Monday edition: Wha’ happened?
Posted on January 22nd, 2007 – 8:32 AMBy Michael Rand
Theismann loses expert cred: ESPN chief annoyance Joe Theismann fell to 2-4 picking playoff games over the past two weeks, while RandBall somehow improved to 6-0. Paul Maguire’s take: Did you see those picks? Bam! Right there.
Wolves routed: Playing without Ricky Davis, suspended for being a clown, and Kevin Garnett, suspended for his slap party with Antonio McDyess, Minnesota didn’t have much of a chance against the Suns. Then again, even with those two, we wouldn’t really like their chances against this guy.
Tomlin is gone: Mike Tomlin, perhaps the biggest bright spot for the Vikings this past season, is the new head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Again, we will borrow from Anchorman: That really escalated quickly. The guy is only 34. We put together a list of five other football coaching loves we lost for the Newspaper of the Twin Cities today (it’s on the right hand side of the linked page). Where does Tomlin rank? We’d have to say he’s in the same ballpark as Scott Linehan. Your thoughts?
6 Responses to "Monday edition: Wha’ happened?"
Come on Randball.
Tell us the real reason you went to Alary’s. I am sure it had nothing to do with “watching” Bears fans or the actual game.
I kept my eyes either on the TV screen or the computer screen. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Tomlin surely needs a feather in his cap for this last season’r defense. Having said that and also knowing he couldn’t personally be responsible for every phase of that defense, let’s be real about his pass defense.
I’m quite sure Cretin could have scored on it, and if anyone isn’t a Vike fan (I admit that, Big Time) watching Brady et al pick apart that hapless purple D was a joy indeed…and Tomlin needs to take up at least part of that responsibity. Those are big shoes to fill in Pitt and I don’t think Tomlin has the feet for it…
I’d say that Linehan was worse, because Linehan’s didn’t leave because he was getting a promotion, but because Red was too cheap to pay the going rate for an Offensive Coordinator.
And the Vikings’ pass defense was a lot better than the yardage totals indicate. They only gave up 15 TD’s through the air, which was the 4th lowest total in the NFL. QB’s had only a 73.1 passer rating against them. Really, they were only missing a pass rush. If they’d had that, the defense would have been one of the all time greats.
TB, not sure about being one of the “all time greats”, but U R right. It’s their lack of a pass rush that was more of the culprit….still think Tomlin will be a flash in the pan. People sang his praises from the getgo…a decent coach who needed more assistant coach seasoning
This has little to do with Tomlin per se, but did anyone see the pict of Tomlin and wife in “the other” Twin Cities paper ? She’s very attractive but looks like his daughter !! I had to look at the caption twice to see that she was not…
