After guiding his Carolina Panthers’ team to an NFL worst 2-14 record, head coach John Fox was hired by the Denver
Broncos on Thursday.
What happened to the days when a guy would be relegated to an offensive or defensive coordinator position at best after a FAIL year? Like ex Lions’ coach Rod Marinelli who went 0-16 a few years ago in Detroit and now paces the sidelines in Chicago as the D coordinator or Scott Linehan who is the O coordinator in Detroit after a bumpy ride at the helm in St. Louis that included a 3-13 record in 2007 followed by an 0-4 start in 2008.
Fox, 55 years old, did find success early during his nine year tenure in Carolina when he took over for a 1-15 team and had them playing in the Super Bowl two years later. In all, Fox compiled a 73-71 record while winning five of eight playoff games.
Fox takes over for a team that showed promise two seasons ago ending with an 8-8 record but spiraled to the basement of the AFC West finishing with a 4-12 record this year with quarterback Tim Tebow taking the snaps in the final few games.
Much of the blame for that implosion went to fired ex-coach Josh McDaniels who cleaned house by trading away several of the team’s star players. Seemed like any time one would grow disgruntled or appeared to need an attitude adjustment, rather than work it through McDaniles dumped them instead. Are you taking note of this Mike Shanahan?
Following the trend mentioned earlier with head coaches being relegated to lower positions, ironically, McDaniels is rumored to be heading to St. Louis as an offensive coordinator to take over a spot vacated by Pat Shurmur who accepted the head coaching position in Cleveland.
Shurmur has been St. Louis’ offensive coordinator over the past two seasons and will become the first coach hired by team president Mike Holmgren. Holmgren canned coach Eric Mangini right after the season after Mangini ended with his second straight 5-11 record.
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