Mediocrity

It seems to be the current trend of the National Football League: mediocrity.

From the mediocre teams to a mediocre season that just ended to the coaches who are beyond mediocre.

It seems like coaches that overachieve and get a team to 5 and 11 will get a contract extension.

Todd Bowles of the New York Jets overachieved this year. They won five whole games. Last year, they won five games too. Basically, repeating the exact same year. But this year they overachieved, so Todd Bowles and the illustrious Mike McCaganon, the general manager, got rewarded with contract extensions because mediocrity seems to be the thing that gets you contract extension.

Marvin Mediocre Lewis is the epitome of mediocrity.

He has been there longer than any other coach, so that’s why he’s won a lot and lost a lot, but he has just turned that team into a mediocre franchise. One that could never win the playoffs.

Then again, what’s football all about? Mediocrity, it seems, for certain franchises. Certain franchises like the Jets and the Lions and the Bengals are stuck in perpetual mediocrity.

They seem to reward mediocre players with large contracts. They seem to reward mediocre coaches with contract extensions because the owner is just a mediocre person to begin with.

It all starts from the top. Even though the owner has lots of money, like the Johnsons have, it doesn’t mean that they don’t make mediocre decisions.

Woody Johnson got all of his money from his grandfather. That doesn’t mean that he’s wealthy.

That doesn’t mean that he’s smart.

He just happened to come from money.

Organizations like the Patriots don’t accept mediocrity.

The Cleveland Browns hired a brand new GM. Somebody who I actually think is going to be great. He came from the Chiefs, and he actually built the Chiefs up. He built up those teams Andy Reed is now coaching.

He wasn’t allowed to hire his own coach. He had to inherit Hugh Jackson. Hugh Jackson, who has one win and 31 losses over two seasons. The worst coaching record in the history of the NFL.

But he deserves another chance. Why? Because the owner believes that mediocrity should be rewarded, apparently.

If I was the GM of the Browns and I inherited that coach, I would lose my mind.

It’s also another well-known thing: when you hire a new GM, you allow him to pick his own coach, so he’s able to then go put in his own system.

But a lot of these owners have loyalty to the mediocrity that was there before. So they have a marriage to somebody who could be good, the GM with a mediocre coach.

What always happens a couple years later is that the coach ends up fired.

So then general manager can put in his own person.

I don’t get it.

If you look at statistics, you look at coaches over a life-time period, if you look at trends, it makes absolutely zero sense. And yet these owners don’t pay attention to anything, and they continue the mediocre spiral.

Jack Delrio overachieved, and then he underachieved, and then he got fired.

Jim Caldwell basically took the Lions to winning seasons two years in a row. Something that’s never been done in Lions’ history. Yet, he got fired.

John Fox got fired because he stunk.

Mann Joseph of the Denver Broncos, who never should have been a coach in the first place, is getting an extra year.

He’ll be fired next year.

All the coaches that got contract extensions this year for being mediocre will get fired next year or the year after.

It’s just the way things work out all the time in football.

But what does it cost? More losing seasons. Way more than is necessary.

Look: I’ve said it so many times before. You’re allowed to make mistakes. Because when you make mistakes you learn lessons.

But, those lessons only need to be learned once.

After so many years, it literally becomes insanity. Why do you need to learn the same lesson over and over and over and over again?

So in your life, take a look at the trends that come up for you in your life and ask yourself: how much do you accept mediocrity? And why are you still accepting mediocrity on a regular basis?

The answer might shock you.

I don’t have it for you.

I’m just pushing you today to push you outside of your comfort zone.