Archive for the ‘NFL’ Category

Obit watch: May 20, 2022.

Friday, May 20th, 2022

Elspeth Barker, novelist.

She wrote one book: “O Caledonia”.

The book recounts the short, unhappy life of a girl named Janet, who, like Ms. Barker, grew up half-feral in a neo-Gothic castle in rural Scotland, avoiding people and befriending jackdaws. Both faced constant harassment from local boys, and both sought refuge in foreign languages and books.
Though the novel opens with Janet newly dead, murdered on a staircase, it is full of life, energized by Ms. Barker’s thistle-sharp eye for natural detail: She writes of mist that “floats in steaming filaments off the glens” and of Janet shaking “wet honeysuckle over her face.”
“O Caledonia,” her only novel, was a hit among readers and critics. It sold widely in Europe and won a number of minor British literary awards, including the Scottish Book Prize, and was shortlisted for a major one, the Whitbread Book Award (now the Costa Book Award).

To be honest, I probably would have let this get past me, if it wasn’t for this line from the obit:

In a 2017 interview with The New York Times, the British novelist Ali Smith called it “one of the best least-known novels of the 20th century.”

On a totally unrelated note, I don’t have a good place to put this, so I’m sticking it here.

Art Horridge.

Horridge, who spent 25 years as the Houston Oilers’ mascot they called Roughneck, died at the age of 86, according to KPRC2’s Randy McIlvoy.
Horridge always wore a Columbia blue shirt over his shoulder pads with a shiny chrome hardhat emblazoned with the Oilers’ oil derrick logo and he carried a 48-inch rig wrench, which he used to implore the Astrodome crowd to make some noise.
Before the Oilers’ 1979 AFC Championship Game in Pittsburgh, Horridge told The Washington Post that he used to carry a plastic wrench with him at games, but he switched to a real one that weighed 44 pounds after some Steelers fans tried to rough him up in Pittsburgh after the AFC title game the previous season.

(Hattip: Lawrence.)

Firings watch.

Friday, May 6th, 2022

Las Vegas Raiders interim president Dan Ventrelle is out.

This is kind of interesting because of the circumstances. The Raiders put out a tweet:

And that’s all. No press conference, nothing else. Kinda makes you wonder…

Edited to add 5/7: Former interim president Ventrelle is saying that his firing was retaliatory.

…alleging he was fired in retaliation for bringing concerns by multiple employees about hostile workplace conditions within the organization to the NFL.
“I take that responsibility very seriously, which is why multiple written complaints from employees that Mark [Davis] created a hostile work environment and engaged in other potential misconduct caused me grave concern,” Ventrelle said in a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “When Mark was confronted about these issues he was dismissive and did not demonstrate the warranted level of concern.
“Soon thereafter, I was fired in retaliation for raising these concerns. I firmly stand by my decision to elevate these issues to protect the organization and its female employees.”

He also said he’s hired lawyers and “would not provide further comment at this time”.

Obit watch: April 22, 2022.

Friday, April 22nd, 2022

Daryle Lamonica, quarterback for the Oakland Raiders.

He started out playing for the Buffalo Bills in the AFL, behind Jack Kemp. But he couldn’t replace Kemp as the starter, and the Bills traded him to Oakland, where he was pretty successful.

He led the 1967 Raiders to a 13-1 regular-season record and the A.F.L. championship, throwing for 30 touchdowns and 3,228 yards. He passed for two touchdowns in the Super Bowl, which the Raiders lost to the Packers, 33-14.
Lamonica was part of an offense that emphasized precise timing between the quarterback and a receiver running his route. It was designed to create open space in the defense’s secondary, making it especially vulnerable to deep passing plays.

…

Lamonica was selected for the Pro Bowl once with the Bills and four times with the Raiders.

…

The Raiders were 12-1-1 in 1969 with Lamonica throwing for 34 touchdowns, including six in the first half of an October game against the Bills. He threw for another six touchdowns when the Raiders trounced the Houston Oilers, 56-7, in a playoff game, while Namath struggled in the Jets’ loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in the other first-round matchup.

Worth noting, because that’s just the kind of hairball I am:

A sturdy 6-foot-3 and 215 pounds, Lamonica threw for 25 touchdowns and averaged nearly 250 passing yards per game in 1968. Perhaps his finest moment that season was seen by few: He threw the winning touchdown pass with 42 seconds left in the mid-November Raiders-Jets matchup at the Oakland Coliseum that became infamous as the “Heidi game.”

(Previously.)

Guy Lafleur, of the Montreal Canadiens. I’m not a huge hockey fan, but even I’ve heard of Guy Lafleur.

