Goes without saying, but I’ll say it, anyway: Joe Thomas and Bill Cowher know infinitely more about pro football than I do. That doesn’t mean, though, their presumably serious statements this past week about Jim Irsay hiring Jeff Saturday made me laugh. And laugh and laugh and laugh.
If you somehow missed it last week, Indy’s owner decided to name a Colts icon interim head coach in the middle of last season…a move Thomas declared “the most egregious thing” he’s ever seen in pro football, and Cowher – fighting back actual tears – called “a disgrace.”
LOL.
I don’t know if either very serious football man had an ulterior motive for the histrionic hyperbole, but it did kinda feel like a couple insiders defending an unwritten code about the “right” way of doing things in Our League. Maybe they don’t like the idea of a guy with zero head coaching experience breezing in off the street/out of a network studio, which in success risks exposing the inconvenient truth: It’s just football.
Whatever their reasons, it was – among other things – detached from the fact the NFL, for all its greatness, has provided at least 100 more egregious disgraces. When I said as much on social media last week, a few of you out there challenged me to provide a prove-it list.
Well, here it is… in no particular order, my inaugural list of 100 Most Egregious Disgraces I Can Ever Remember Happening in the NFL:
Josh McDaniels and the Raiders losing to the egregious disgrace that is the Jeff Saturday-coached Colts
Bill Cowher with broadcasting zero experience breezing in off the street/out of an NFL locker room and into a network studio
The Browns trading high-leverage draft picks for Deshaun Watson and signing him to a $238mil guaranteed deal
Owners not guaranteeing the vast majority of player contracts in a sport featuring people running into each on purpose
Art Modell buying the Cleveland Browns and firing the Browns’ first head coach and namesake, Paul Brown
Paul Brown moving to Cincinnati and launching the Bengals, whose uniforms he designed to look as much like the Browns’ uniforms as possible
A team named ‘Browns’ wearing orange helmets
Paul Brown not alerting Bengals offensive coordinator Bill Walsh to other teams’ interest in the bright young coach, then passing over Walsh for the team’s vacant head coaching job
Art Modell moving the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore
The Browns’ 35 starting quarterbacks since 1999
The Jets’ seven head coaches this century
Washington’s ten head coaches this century
The Lions’ twelve head coaches this century
Bears’ kickers
The Brady Six
The Steelers not taking Pitt QB/Pittsburgh native Dan Marino in the 1983 Draft
The Browns not taking Miami of Ohio QB/Ohio native Ben Roethlisberger in the 2004 Draft
Robert Irsay sneaking the Colts out of Baltimore overnight
The Dallas Cowboys – based in Texas, which is on the Mexican border – playing in the NFC East
Running backs wearing any of the following numbers: 14-19; 27; 38; 49
QBs wearing any of the following numbers: 2
The city of Buffalo – named for the majestic beasts that once roamed our plains – naming its football team after Buffalo Bill Cody, the man primarily responsible for wiping out all those aforementioned beasts
The Raiders guaranteeing long-time broadcaster Jon Gruden $100 million over 10 years
The Raiders hiring long-time broadcaster Mike Mayock as general manager
Mark Davis’ haircut
The Raiders logo closing his one good eye (look it up if you don’t know what I’m talking about)
Gruden’s emails
Belichick’s coaching tree
The New England Patriots – so named as homage to the citizen army that beat back King George’s Red Coats – giving their franchise HOF’ers a red coat
Washington DC (capital of the United States), after taking two years to rename themselves, finally deciding on “Commies”
Lou Holtz accepting the Jets head coach job in 1976…then quitting 13 games into his first season to take the same job at Arkansas
Bobby Petrino accepting the Falcons head coach job in 2007…then quitting 13 games into his first season to take the same job at Arkansas (deja Lou!)
Antonio Brown’s in-game striptease
Three-hour pregame shows with 17 or so minutes-worth of entertaining content
The sameness of the domed stadium experience: The price of climate control is a real home-field advantage…especially anywhere it gets cold
Tom Brady retiring from the Buccaneers as part of a secret ploy to buy the Dolphins…then unretiring to return to the Bucs
Tom Brady courting class act Antonio Brown to join the Buccaneers, including having Brown stay at the family home
Class act Antonio Brown returning the favor by mocking Tom Brady repeatedly
Andrew Luck retiring two weeks before the 2018 season
America’s second-largest city lacking an NFL team for 20 years
The Saints losing the 2018 NFC Championship game because of the missed call on blatant pass interference
Roger Goodell claiming the Spygate evidence needed to be destroyed because the league office had nowhere to store the tapes
DeflateGate
BountyGate
Pro Football Hall of Fame voters not putting high-end performers from various generations’ best teams because said voters feel they can’t give out too many gold jackets to players of those teams
A place called “The Pro Football Hall of Fame” that doesn’t include Jim Plunkett, Ricky Watters, LC Greenwood & Roger Craig (but does include Bob Griese & Chris Hanburger)
Terrell Owens, one of the three best WRs of the Super Bowl era, not being voted into the Hall of Fame in his first two years of eligibility because he wasn’t nice enough to the media
Pro Football Hall of Famer/multimillionaire Brett Favre leveraging his celebrity to help defraud his home state by taking money from a welfare fund to build a volleyball court
Future Hall of Fame QB Warren Moon going to the CFL for six seasons after indications NFL teams didn’t consider him a QB
Brett Favre retiring, then unretiring, then retiring, then unretiring…then getting angry with the Packers for declaring Aaron Rodgers their starter
Dolphins owner Stephen Ross allegedly encouraging head coach Brian Flores to intentionally lose games
The eternal debate of ‘What’s a catch?’
