Patriots Daily

by Scott Benson
scott@patriotsdaily.com

Welcome back to Five Questions, everybody. Now, you remember how we play our game – answer all five questions and you win one hundred thousand dollars, plus a invitation to play in our Grand Finals later this season……in Las Vegas!

Actually, that’s something else entirely. This is just Five Questions about football.

Shouldn’t retiring coaches wait until AFTER the season to announce their intentions?

This past offseason, Mike Holmgren came right out and said it. Tony Dungy may as well have. Two of the most successful head coaches of the last fifteen years would step down at the end of the 2008 season, leaving two teams that had become perennial contenders during their tenures.

Maybe they should have kept that bit of news to themselves for a while longer.

Holmgren’s Seattle Seahawks, coming off five straight playoff appearances, are 2-5 since learning their longtime head coach would step aside at the end of the season.

Dungy’s Indianapolis Colts, Super Bowl XLI champions and a playoff team in each of Dungy’s six seasons, are 3-4, giving the two lame ducks a combined record of 5-9 for 2008.

Sure, there are all kinds of reasons why this is the case; no Matt Hasselbeck puts a damper on things in Seattle (note to self: Sigh.), and the Colts have struggled with injuries and ailments from Peyton Manning on down (Sigh.). Neither team was impenetrable to begin with. Holmgren’s always been thin at one position or another (people were giving Belichick a hard time for having no better option than Matt Cassel; how does Seneca Wallace hit you?), and there’s been a subtle attrition happening in Indy that’s not all that dissimilar to the one in New England.

Still, you have to wonder how much “yeah, sure boss (eyeroll)” there is in that combined 5-9 record. It’s human nature, at least to a degree. If your boss came in this morning and announced he or she will be leaving at the end of the month, what would be your reaction to their next dictum? Yeah, sure boss.

I think it’s better than 50/50 that Holmgren’s Last Waltz won’t be Scorsese material. I guess we’ll get a look in week fourteen. But the Colts? I have to say I’m wary. They may have played themselves out of the division with their mess on Monday night, but four losses at this point disqualifies them from nothing else. Especially if they can get a big win on national TV this week.

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by Scott Benson
scott@patriotsdaily.com

Just in case the former Chad Johnson is on to something.  Buenos días, amigos!

The undeterred Patriots are already 2-0, and here in our little Mailbag of the Mind, the questions are piling up. I’ll take five – any more would require a re-branding.

Have we learned what “kind” of coach Bill Belichick is yet?

Oh, jeez, I don’t know….I mean, there’s so little data on which to arrive at a conclusion to this still-unresolved question, which has stymied New Englanders for almost nine years. I want to say Belichick is a good coach, what with the Hall of Fame game plan and the five rings, but I just don’t know yet. After all, how many championships has he won without Tom Brady, besides the two he won before? Answer: None, besides the two he won before!

You can’t tell anything from that. I remember thinking Bill Walsh was a pretty good coach until Joe Montana went down in 86, and Walsh had to roll Jeff Kemp and Mike Moroski out there under center. One and done in the playoffs. Pffft. Didn’t look like much of a genius then. But you know this already, since the media has long been saying Walsh owed his career to Joe Montana and Joe Montana alone. Anyway, the jury is still very much out on Belichick’s 34-year coaching career.

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