David Climer has a good column in this morning's Tennessean about how Jeff Fisher has to win now or else. I really liked this paragraph in particular:
But make no mistake: Adams expects things to get much better than the 6-10 dud this season. The owner turned 88 last Monday. He'd like to win some playoff games before he moves on to that great luxury suite in the sky.
That seems like it would be the case, but is it really? Bud Adams has allowed Jeff Fisher to be in charge of this team for almost two decades, and he has delivered 3 division championships (2000, 2002 and 2008) one AFC Championship (1999) and zero Super Bowl Championships. Zero. Is there any other team in professional sports with an active owner that would stand for that?
And not only has Bud not fired him in all of that time, he has given him more and more power over personnel and his coaching staff. Makes perfect sense, right? Now the Titans are coming off a year that went from 5-2 to 6-10, and now we aren't even sure if Fisher is going to be forced to make any staff changes. In my mind that has to mean that Bud just really doesn't care anymore.
How can he allow Fisher to retain a defensive coordinator, Chuck Cecil, after players on his defense came out and said that the team didn't make in-game adjustments? I will tell you how- he doesn't care enough to stand up to Fisher. He is perfectly willing to watch a team run out there that is out-matched from a coaching perspective each and every Sunday.
Listen, I like Chuck Cecil. I was excited when he got the job because I thought he would bring a fire to the defensive unit that would at least make them one of the toughest units in the league. Not only has he not done that, he has overseen defensive units that finished 27th and 26th in the league in yards allowed. Of course Fisher and Cecil will have you to believe that yards allowed isn't the most important stat, which I would agree that it isn't, but the less yards the defense gives up the less points they are going to give up. That is just science.
So let's go look at the be all, end all of defensive stats, points allowed. The Titans were 28th in the NFL in 2009 and 15th in 2010. Sure 15th is top half of the league, but only two teams that finished lower than 11th made the playoffs (and one of them is Seattle- so they don't really count).
But don't worry, Adams got rid of Vince Young this week. Which, again, I think was absolutely the right move, but it is coming off now like he was the reason that the coaching staff looked flat out incompetent at times. I am sure Cecil was so distraught on the sidelines on Sunday because of the VY distractions that he couldn't make adjustments. I am sure that Stephen Tulloch, Gerald McRath and Will Witherspoon couldn't cover anyone or play their proper assignments because they had VY on the brain.
Does Bud Adams care about seeing a Lombardi Trophy before he dies? Everyone tells us he does, but allowing Fisher to bring all of his buddies back on a coaching staff that was over matched pretty much every week in 2010 sure doesn't give us that impression.