The winger affectionately known as “The Flower” and “The Blonde Demon” played 14 seasons with Montreal (1971-85) and was a cornerstone of five Stanley Cup-winning teams, including in 1977, when he was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. Lafleur was electric on the ice, becoming the first player in league history to produce six consecutive seasons with 50-plus goals and 100-plus points (1974-80).
During the height of his career in the 1970s, Lafleur was a three-time Art Ross Trophy winner as the NHL’s points leader, a two-time Hart Trophy winner as league MVP and a three-time winner of the Lester B. Pearson Award (now known as the Ted Lindsay) as most outstanding player according to the NHL Players’ Association.

Sports obit watch.

Saturday, April 9th, 2022

I was going to wait until tomorrow to blog this, but since several people have sent it to me today and it is losing timeliness: Dwayne Haskins, quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers. ESPN.

The reports I am currently seeing say he tried to cross an Interstate highway on foot, and was hit by a dump truck. He was 24.

Tomorrow is not promised to anyone…

Also: Rayfield Wright, former offensive lineman for the Dallas Cowboys. He was 76 and had been suffering from dementia since at least 2012.

Referred to as “Big Cat” by teammates, Wright made five Super Bowl appearances in his 13 seasons with the club. He was selected first- or second-team All-Pro in six consecutive seasons and earned a spot on the NFL’s All-Decade team for the 1970s.
Wright was the first offensive lineman in franchise history to earn a spot in the team’s Ring of Honor and the Hall of Fame. He was followed by Larry Allen.
They remain the only two.

Obit watch: February 25, 2022.

Friday, February 25th, 2022

Joe Wanenmacher, founder and owner of the Tulsa Arms Show, one of (if not the) largest gun shows in the world.

Mike the Musicologist and I have been lucky enough to attend a few of the Tulsa shows. The obit says that Mr. Wanenmacher had mostly handed off operational responsibilities to his other family members, but he still built the show into what it is today. Our hat is off to him.

(Hattip on this to our great and good friend David Carroll.)

Sandy Nelson, drummer and subject of one of the most interesting obits I’ve read in the NYT recently.

He had a big hit in 1959 with “Teen Beat”, which was based on a drum riff he heard in a strip club:

“While they were looking at these pretty girls in G-strings, guess what I was doing?” he told The Las Vegas Weekly in 2015. “I was looking at the drummer in the orchestra pit.”
“He was doing kind of a ‘Caravan’ beat,” he added, referring to a jazz standard. “‘Bum ta da da dum’ — small toms, big toms. That’s what gave me the idea for ‘Teen Beat.’”

He had a second big hit with “Let There Be Drums” in 1961. In 1963, he had a motorcycle accident and lost part of his right leg: he retrained himself to play the bass with his left leg.

He did a bunch of instrumental albums in the 1960s and 1970s, many of which featured covers:

“I think the worst version ever of the Rolling Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ was done by me,” Mr. Nelson told L.A. Weekly in 1985, “and, oddly enough, it was a big seller in the Philippines. I guess they like squeaky saxophones or something.”

But he also continued to do experimental work:

His friend and fellow musician Jack Evan Johnson said that Mr. Nelson was especially proud of “The Veebles,” a whimsical five-track concept album released on cassette in 2016 that had an extraterrestrial sound and theme.
“It’s about a race of people from another planet,” he told The Las Vegas Sun in 1996, when the long-gestating project was just beginning to take shape. “They’re gonna take over the Earth and make us do nothing but dance, sing and tell dumb jokes.”

(I checked: there was a CD version of this, but it is out of print. Amazon and Apple Music do not show a digital version, though some of Mr. Nelson’s other work is available from both.)

Mr. Nelson acknowledged that he had not handled his early success well.
“I spent most of the money on women and whiskey, and the rest I just wasted,” he told The Review-Journal.

…

Mr. Nelson settled in Boulder City, Nev., in about 1987 and became a colorful local fixture, running a pirate radio station out of his house for about seven years before the FCC shut him down, Mr. Johnson said. And then there was the cave.

Yes. He dug a cave in his backyard.

The project took him 12 years.
“I got a ‘cave tour’ once,” Mr. Johnson said by email, “and it was quite something, precarious even — dug down at a very steep angle into the hard desert soil, with no kind of support structure whatsoever and just enough room to scoot down into it for a ways until the room opened up at the bottom.”
“He had an electric keyboard down there,” he added.

Kenny Burrough, wide receiver for the Houston Oilers during the 1970s.

Burrough, who famously wore No. 00 with the Oilers, played 11 seasons in Houston and made the Pro Bowl in 1975 and 1977. His 6,906 receiving yards still ranks third all-time in Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans history behind only Ernest Givins (7,935) and Drew Hill (7,477). His 47 touchdowns ties him for second on the franchise list behind 1960s Oilers receiver Charley Hennigan.

Sally Kellerman. THR.

