Jason LaCanfora's Blog: The Steve Spagnolo Affair

[Deadskins]

What did Norm ever say?

"If that's Vera, tell her I'm on the way home, Sammy"

But you were probably talking about Norv, weren't you.

[Thundersloth]

First of all I think JLC uses "Spags" because he didn't know how to spell Spagnuolo.

I was thinking about this, the Redskins decided to bassackwardsly hire the coordinators first before the head coach. Vinny and Dannyboy interview Spagnuolo (who was coming off one of the greatest underdog wins in the SuperBowl since the Jets beat the Colts) and offer him the job if he wants it. Spanguolo says "thanks, but no thanks, I don't want to run the WC Offense and I don't want Greg Blache as my DC, I want to bring in my own guys. He goes through the interview process to get the experience for the next interview with an owner who actually knows what he's doing by not handcuffing his new head coach.

I also thought about this, why would Spagnuolo agree that he wasn't ready for a head coaching job? That makes him look less than capable of handling a head coaching job and could possibly hurt his chances later. Makes NO SENSE.

Believe it or not there is a "normal" procedure for a guy to rise through the ranks and become a head coach. Yes, there are coaches who jump from being a position coach to being a head coach but I think you're crapping on the guys who worked so hard to get a coordinator position and have the ambition to be a head coach when you fill your head coaching vacancy with a position coach.

Like I've said before in other posts Zorn got the job because nobody else wanted it.

I hear people say "it doesn't matter what a coach did with another team" well if that was true, then why don't you see unsuccessful coaches being interviewed for jobs? Why did the Redskins interview Spagnuolo and not Joe Barry, or how about Dom Capers, his team went 1-15 last year.

We'll never have a winner as long as the current ownership is in place.

[BossHog]

I've never understood people's inability to separate the team's players and the organization itself. They're two separate entities and as far as I am concerned... it's not only acceptable to like one and not the other, its virtually impossible NOT to if you're paying attention.



And I'll also add, as I have many times, that when you start to put faith in the idle musings of a beat writer's blog, and don't realize that there is perhaps a REASON it came out in the form of a blog, instead of an article (that reason is usually a lack of sources)... you can get yourself into a sticky wicket in terms of knowledge.

We try to encourage you all to sort through the rhetoric of both articles and blogs and realize that most of them have an agenda. Look for ACTUAL quotes if you're looking for 'facts' because the rest is just window dressing and spin.

That doesn't mean that JLC isn't right about Spags - it just means that there are certainly WAY better ways to get a point across than writing about it 6 months later, with venom and with very little context other than the TV crew showing Spags on the sidelines of Thursday's game.

It's just sensationalist crap for the sake of kicking mud.

I personally view it as EXTREMELY lazy journalism because to be honest, if you want to make the Redskin organization look bad, you don't have to sensationalize things at all... you just have to earn some trust, get some real facts from real sources and put a REAL story together.

... or you could just slap some unverifiable opinions into a piece and call it a Redskins Insider blog.

[DEHog]

What did Norm ever say?

"If that's Vera, tell her I'm on the way home, Sammy"

But you were probably talking about Norv, weren't you.

Him too!



Here's what I found in my search..

Here's what"I took over a team in the first year of the (salary) cap that was $17million over the cap," Turner said Monday. "It was a team that had been to the Super Bowl two years previously and those players were gone.

"In two years we were 9-7. The last five years we had four winning seasons. When we signed Brad Johnson, a veteran quarterback, we were 10-6, won the division, won a playoff game. When I left we were 7-6. They haven't had a winning season since I left."

Norv said this in 2004

[Deadskins]

He failed to mention his losing record to every team in our division (which, at the time, included the Cardinals). It was on Norv's watch that our losing streak to the Cowpies was established.