Larry Brown Sports

When discussing potential head coaching replacements in the NFL, one name that always seems to come up is Bill Cowher.  When you consider the fact that he is a Super Bowl-winning coach, only 51 years old, and said he would likely return to coaching at the time of his retirement, it makes perfect sense.  However, it is starting to sound like Cowher has no intention of making a return.  Dan Marino, one of Cowher’s coworkers and friends, recently said he can’t envision Bill returning to the sidelines.

“I would love to see him be the Dolphins’ coach or if he wanted to coach again because that would be great for the NFL, but I don’t think his mind-set is that he wants to coach again,” Marino told Dolphins.com. “And he may change that over time now, but my feeling is that, you know, he’s a pretty straightforward … guy that tells the — kind of — the truth most of the time, I would say — or no, all the time — and he said on TV that he doesn’t have any plans of coming back, and I believe him.”

We have speculated in the past that Cowher may want to coach in Kansas City, San Diego, and New York, but none of those scenarios ever came to fruition.  If Cowher did decide coaching was something he was interested in getting back into, he would have no problem finding a job.  That being said, he knows all about the long hours and stress that come along with it.  A known family man, it would make perfect sense for Cowher to be content with his CBS gig unless an offer comes along that he feels he can’t refuse.

Chest bump to NFL.com for passing the Marino interview along.

He’s been out of football for so long, I almost forgot that Bill Cowher was still available as potential head coaching candidate in the NFL. Two years ago Boomer Esiason predicted Cowher would join Scott Pioli in Kansas City. That didn’t happen and Todd Haley seems to have led a turnaround. Back in January, Jerome Bettis predicted Cowher would replace Tom Coughlin in New York. The Giants hung onto Coughlin despite an 8-8 season, allowing him a 7th season on the job. But with a 1-2 start this year, might 2010 be Coughlin’s last season in New York?

If the wheels completely fall off this year, the Giants could part ways with Coughlin. The Mara family is patient and Coughlin certainly bought himself the benefit of the doubt by winning the Super Bowl. However, the Giants got throttled by the Colts, have committed a league-worst 10 turnovers, and appeared undisciplined when they committed 11 penalties in a loss to Tennessee.

Tom Coughlin is Mr. Discipline when it comes to coaching so I believe he’ll get the Giants back on track. I believe he’s a very good coach and that the Giants’ problems are correctable. Still, given the Giants schedule, I don’t see them winning more than nine games, if that. Another 8-8 season appears likely for this bunch, and I don’t think Coughlin would be fired with another .500 finish. He probably will be given another season to show what he can do.

Apparently this will have an impact on Bill Cowher who may be on the sidelines for another season. Though the Carolina job could open up, Jerome Bettis repeated his thoughts that Cowher would want to coach the Giants. Bettis says Cowher would be intrigued by a rebuilding situation but that he would want a proven quarterback. I’d say Eli Manning fits that bill much better than Jimmy Clausen. The Bus still thinks Cowher is out for Coughlin’s job, but I don’t think it will happen this year. Looks like another year off for the Chin.

The Chargers were upset by the Jets 17-14 at home on Sunday, losing their Divisional Round playoff game. The Chargers outgained the Jets in the first half by a wide margin but only led 7-0, partly because All-Pro kicker Nate Kaeding missed two field goals (from 36 and 57 yards out). In the second half, the Jets’ pressure was strong and it forced two interceptions — one was a fluke play on a ball that never hit the ground, the other seemed to be a poor read by Antonio Gates over the middle. Then Nate Kaeding missed yet another field goal with 4:38 left, this time from 40 yards away. That seemed to be the nail in the coffin for the Chargers but San Diego managed a stop and a touchdown in only 2:24, leaving 2:14 left on the clock. At that point they faced a key decision: kick it deep and rely on a defensive stop or attempt the onside kick.

