 CONTEXTS FOR THINKING ABOUT VERMEIL, BY
PHANTMJOKR |
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SHAW AND COACHING
CHOICES: Views on Vermeil must stem from what sort of standard you hold him to.
Ask me and I'd have richly prefered a Bill Parcells, a Holmgren but then too these men, I
believe, have working for John Shaw crossed off their list of dream jobs...and once this
is done then what? Then how does Vermeil look. At that point you have to start measuring
him against guys like his predecessor and the likes of the other last name on the list Jim
Mora. So when someone brings up the likes of Parcells I have to have my own self a laugh
because while they are often talking about the unreal takes "defending" Vermeil,
they are basing it on the very unreal position that that type of top head coach was
available to this franchise. Again another point is this. I liked Brooks innovative playcalling but he didn't have the cahones and experience to weather John Shaw's franchise and I doubt that very few hot young football minds do. Brooks I thought WAS an innovative coach but he was in over his head and was swallowed by Shaw's Rams. In fact I think that most of the Brooks types, the young or younger first time NFL head coach, would get swallowed by Shaw's Rams. The Rams are about as bad with coaches IMHO, because of Shaw, as the Raiders are. Gruden was a young hot coach and Al Davis is about to return him to the coaches pool with gnaw marks on him... So that whittles your coaching choices down to a needle in a haystack and this in part points to something I've long talked about. So I look at Vermeil in the light of what I think was REALLY available as an alternative and considering Trent Green's arrival and that I think the staff actually bought themselves a significant upgrade at Qb I somehow have to feel good about the whole grouping of front office personell the Rams currently have including Vermeil. The evidence to me, without a lot of IMO's and conspiracy coverup theory spooned on top of it, doesn't point to the do nothing Vermeil. It shows him intimately involved with all of the changes and new direction of this team... So IMHO at this time a housecleaning that would yield a new coach, and perhaps a new OC to team with Trent Green and remove him from his grooming coach Mike Martz, is a terrible risk to take when one looks back at who's going to be making that call...but many will pop off about Vermeil just like they did about Bono being better than Banks... I've said it repeatedly that I'm not sure Vermeil can coach. I'm just sure that he's involved and the outcome post Brooks has been positive...look at the record. It was sinking with Brooks and IMHO it would have continued to sink, and it continued to sink in the Vermeil era in great part as the result of having to field a lot of Brooks/Orty "talent"... I would say stick around till the end of the year.I think we'll all get our answers in full... I will also say this. IF Vermeil is a puppet then can him and boot up one of the boys. (I'd actually say Guinta because Bunting can carry on as DC and Martz as the OC). Armey can carry on as the GM. In fact I think this might happen by Vermeil's own accord as Vermeil moves up to be solely the Prez of football operations. VERMEIL AND BROOKS: Some of Vermeil's real problems have still been rooted around two things. (1) Rhome was an awful hire (and gee ain't that really DV's fault?). (2) And the awful Brooks era of player personnel. Brooks I believe can coach but he just isn't a head coach. His teams quit on the field and there was trust me zero discipline put forth upon the team during his tenure unless of course LP getting a rehydrating IV after a full night on the town is discipline. Those things do kinda hurt... It's quite evident that Vermeil, Armey, or whoever has spent that last two years cleaning the post Orty/Brooks mess. I guess DV should a stuck with that Brooks pickup Tony Banks? Or Phillips? Or Eddie Kennison? Brooks was teamed with the awful Orty but...I have a lot of info that sez Brooks pushed the Bettis trade out of spite, that he was very much in tandem on LP, and that he was behind the Walsh/Banks monster while he'd had Randall Cunningham in the offices...IMHO the biggest personnel blunders stemmed from Brooks... And for two year many have been railing on Banks. Just where and why do you think he was the default starting QB for the team? You know last year some were talking up Bono and it generally stemmed from their dislike of Banks...and in truth neither was very good. I for one laid it out VERY early that Banks was limited and his limitations stemmed from his footwork. I ultimately agreed and had had same opinion with the outlook of a friend that Tony Banks could perhaps have been a caretaker Qb for a very good surrounding cast but what this team really needed was someone to elevate them and Tony couldn't do it. My problem was in the reality of getting an elevating Qb just isn't an every day thing and a move from Banks to Bono yielded nothing and that much of the criticism of Banks was out of either context or proportion. However it does appear that a move from Banks to Green is a significant upgrade and from this later vantage point what I see is that over the course of the Vermeil era there have been only 3 free agent Qb's and two draftees that would been real improvements over Banks and the team got one of them. The others were Flutie, Testeverde, Plummer, and Manning, and by my general rule Manning wasn't really an option... THE FRONT OFFICE DEBATES: A