Other than the original “Hot Lips”, credits include a guest spot on an early episode of a minor 1960s SF TV series, “Back to School”, “T.H.E. Cat”, “Coronet Blue”, the legendary “Delgo“, and a whole bunch of other stuff…

…including “Mannix”. (“The Solid Gold Web“, season 2, episode 23. She plays a former love interest of Mannix.)

Norts spews.

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022

The Brian Flores lawsuit against the NFL is mildly interesting, but it is also being well covered in other places, and I don’t know what I can say about the suit itself.

However, there is one aspect of it that I think isn’t getting as much coverage as I’d like:

Flores claimed that [Stephen] Ross [owner of the Dolphins – DB] said he would pay him $100,000 for each game the team lost in 2019, his first year with the Dolphins. Flores refused and when the Dolphins started winning games, Flores said he was told by the team’s general manager, Chris Grier, that Ross was “mad” that the team’s victories were hurting the team’s position in the draft position.

…

Flores’ lawyers said his experience was not unique and that other coaches have reached out to them with similar stories in regard to being incentivized to tank as well as enduring discriminatory hiring practices.

I have to wonder: if paying coaches to lose is a common practice, why haven’t we seen more 0-16 (or 0-17) teams? Is there so much “respect for the game” out there that nobody’s willing to take the offer? Even if you’re going to end up with a #1 draft choice?

Edited to add: Well, this is interesting:

In the wake of Brian Flores’ bombshell discrimination lawsuit against the NFL, former Browns coach Hue Jackson suggested Tuesday that he too was paid to lose games for his former organization.

More firings.

Wednesday, January 19th, 2022

Ken Norton Jr. out as defensive coordinator for the Teattle Teahawks…I mean, Seattle Seahawks.

Also out: Andre Curtis, “defensive passing game coordinator”.

Firings watch.

Tuesday, January 18th, 2022

Mike Mayock out as general manager of the Las Vegas Raiders.

In Mayock’s three seasons with the Raiders, the club’s record improved each season, culminating this year with a 10-7 regular-season mark and just their second playoff appearance in 18 seasons. The Raiders’ record under Mayock was 25-24.

The biggest issue seems to be that Mayock was closely tied with Jon Gruden (I’ve seen him described as “Gruden’s hand-picked choice for GM”) who, as you may recall, got fired in October.

Obit watch: January 15, 2022.

Saturday, January 15th, 2022

Eddie Basinski has passed away at the age of 99. He was the second oldest former major league baseball player.

Interestingly, Mr. Basinski was also a trained classical violin player.

Basinski, who had taken classical violin lessons since childhood, played with the University of Buffalo’s symphony orchestra before embarking on his major league career in 1944, a time when baseball rosters had lost many players to service in World War II. (He was deferred from military service because he had poor eyesight.) He played in 39 games for the Dodgers in his rookie season, mostly at second base, and in 108 more games in 1945, filling in at shortstop for the future Hall of Famer Pee Wee Reese, who was in the Navy.

…

Basinski had a .244 career major league batting average.

…

Basinski told The Times that there was a relationship between playing the violin and fielding ground balls. “I had great quickness because of the bowing and the fingering, which just has to be lightning quick,” he said. “There is a great correlation.”

NYT obit for Terry Teachout.

Saousoalii Siavii Jr., former defensive tackle with the Kansas City Chiefs. This is an odd one: he died in custody at Leavenworth.

In August 2019, Siavii was arrested and later charged with being an unlawful drug user in possession of firearms after suburban Kansas City police say he was spotted exiting a vehicle reported stolen and fighting with officers, who used a stun gun on him twice during the arrest. Prosecutors alleged Siavii possessed a gun, ammunition, methamphetamine and marijuana.

Culley-ing the herd.

Friday, January 14th, 2022

Well. Well well well. Well.

David Culley out as head coach of the Houston Texans after a single season. Battle Red Blog.

The Texans were 4-13 and, quite frankly, stank. But:

Culley’s Texans were objectively horrendous in 2021 and Culley certainly looked over his skis as a head coach at various times, but we should not ignore how dreadful the talent on the roster was. In other words, I don’t think many coaches could have coaxed more than four wins out of this squad.

Also out: offensive coordinator Tim Kelly.

Battle Red also reports that, while Culley had a five-year contract, only the first two years were guaranteed. So he’ll get paid a mere $4 million instead of $12 million to $14 million if all five years had been guaranteed…

Firings watch.

Wednesday, January 12th, 2022

Sorry for the lack of a clever headline, but the NY Post cut me off at the pass on this one.

Joe Judge out as coach of the New York Football Giants. Two seasons, 10-23 overall.

He is the third consecutive Giants coach to be fired after two seasons or less, following Ben McAdoo (13-15) and Pat Shurmur (9-23), as the once-proud franchise stumbles through one of the worst 10-year stretches in its history.

