"I took those experiences and tried to build off them and probably delegate more responsibility than I did in Cleveland to my assistants and other people in the organization that are involved in the operational and support ends of the game."

It is a standard response now.

After all, it's been a dozen years.

Even the players cast aside by him have moved on. "What would I say to Belichick?"

Langhorne asks. "Good luck. I'm cheering for them."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: tgrossi@plaind.com, 216-999-4670

http://www.cleveland.com/browns/index.ssf/2008/02/remember_when.html
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As I understand it, Modell's personal financial difficulties led to the relocation to Baltimore, or at least that's the story.

According to the article, Kosar's release contributed to the financial difficulties.

Therefore, Belichick's dismissal of Kosar indirectly led to the move to Baltimore. I'm not trying to blame Belichick -- he's got to do what he thinks is best for the team -- but it's a pretty interesting revelation. I didn't know about the drop in corporate financial support for the Browns after Kosar was released until seeing that article.

 
'menobrown said:
I found that show to be less about the Cleveland Browns as much as I found it to the prequel to the Bill Belichick "A football life" that aired last year.I especially found the revisionist history that tried to paint the 2000 Ravens as BB's work and insinuating that would have been his SB in Cleveland as appalling. While I do believe the Browns relocation announcement killed BB's last season in Cleveland it took the Ravens 4 years to produce a winning record. More than anything the core group of players on that Ravens team were added after they left Cleveland.
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The first two picks by newsome were probably the best opening picks by any GM ever. Without Ogden and/or Ray Ray there's no way they have a championship. I believe the show mentions this.
 
'The Jerk said:
As I understand it, Modell's personal financial difficulties led to the relocation to Baltimore, or at least that's the story.According to the article, Kosar's release contributed to the financial difficulties.Therefore, Belichick's dismissal of Kosar indirectly led to the move to Baltimore. I'm not trying to blame Belichick -- he's got to do what he thinks is best for the team -- but it's a pretty interesting revelation. I didn't know about the drop in corporate financial support for the Browns after Kosar was released until seeing that article.
Click to expand...
They had Belichick and the fans were too attached to Bernie Kosar's declining skills to see the big picture. Ultimately, the fans set te wheels in motion that cost them the franchise and the rings that would have followed.
 
'The Jerk said:
I have a few thoughts on the "great staff" that I believe are going to be contrarian opinions, but that's what the Shark Pool is all about, right?

Clearly, the staff of the 1995 Browns has gone on to great success in terms of getting head coaching and general manager positions. How much of the future success of this staff was due to their innate ability, how much was due to tutelage and mentoring by Belichick, and how much (for some of them) was due to the success of the Ravens and Belichick and their known association with them?

To me, this was really a prequel to the original Football Life Belichick documentary. And it was brilliantly done. I'm not trying to discredit what the staff has accomplished in the following two decades. However, I'm trying to point out that college and pro teams don't beat the doors down trying to hire coaches from losing teams. I think a number of these hires owe at least as much to the 2000 Ravens and 2001/03/04 Patriots championships as they do to their own individual contributions and resumes.

These are all my opinions, obviously, but I think they are interesting discussion points.

Ozzie Newsome has demonstrated, in my opinion, that he is a top executive on his own. Naturally he learned from Belichick and credits him quite humbly, but nearly every successful coach or GM has a series of mentors and peers from which they learn. Nick Saban has already and built a juggernaut in Alabama, even if his brief stint in Miami was underwhelming, etc. These two coaches have clearly been successful long after their time alongside Belichick has ended.

In the next tier, Tom Dimitroff and Kirk Ferentz have been successful, but not to the extent of Newsome and Saban. Dimitroff has crafted a strong team in Atlanta, and perhaps this is the year they break through in the postseason, but until that happens, there is a sizable elephant in the room. Ferentz has been a strong coach at Iowa, and perhaps he has taken the Hawkeyes about as far as they can go, but they have clearly regressed in the past few seasons.

The next category is mediocre/incomplete, and time will tell enable us to evalutate more clearly and completely. While Scott Pioli was a large part of the success of the Patriots 2000s run, he has not shown that he can have the same deft touch when away from Belichick. The Chiefs have had consecutive horrid starts to their 2011 and 2012 seasons, but it's only fair to give Pioli more time to see where Kansas City ends up under his leadership. Jim Schwartz has only coached 53 NFL games. After trending up for his first 38 all the way to a 6-0 start, Detroit is now 5-10 in the Lions past 15 games. More troubling is the fact that they have shown a consistent lack of discipline and in the past two weeks, two memorable losses. First, failing to kick a tying chip-shot FG in OT, and then completing back-to-back punt and kick return touchdowns allowed this week.