part of what goes against the one side of the FOD in my mind is this. What comes across from my sources is that the great bootshaker for Vermeil was not the Shaw mandate stuff but Meeting-Gate. He in fact did get a message from players about what the future was to be like. Last year was the breaking point, the turning point for the team and it stems from Vermeil pushing a bunch of softies and finding out who had what. It's very hard to take what Vermeil says as what he really feels on players. Kirksey is the legendary example. He is followed by many more examples that include Tony Banks winding up a Raven and LP being the stud of Europe. I have to watch what he does over what he says and in the end it points to him always talking well about the players, which is I believe he feels is for their benefit unless their skill IS without reproach (the Bruce scenario)... DO GOOD COACHES TAKE ADVICE? I'm going to bring this up again. I know there are differences in Parcells and Vermeil but this scenario brings up an interesting point. IF Parcells isn't at the forefront of addressing the most important position on the field, the quarterback, then is it such a great knock against Vermeil as some would like us to believe? Parcells had to take advice on quarterbacking from one of his coordinators. Parcells did not want his current starting quarterback Vinny Testeverde and was only talked into taking Vinny on by not his own offensive coordinator but by his defensive coordinator Bill Billicheck who'd been Vinny's head coach previously. Vermeil did somewhat the same. Am I missing something here? (and not about Vermeil but about the point of the FOD's, that Vermeil either must be the leader or isn't leading)... Basically, same sort of root criticism that has been leveled at Vermeil in this thing can be leveled at Parcells. The events are almost peculiarly similar yet Parcells is not questioned on the matter for he has results... Again it is this... Bill Parcells did not want Vinney Testeverde. Parcells was quite happy with Glenn Foley and was in fact going with Glenn over Vinny early last year. Testeverde was brought into the picture by not the Jets offensive coordinator like the Rams, but by the defensive coordinator Billicheck who knew Vinny from his stint as HC in Cleveland. Parcells was only convinced by long lobbying from Billicheck. Parcells starts with Foley and only goes to Vinny when Foley is injured. Now we hear that Foley is not faring well under Mike Holmgren and that the opinion is just that Foley hasn't got it, that the at the root of it he has little desire to succeed as an NFL quarterback. Sound familiar? That doesn't sound like any great insight or plan by Bill Parcells. That sounds just like the Rams where the inmates run the asylum! So in this case Parcells goes through the same situation as Vermeil... SOME SPECULATIONS ON THE FOD:At this point I think the dividing line is where one places Armey and Vermeil's relation to him...According to Jim Thomas and others, Armey and his rise is placed on the Vermeil tree. This means that Vermeil thereafter is going to have a favorable view of things Armey. His movement upward means that Vermeil likes his take and trusts him. At its peak, the Holt pick, Vermeil is still quite happy to take on Armey's decision unlike Parcells and the notorious Glenn pick in New England...and when we have a portrayal of Armey, Zygmunt, and Shaw taking on Vermeil we still have a very strange situation in light of Armey's hiring and rise... Thomas and Miklasz have very differing views (or presentations) of the Martz hiring. Things get very weird when Becker is portrayed as an old Vermeil crony. At least for me I thought he was much more a part of the Shaw Zygmunt tree but now that is also in doubt. As far as I'm concerned this long debate is generally over and it is best represented by what Jim Thomas put forth. That Vermeil is not a figurehead and that his strength seems to be building a coalition in the front office and acting as a CEO... SUMMARY: In the end I think what we see is that much of the hardcore criticism of Vermeil comes from people who just don't like him for some reasons and then feel some need to justify those feelings at every juncture of his Rams command. I just don't think that some of their points and many of their claims are true, that the evidence and claims that are made against him often are more opinion than fact (while it is often presented as such) and that these things become even more strained when they are placed within the context and reality of John Shaw's Rams, which have been football mismanaged almost since his appearance with the team in LA. In that context Vermeil is at worst a symptom and not the root problem. Over the course of Vermeil's tenure at least the personnel looks to be upgraded. Trent Green looks like one of the rare legitimate quarterbacks to pace through free agency and he was aquired during Vermeil's tenure. The Rams are generally better managed than at any time since they've been in St Louis. The simplest explanation far and away is that Vermeil has had something to do with all that and had an effect on the team that has yielded what most feel are the positive results at least of late. There certainly do remain questions. I would feel better if the matters on the specifics of the arrivals of Martz and Armey were cleared up in more detail but at this point what little evidence there is points to Vermeil still being intimately tied to their arrival. |
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