The ambiguity of the ‘Roughing the passer’ penalty
Replay reviews taking 11 minutes when fans watching from home can see the correct call within 11 seconds
Pass interference & other random penalties being unviewable
Replacement referees working – and negatively impacting – regular-season 2012 games, including the Fail Mary
The league repeatedly suspending Josh Gordon (and many others) for using a performance-decreasing substance…or is it medicinal? Who’s to say (besides Roger G)?
Joe Namath getting suspended for owning a Manhattan club visited by ne’er-do-wells
Grownup fans in the stands getting into fist fights (typically ending with at least one participant inadvertently revealing his butt crack while awkwardly strewn across a row of seats)
The league’s ongoing attempts to monitor/penalize players’ expressions of joy after a positive play
The league’s willful longtime ignorance of the brain damage caused by football
A Chargers doctor accidentally puncturing Tyrod Taylor’s lung with a pain injection
The league allowing almost every team to play on synthetic turf because it’s cheaper to maintain than natural grass even though, according to the injured, it increases injuries
Tua being allowed to return to the game after that back injury
Prominent NFL voices repeating mantras like “A player’s best ability is availability” then suggesting it’s on players to self-diagnosis and remove themselves from the game if they think they may be concussed
The many dirty plays from Vontaze Burfict’s career
The many dirty plays from Rodney Harrison’s career
The many dirty plays from Jack Tatum’s career
Eagles head coach Buddy Ryan putting bounties on Troy Aikman & Luis Zendajas in ’89
Jags head coach Jack Del Rio putting a wood stump and ax in the Jags locker room in support of his ‘Keep chopping wood’ credo, ending with punter Chris Hanson slicing his leg open with said ax
Commies defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio calling the Jan 6 insurrection “a dustup” while comparing it to the George Floyd protests of the previous summer
The league freezing out Colin Kaepernick because they considered his show of support for people of color too extreme
Aaron Rodgers playing a victim after getting caught lying about/misrepresenting his preference for horse dewormer over a vaccine
Aaron Rodgers, in a ‘cancel culture’ tshirt, demanding an apology from/sicing his fans (who made death threats) on journalist Molly Knight after she made a joke on social media about Rodgers’ injured pinky toe
Myles Garrett rationalizing his attempt to kill Mason Rudolph with the QB’s own helmet by claiming Rudolph used a racial slur no one else on the field heard (and none of the field mikes picked up)
The Patriots having a serial killer on their roster
The Bills cutting the other punter after learning about Matt Araiza
New Jags head coach Urban Meyer hiring strength coach Chris Doyle despite Doyle’s history of racist behavior
Urban Meyer kicking Jags kicker Josh Lambo before a preseason game
Urban Meyer skipping the Jags team flight after a loss so he could take his thumb out on the town
The unseemly reasons Panthers owner Jerry Richardson sold the team
Dan Snyder charging fans to tailgate
Dan Snyder banning signs in Washington’s stadium
Dan Snyder & other Washington execs’ alleged years-long harassment of the team’s cheerleaders
The Commies’ stadium turning into one big overflowing toilet during a 2021 game
The league’s refusal to issue a full, public written report of Beth Wilkinson – the independent investigator paid by the league – re the toxic culture of Dan Snyder’s Commies
Dan Snyder filing a lawsuit against a DC newspaper columnist
Dan Snyder going on the lam on his yacht
Dan Snyder threatening to spill the beans on other owners if they tried to force him out
The Commies’ invocation of Commies RB Brian Robinson getting shot as proof(?) the Commies don’t deserve legal scrutiny
Ernie ‘Fats’ Holmes shooting from inside his car at police officers, then at a police helicopter
Plaxico’s leg
Ray Ray’s white suit
OJ’s white Bronco & black gloves
Officials still using two sticks connected by a chain to measure first downs
I’ll stop there…but if you made it all the way to the end of the list, you know I could add at least 100 more. Meantime, let’s get to the here & now: The coming weekend of football!
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