The final pairing are below mediocre, although I'm sure some will fight that opinion. Mike Tannenbaum has at best run the Jets sideways. They had two remarkable postseason runs to the AFC championship game, so perhaps I'm being unfair, However, strip away the bluster of Rex Ryan and the sideshows of the past (Burress, Braylon Edwards) and present (Holmes, Tebow) and there isn't much substance there, at least when it comes to success. The Jets are closer to catastrophe than championship in his 7th year there. Yes, he's aggressive in adding talent as many quotes about him suggest, but the sum of the parts so far has nearly always ended up far below the individual components. Eric Mangini is easier to categorize. He had a good rookie season, but at this point in time, Mangini's most likely contribution to NFL lore will be providing the impetus for Spygate. Mangini was 23-41 from 2007-2010 following his 10-6 record in 2006.

Of course, what was compelling about this staff was the shared experience of the 1995 Browns season, truly a remarkable trial of fire. Again, I'm not saying these coaches have not accomplished a lot with their careers, but it's also true that they are not universally successful.

One thing I must say is that I was not aware of the caliber of the Browns 1995 staff until hearing about and then seeing the documentary last night. It is an impressive group. As far as the greatest staffs in NFL history go, I'd argue for the 1990 Giants (Parcells, Belichick, Coughlin) ahead of it, although truly this staff is arguably a branch of the Parcells coaching tree. The Bill Walsh tree is the only one comparable in terms of league-wide impact.

(An interesting discussion of the Parcells and Walsh coaching trees) NOTE: written before last year, so it's now Parcells 8, Walsh 6.

For pure star power, championships, and NFL history, how about the late 1950s Giants? Coach Jim Lee Howell, with offensive coordinator Vince Lombardi and defensive coordinator Tom Landry.
Click to expand...
When contrasting Dimitroff to Tannenbaum I think it would be prudent to consider their circumstances for the same reason it was a mistake to write off Belichick as a failure in 2000. I mean Atlanta/Walmart guy is the ideal "I'll give you the resources you need & you make the football decisions". Woody Johnson is a meddling Drama Queen who probably played a much larger role than you think in bringing Favre & Tebow in - basically Jerry Jones without the camera grabs.
 
'Sam Quentin said:
'The Jerk said:
As I understand it, Modell's personal financial difficulties led to the relocation to Baltimore, or at least that's the story.According to the article, Kosar's release contributed to the financial difficulties.Therefore, Belichick's dismissal of Kosar indirectly led to the move to Baltimore. I'm not trying to blame Belichick -- he's got to do what he thinks is best for the team -- but it's a pretty interesting revelation. I didn't know about the drop in corporate financial support for the Browns after Kosar was released until seeing that article.
Click to expand...
They had Belichick and the fans were too attached to Bernie Kosar's declining skills to see the big picture. Ultimately, the fans set te wheels in motion that cost them the franchise and the rings that would have followed.
Click to expand...
It's true that the real blame goes to the people who withheld the money. Unless you think Tom Brady gets drafted by the Browns, I'm not sure "rings" would have followed. Very possible/likely the "ring" won in 2000, but a lot of good fortune goes into the birth of a dynasty.
 
'Bills_Fan11 said:
When contrasting Dimitroff to Tannenbaum I think it would be prudent to consider their circumstances for the same reason it was a mistake to write off Belichick as a failure in 2000. I mean Atlanta/Walmart guy is the ideal "I'll give you the resources you need & you make the football decisions". Woody Johnson is a meddling Drama Queen who probably played a much larger role than you think in bringing Favre & Tebow in - basically Jerry Jones without the camera grabs.
Click to expand...
It's a good point in general that just as no one person is solely responsible for the success of a franchise, no one person is to blame. Thanks -- I forgot about Favre. Refreshing to do so.
 
Re: Pioli - I came acrossthis article on Pioli a couple weeks ago. Pretty scathing stuff, makes him out to be an insecure politician. Granted it's an opinion, but I think it's more likely he (the columnist) has been on the receiving end of these private 'PR offers' than him just being a bitter fan that's mad about the team losing. Kinda funny that he's pretty much the opposite of Bellichick and his "I don't care" approach, if it's true. I may be biased 'cause being a "go for it on 4th down" guy, I've always liked Haley & his outside the box approach.

He calls opinion-makers in Kansas City to plead with them to share his side of the story in exchange for a nibble of access, and he spends his own time compiling ultimately meaningless statistics in an attempt to spin unpopular draft choices and questionable spending habits into a more favorable light. He hints to anyone who’ll listen — in exchange for agreeing that you didn’t hear it from him — that the Chiefs’ playoff run in 2010 and a brief winning streak last season weren’t a result of Haley’s coaching. Those, he is convinced, were results of the magic of former offensive coordinator Charlie Weis two seasons ago and, last year, the motivating skills of Romeo Crennel. He obsesses over public relations, attempting to manipulate the message large and small. Pioli is as responsible as anyone for the misconception that Haley ruined the Chiefs and that, by firing him last December, Pioli helped to save it. How does that narrative look after the Chiefs’ second consecutive blowout loss?
Click to expand...
 
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