YER FIRED
Go away.
Jeff Fisher may have been denied becoming the losing-est coach of All Time (Time, Space, Velocity, Mass, the whole thing) when the Rams fired him a week ago, but Jacksonville coach Gus Bradley got his name in the record books before getting canned: the 'best' losing percentage of any coach who has been at the helm for at least 60 games in the NFL.
14-48
.225
That's not chopped liver. Chopped liver is like kidney pie, except needs salt.
Gus Bradley
g'bye, Gus. We hardly knew ye, which is..I never heard of this guy.
It is reported that the Jags may bring back original Jacksonville coach Tom "Sure we sucked, but at least we're not the Jets" Coughlin, who compiled a 68-60 record with the Jags from 1995-2002.
Lookin' spry, Tom.
This, of course, reminds us of the saga of the Chicago Cardinals of the 1940's who brought back handsome Jimmy Conzelman
in 1946 and won the championship just a year later in 1947, defeating the Philadelphia Eagles 28-21. Conzelman had gone a wonderfully Basement-worthy 8-22-4 previously, and had gotten canned in '42 while finishing the year with 6 straight losses.
How could someone who had been pretty bad get re-hired? Because the legendary Phil Handler took over for 1943-44-45, posted a 1-29 record and, most importantly, was at the helm for 23 losses of the all-time record 29-game losing streak (as Conzelman had helpfully loaded up the first 6). Suddenly, Conzelman looked pretty good.
There's Phil- no. 20, there, ready to block for halfback Conzelman.
It should be noted that, once the Cardinals finally won a game, 16-7 over the Bears, they followed that up by getting trounced 28-0 by the Lions the next week, and capped the season off with 6 more big L's.
SO, there's precedent, here, and we think that if they can just find Conzelman (how much older than Coughlin could he be?) or any of his descendants, they should definitely make the hire.
-wacko
addendum: Of course, the big factor in those losing seasons for the Cardinals is just about every single player from the 1941 team joined the armed forces to fight in WWII. On the other hand, same was true for all the other teams, but the Cards must have really just had a bunch of 4F's off the local bus that happened to be driving by the stadium. The war ended in '45, and the men (and women) returned to civilian life, and the Cards returned to their more true football roster by '46.
I f*^*ing love old photos of the NFL. boy football was so much cooler back in the day. I remember playing pop warner back in 1977. outdated helmets with string support, thigh pads thicker than a subway sandwich, thick uniform jerseys to keep out the cold. Pop Warner, another old timer from the glory days of the NFL.
ReplyDeletethe combination of pro-football-reference and internet search engines produces some great material. Pro-football reference is an indispensable site. They go way back.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course that Pro Football Reference is proudly linked on the front page of this blog.
ReplyDeletewait, if you look closely at the picture of the blockers again, it looks like the 2 crouching blockers in front are twins. or the same guy photoshopped in.
ReplyDeleteJersey has a different number on it. They do look a lot alike. But I don't think it's a photo stunt. Grass looks right, etc.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I love old football photos 'cause all of the guys look the same. I mean, there is a certain "look" to NFL players of the bygone era, and I don't just mean white.
The guys all had different names in the photo credit. If you search for Phil Handler, and look at the images result, this is one of them, and the website tells you all the names.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the big factor in those losing seasons for the Cardinals is just about every single player from the 1941 team joined the armed forces to fight in WWII. On the other hand, same was true for all the other teams, but the Cards must have really just had a bunch of 4F's off the local bus that was driving by the stadium. The war ended in '45, and the men (and women) returned to civilian life, and the Cards returned to their more true football roster by '46. It's funny that in Conzelman's bio, it says he never played for the Cardinals, but was just a coach, but man that's him in the picture with the other guys, so I don't know what to say about that.
ReplyDelete