January 24, 2007

With a little under two weeks before Super Bowl XLI, there will plenty of time to dissect the X’s and O’s of the game. Right now though all eyes should be on the two head coaches, Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith. These two head coaches have just made history. They are now the first African American head coaches to lead their teams to a Super Bowl. And it’s only fitting that the two coaches are friends with each other. Actually it’s more than that. It’s a mentor-mentee type of relationship that first began when Dungy hired Smith way back in 1996.

That staff for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is now starting to take shape and many coaches from that staff are starting to shine. In addition to Smith, other coaches from that staff to get jobs include Herman Edwards, head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs; Rod Marinelli, head coach of the Detroit Lions; and Mike Tomlin, head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. With such a new, young crop of coaches, it’s time to sit back and watch them shine.

In other NFL news, it’s time to once again bid adieu to Bill Parcells. Parcells retired on Monday, for the third time. All indications to a more permanent break from the sideline coaching. Never one to miss an opportunity to talk junk about someone, TO once again trashed someone, taking shots at Parcells saying “We underachieved this year………..”

Now sometimes I defend TO, hell sometimes I agree with TO, but this is out of line. Granted TO is slightly correct. The Cowboys did underachieve, however some of that has to be attributed to the league-leading 18 drops TO had during the year. I know one game personally where his drop affected the outcome (against the Redskins) and I saw numerous drives end with TO drops. TO needs to just rehab his injured finger and try not to drop so many passes next year.

The Raiders finally have a head coach now, which is good. On the other hand though, they have taken a giant risk. Lane Kiffin, though he has good pedigree as a coach and he is succeeding now, has zero NFL coaching experience which makes his hire one giant risk.

The Bumbling Bengals have returned. This time the Bengals are bumbling outside of the playing field. CB Jonathan Joseph became the 9th Bengal’s player arrested in the last nine months, when he was arrested on marijuana possession. His arrest caused Bengals QB Carson Palmer to come out and voice his displeasure about this issue. I applaud Palmer for doing this. He is setting a standard of behavior both on and off the field. What this also does is put pressure on head coach Marvin Lewis and general manager Mike Brown to get players who have good character. We shall see where this issue goes from here.