Why Firing an Offensive Coordinator isn’t Always the Answer
The Pittsburgh Steelers has fired Offensive Coordinator Todd Haley after 5 seasons with the team. This after quarterback Ben Roethlisberger put up career numbers and wide receiver Antonio Brown has 5 straight 100-catch seasons. He has been the play caller for one of the more prolific offenses in the NFL. Some reports are saying that he and Ben Roethlisberger didn’t get along. Obviously, if that is the case, 9 times out of 10, the coordinator is gone. Scott has had times where he had issues with his offensive coordinator when he was in the NFL but he just dealt with it.
The egos are getting in the way again. Just like with the New England Patriots with Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft. Scott played with guys who had big egos, like coach Don Shula, Dan Shula and Barry Sanders. But remember, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
Scott recalls back in 1994 when he left the Miami Dolphins to go to the Detroit Lions and at the time Tom Moore was the quarterback coach. Dave Levy was the offensive coordinator. The offensive line coach would call all of the running plays. It’s not what a QB wants in their offense. Dave Levy retires the following season and Tom Moore was the new offensive coordinator. They started the season 0-3. The head coach wonders why they are struggling, the coordinator said it was too complicated of an offense and that they need to let Scott throw the ball more. They simplified it and had a record setting year on offense with Herman Moore and Barry Sanders. Scott threw 33 touchdowns and over 4400 yards.
The next season, Scott got a rib injury but some reports said that Scott wasn’t really injured which was ridiculous. They went on to go 5-11 that year and the head coach gets fired and people said it was Scott’s fault that the head coach lost his job. Tom Moore left the Lions too. He went to Indianapolis to run the offense for Tony Dungy and coaching a guy name Peyton Manning who was running basically the exact same offense. When Bobby Ross took over in Detroit, he told Scott that all that he cared about was stats and Scott really only cared about winning. Scott left Detroit after that season. So, the morale of the story is the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
Shifting gears to Major League Baseball. Two players are eligible to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. Both guys were accused of taking performance enhancing drugs. Scott believes that those two players were hall of famers before they took performance enhancing drugs. They shouldn’t be banned from the hall of fame because the performance enhancing drugs were not a rule when they were taking them. So they should let them in the hall of fame.
Scott Mitchell takes his helmet off to show you the inside scoop of all kinds of sports from football to even golf. Scott Mitchell is a former NFL quarterback who was a star quarterback at the University of Utah before going on to have a professional career playing with the Miami Dolphins, the Orlando Thunder, the Detroit Lions, the Baltimore Ravens, and the Cincinnati Bengals. Scott also hosts the podcast Rivals with former NFL player Jason Buck.
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Published: Sunday January 21, 2018
Runtime: 00:16:25