Archive for December 17th, 2007
Coach Potato
All pun intended. It was not that long ago when another sportswriter said to me, “Be sure you don’t over step your boundaries. You certainly do not know more about the sports than the coach does.”
Yet, when the Baltimore Ravens lost to the winless Miami Dolphins yesterday I stomped, I hollered (at Brian Billick especially), and I was all for his coming home to a note that read “Thanks for your time here.”
On my couch until three in the morning, I thought about what Billick should have done, how this season would have been better had he called this or that sooner, and became more depressed as shows like “I love New York” became the only bearable thing to watch. And then I remembered: I do not know as much about football as Brian Billick does.
The man did not become a head coach by luck – and he certainly did not win a superbowl in his second year not fully comprehending the game. Yet, coach-fan relationships are becomming extremely strained – especially Billick’s relationship with the city of Baltimore who constantly questions his status as an “offensive genius,” a disciplinarian, and a good coach.
As of Monday evening, Coach Billick has a nine percent approval rating according to ESPN’s SportsNation. During weeks two, three, and six, Billick has been able to gain an approval percentage over 50 percent. For five weeks he’s been in the twentieth percentile. For more than half the season, however, Billick has received an approval rating under 20 percent.
His season-long rating averages out to 24 percent.
In the 2006 season, Billick’s rating was the exact opposite: Four of the last seven games in the 90th percentile, one game at 89 percent, and one game at 74 percent – his lowest rating.
This shows that Billick knows what he’s doing, that he has the knowledge and the power to do it. So what changed this season from last? – besides quarterbacks, injuries, etc.
I am not going to say that I know more than Billick, but I know Billick: he hasn’t been the same since 2000, and whatever has changed with him has gotten worse. Perhaps his time is up – not because he can’t coach anymore, but because he might not be a good fit with the Ravens anymore. And as a fan, I am at least capable of seeing that.
After all, as Ken Loeffler says, ”There are two kinds of coaches—those who have been fired and those who will be fired.”
-A. Baldwin