Norv Turner decided to go for the onside kick but Kerry Rhodes recovered it for the Jets. New York then converted a critical 4th and 1 with 1:09 left to seal the win. Turner’s decision was questionable because he had two choices at kickoff and his decision did not work out. That doesn’t mean it was the wrong choice — both scenarios were low probability — but it didn’t work out. After the game, the CBS crew acted as if Turner had made the worst call of the century and that the alternative was clearly the right choice. In fact, Bill Cowher provided the most biting criticism, with Boomer Esiason coming in a close second:

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Bill Cowher is one of the All-Star head coaches that was unemployed this season, joining a list of several jobless Super Bowl champs. That group includes Jon Gruden, Tony Dungy, and Mike Shanahan. Of that crowd, only Shanahan has a new gig while the others have either passed on job offers or job interviews, or both. Since Cowher will not be coaching next season, it will be three years off for The Chin, which is probably a longer break than anyone expected. Why is that the case? The Bus says The Chin is waiting on the Giants gig:

Jerome Bettis said the reason Cowher hasn’t returned to coach is because he’s “holding out” for the Giants job to open up. In fact, he told Chris “Mad Dog” Russo today on Sirius XM’s Mad Dog Radio that Cowher would have gotten the Giants’ job in 2008 if Tom Coughlin hadn’t taken the Giants on that magical, Super Bowl XLII run.

“That’s the team that he really coveted,” Bettis said. “This is where he always wanted to be. The Mara family, he’s been very close to them. … He’s known them very well and was on the inside track — before the Giants won the Super Bowl — for that job. And I think he’s holding out for that opportunity if it presents itself.”

Bettis has previously said that Cowher will make sure his new team has a franchise quarterback with whom he can work because Cowher endured the inconsistencies of a franchise without steady quarterback play (Kordell Stewart, Tommy Maddox). By holding out for the Giants job, Cowher also seems to be following the Gruden plan which is only return to coaching if your team includes a Manning brother. It sucks to think that Tom Coughlin will no longer be good enough for the job only two years after winning the Super Bowl but another season like this and he should be fired.

(also see The Last Angry Fan)

Bill Cowher made it clear to the Jets that he wasn’t going to coach this coming season, so teams have proceeded in their hirings without considering him. Cowher’s plan all along was to take two years off before deciding if he would return to the NFL. Well now that the Chiefs have wisely hired Scott Pioli as their new GM, Boomer Esiason is speculating that Cowher could join Pioli in KC in 2010:

CBS analyst Boomer Esiason said on his WFAN-NY radio show this week that he wouldn’t be surprised if Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli hired Bill Cowher to coach the team in 2010. This is intriguing on any number of levels. For starters, Esiason works with Cowher and is familiar with his thinking. Then there is the matter of Esiason also saying that Cowher and Pioli are close friends. Also, Cowher served as the Chiefs’ defensive coordinator from 1989 to 1991, so he is familiar with the city.

I know the players in KC like Herm Edwards and that Edwards has another year on his contract. Furthermore, Pioli supposedly likes and respects Herm, so there’s a good possibility Edwards and his staff could be retained for the upcoming season. After that point, if Pioli brought in Bill Cowher, you could really be looking at a blockbuster front office. The only reason for me to think this wouldn’t happen is that KC doesn’t have a clear cut franchise quarterback. Jerome Bettis said in the past that Cowher wished he had a franchise QB in Pittsburgh and will look for a job where he’ll have that. If Cowher does go there, I could see a Miami Dolphins-like turnaround happen pretty quickly, especially with all the draft picks they’ve stockpiled. This would be quite the combination.

Jerome Bettis has apparently told a professional writer his life story written an autobiography entitled “The Bus: My Life in and Out of a Helmet,” that’s set to release sometime in the near future. In the book, Bettis shares a few juicy details, such as his belief that the Steelers were about to cut him in 2000 — which is why he faked an injury in training camp. He also says that Bill Cowher and the Steelers conspired to set Kordell Stewart up for failure.

“For some reason, Coach would never really commit fully to Kordell … and because of that, we had no consistent leadership from the quarterback position,” Bettis wrote of Stewart’s on-and-off stay as starting quarterback from 1997 until Tommy Maddox replaced him in the third game of the 2002 season.
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“You bench your Pro Bowl quarterback for a guy who had been out of football for years, who hadn’t started an NFL game in 10 seasons?” Bettis wonders in his book. “That just doesn’t happen by accident.

“I think they pulled Kordell partly because they didn’t want to pay him a big salary and signing bonus. It was cheaper for them if he didn’t have success. If he recovered and had a huge year, then the public sentiment would be, ‘Hey, you’ve got to re-sign him for whatever it costs.’ I’m telling you, it was a monetary decision. The Steelers had no interest in paying Kordell his market value.”

And that’s not even the best part. Check out the next passage from the book:

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