Saturday, January 9, 2010

Insert Picture of Pete Carroll here

Well the news came down late yesterday morning: Jim Mora, Jr. was fired as head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, and USC Coach Pete Carroll is rumored as the successor. Now I was never the biggest fan of Mr. Mora, but I wasn't calling for his job, I was repeatedly calling him a "clown", but I wasn't calling for his job. The problem with the team wasn't so much coaching (which was lousy too) but it was more of a talent problem. But Mora definately lost control of the team, they were heading in the wrong direction, they were far worse a team at the end of the year than they were in the beginning of the year. Wide Receivers were calling out radio analysts on air, and genuinely running a muck. To coin a phrase the inmates were running the asylum.

So I'll walk you through yesterday, how I got the news and my reaction . So I am walking out of the gym at about 11:30 am. I pull my kids out of the gym's "Kid's Zone", strap them into the car and see that I have 5 text messages to inform me that Jim Mora has been fired, best one: "Guess we'll be seeing lessa mora". Now I am fine with the firing, but I would've been fine with giving him another year, too, because like I said above 5-11 wasn't all on him. But now that he is gone, I am happy about it. I like the move, I like the initiative, I like that ownership is not satisfied with the obvious negative direction of the team. Which is refreshing for a fan of Seattle sports, with ownership regularly content with just filling seats and not winning titles. But the Mora firing really it makes sense as a new GM still needs to be hired, and whomever takes the GM job is most likely going to want to name his own coach. So great clean house from top to bottom.

So I am in the car now, and I turn on the radio and as I pull out of the parking garage the AM Sportstalk Radio (I listen to both 950 and 710) informs me that Jim Carroll has been contacted to be the next head coach, and that it is all but a done deal. Now this make sense for Carroll. USC has been skating on thin ice with the NC2A for quite some time, between the Reggie Bush situation (his parents living in nice house paid for by an agent while he was still in school, OJ Mayo all but getting checks from his agent while he was still in school, current USC football star McKnight cruising around town in a brand new Range Rover while he was still in school). All of this has USC running scared. In an attempt to keep the NCAA violations board buzzards at bay SC issued self-imposed a ban on postseason play for its men's basketball program this year. But the buzzards are getting way too close so the best bet for Carroll was to jump shit before the axe came down.

So now the fans are angry(?) and blowing up the phones on the radio, and hating the Carroll move. Just hating it. Me? I think that I like it. For all the talk of Carroll being a failure in the NFL he did have a winning record in 4 seasons. And that was 10 years ago, and the guy has earned his chance to come back to the league; 3 national titles, 7 BCS games, numerous players to the pros.

Today, I still feel the same. This evening I walked up to the 7-11 for a pint of ice cream. Walking past the newspaper rack I saw the headline for Steve Kelly's column: "Carroll will make this mess worse." Such a take only reaffirms my position. Kelly is the worst columnist in all pro sports markets, his takes are never original, he routinely states the obvious and/or apes the reaction of the most vocal and knee jerk of all Seattle sports fans, and like the rest of him he is probably wrong on this one. No matter what Steve Kelly or the rest of the sports talk radio callers Mora was not gonna get it done, and Carroll is a sexy coach, and sexy coaches do well here. Now let's see if he can get past that talent disparity on his new team. Fingers crossed coach, rooting for ya!

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