Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Interim Messiah

Brett Favre spent the past month turning himself from national treasure into knackered turd. Among the less noted consequences of his tantrum: the game of musical chairs to decide who gets to occupy Brett’s old throne as Classiest Class Act in the great variety show of classy white guys. And the winner is Seattle’s own Mike Holmgren, the most graceful retiree-in-waiting since Jerome Bettis.

Here’s how the story goes: Holmgren took a week off after last season to think carefully about his future. As a good family man, he let his wife think some about it too. And he told the team that he and Kathy had decided he was going to coach one more year (which happens to be the last year of the contract that makes him the highest paid coach in the NFL, at $8 million per season). Then he’d move along.

He didn’t make threats. He didn’t make the team wait. And he’s giving them enough time to manage an easy transition to the Jim Mora regime. As if all that wasn’t enough class, Holmgren made a point of saying he didn’t want his final campaign to be a “farewell tour.” What a guy! He agreed to go ahead and coach out his lucrative contract, and then he not only didn’t ask for but specifically rejected the idea (that nobody suggested) of a farewell tour!

Even before Brett shat the bed, Holmgren was drowning in praise (though surely he’s too classy a guy to have enjoyed the mass fellatio). Seahawks president Tim Ruskell said Holmgren’s classy decision would allow the team “to be non-chaotic in the sports world, which is kind of rare. We all know about the elongated processes and the back-stabbings—some of the things, the ugly things, that can go on. Well, we’re not going to have that and he doesn’t want that.” Mad props, Mike, for not wanting to stab anybody in the back!

Mora, by the way, has fit right in. When he got the news that he was the guy, he was “subdued” and seemed more interested in “making this a special season for Holmgren,” not that it’s a farewell tour or anything.

Here is the problem: Even if you’re inclined to agree that Holmgren is a good Christian who handles all his business with grace and aplomb, the year the Seahawks are about to spend in purgatory is not good for the team.

The future belongs to Mora. And the future could be now. But it won’t be, because Holmgren, the past, is still now. Even though Mora and Holmgren are simpatico, Mora's not going to be a Holmgren copycat who happens to look less like Andy Reid. He’s going to point the team in new directions. He’s already been a head coach. It’s not as if Holmgren has to blow his nose for him. He has ideas. But they don’t count until next season. THEN they count.

In the meantime, the Seahawks spent another year drafting Holmgren’s players. They’ll spend another year learning Holmgren’s schemes. And they’ll spend another year building relationships with Holmgren’s coaches.

Perhaps the team is operating under the illusion that this will be another Super Bowl year. If it is, I’ll get a Brett Favre sleeve-tattoo up and down my golden left arm. Since the Super Bowl isn’t happening, this year will actually be a wasted year, a year stuck in neutral, a year of wasting guys’ talent instead of using it to build Jim Mora’s team, a team with real title hopes.

5 comments:

Lt. Daniels said...

Yuni, I'm confused about something. Is your complaint that Holmgren's coaching a lame-duck season, or that they've got Mora waiting in the wings?

If you're arguing the first point, it's a reasonable one -- though, I think, wrong. If you're arguing the second point, you're nuts.

Here's the problem with the second argument. If you think it's ok for Holmgren to take a lame-duck year, but not for Mora to be the announced successor, then you'd have to believe that it would've been better NOT to have named a successor. Which doesn't make sense. Given that he's going to coach a lame-duck year, surely it's better to avoid the guessing games and to set up a clear leader who will take over the team. It can't be worse for them to have Mora lined up.

Now, as for whether he should take the lame duck year in the first place, or just up and retire: I see the point. But I don't buy it. If you were a GM, would you rather have two months to hire a new guy and manage the transition, or a year? I can't think of another line of work in which we expect people to simply quit without notice. By that rationale, Bill Gates should've up and walked away from Microsoft, because a long goodbye made things too complicated. And I guess elected officials affected by term limits should skip their final years altogether.

God knows there are lots of things in professional sports we could complain about - especially in Seattle professional sports, especially now. But I don't think this is one of them.

Stanklin said...

Dag

Yuniesky Airmails It said...

Lt. Daniels, allow me to retort. As for the "second argument," I think that's a straw man. I'm only nuts if I was saying the thing you pretended I said. If it seemed like I was saying that, I didn't write it clearly.

As for the real disagreement between us, my argument is this: No matter what, the Seahawks are going to have two months to manage the transition. The year you're positing won't be dedicated to the transition; it will be dedicated to the season. And the season is going to be weird.

The players will be confused about who's really in charge. Do you do what Coach Holmgren tells you to do, or do you do what you think is going to endear you to Coach-to-be Mora? There are conflicts of interest like this lurking everywhere.

As for your Bill Gates analogy, I have two responses. First, Microsoft and most other businesses run year-round. Football has an off-season, and the off-season is the time for transitions. If Microsoft had an off-season, would it make sense for Bill Gates to say he's going to retire after the NEXT off-sesaon?

Also, the reason he stuck around Microsoft was more or less a ploy to keep the stock price from tanking. The long goodbye wasn't for internal reasons, to help the company adjust. It was for external reasons, to help idiot investors adjust. Do you really believe Ballmer is more ready now than he was a year ago?

Stanklin said...

Dagwich

Lt. Daniels said...

OK, you're right on the Microsoft thing. Dumb analogy.

But look again at your arguments: you really aren't complaining that Holmgren will have a lame-duck year; you're complaining that he'll have a lame-duck year and everyone knows that Mora will be the new guy. You're worried that players won't know whom to listen to. But that's not because Holmgren's leaving. It's because they know who's coming next.

I think you're right that the situation does require a lot of people. Mora has to stay completely with Holmgren's program: no hinting at what he'll do next year, no undermining Holmgren's decisions. The players have to understand that H is still the head coach (my guess is there's no problem with that). Basically, everyone has to act like an adult.

You'd hope that Tim Ruskell thought about all this beforehand - that he figured naming a successor was better, overall, than not naming one. I guess we'll see as the season goes along whether that was a good bet. My money's with him.