Blood in the streets!

Monday, January 10th, 2022

While this would be an appropriate title for an after-action report on the training classes I went to over the weekend, this is not that report. I hope to be able to write that sometime this week.

This is your “Monday morning after the end of the NFL season” firings watch. So far, there’s a lot of “sources say”. I’m going to leave these unlinked for right now, and update when there’s better confirmation.

“Sources say” Mike Zimmer is out as head coach, and Rick Spielman is out as general manager of the Vikings.

Edited to add: Story from the Star Tribune, though it is still “according to a source familiar with the team’s decision-making”. I can’t find any evidence that there’s been a press release, press conference, or other official announcement.

Zimmer had led the team to the postseason in three of his first six years, earning a second contract extension from the Wilfs before the 2020 season. Shortly thereafter, the Vikings gave Spielman a three-year deal to match the length of Zimmer’s, rewarding the general manager who’d had full control of the roster since 2012 and hired Zimmer to replace Leslie Frazier in 2014.
Zimmer finished his eight years in Minnesota with a 72-56-1 mark, ranking third in team history in wins, games coached (129) and winning percentage (.559). He was the seventh-longest tenured head coach in the NFL; all six who’ve been in their jobs longer than Zimmer have won Super Bowls.

Edited to add: this is now official, with a statement from the team ownership.

“This morning we met with Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer to notify them we will be moving in a different direction at the general manager and head coach positions in 2022,” co-owners Zygi and Mark Wilf said in a statement. “We appreciate Rick and Mike’s commitment to the team’s on-field success, their passion for making a positive impact in our community and their dedication to players, coaches and staff. While these decisions are not easy, we believe it is time for new leadership to elevate our team so we can consistently contend for championships. We wish both Rick and Mike and their families only the best.

“Sources say” Matt Nagy is out as head coach of da Bears.

Edited to add: Chicago Tribune, “according to league sources”, Sun Times.

Nagy went 34-31; his winning percentage of 52.3 trails only Mike Ditka and Lovie Smith among Bears modern-era coaches. Both those two went to the Super Bowl. The Bears lost in each of their two playoff appearances — most memorably in 2018, when Cody Parkey double-doinked the potential game-winner in the first round against the Eagles.

More as events break.

Edited to add: going back a day, Denver Post coverage (by way of archive.is) of the Vic Fangio/Broncos firing.

Edited to add: Brian Flores out as head coach of the Dolphins. This appears to be an official team announcement, not “sources said”.

Flores led the Dolphin to a 5-11 record his first season, 10-6 his second and 9-8 in his third season, which ended with Sunday’s win against the New England Patriots.

…

Flores’ firing was the byproduct of a poor relationship with general manager Chris Grier, among other factors, according to an ESPN report. “His relationship with Grier and Tua [Tagoavailoa] had deteriorated to a pretty bad place,” ESPN’s Jeff Darlington reported. “Along with constant staff changes, owner Steve Ross n longer saw Flores as a healthy fit in Miami.”

Edited to add: Dave Gettleman out as general manager of hapless the New York Football Giants. It seems like the official spin on this is that he “retired”.

The Giants finished 4-13 this season and were 19-46 in Gettleman’s tenure running the football operations.

Firings watch.

Sunday, January 9th, 2022

Very very quick, as I’m using downtime: Vic Fangio out as coach of the Denver Broncos.

Obit watch: January 3, 2022.

Monday, January 3rd, 2022

Richard Leakey, paleoanthropologist.

One of his most celebrated finds came in 1984 when he helped unearth “Turkana Boy,” a 1.6-million-year-old skeleton of a young male Homo erectus. The other was a skull called “1470,” found in 1972, that extended the world’s knowledge of the Homo erectus species several million years deeper into the past.

…

His discoveries were almost as remarkable as his ability to evade death. He fractured his skull as a boy, almost died after receiving a kidney transplant from his brother Philip in 1979, lost both legs in a 1993 plane crash and was once treated for skin cancer.

Dan Reeves, former Dallas Cowboys running back and later NFL coach.

Reeves played and coached with the Dallas Cowboys during a stellar period when they won two Super Bowls, one when he was a player-coach and one when he was an offensive coordinator, working for Coach Tom Landry. After several seasons as an assistant to Landry, he was hired as the Broncos’ head coach in 1981, replacing Red Miller.
Over 12 seasons in Denver, his teams had a record of 110-73-1 and were among the best in the American Football Conference. Led by quarterback John Elway, they lost the Super Bowl in 1987, 1988 and 1990 by wide margins to the New York Giants, the Washington Redskins and the San Francisco 49ers.

…

Undrafted by any team in the N.F.L. or the American Football League, he signed in 1965 with the Cowboys, who converted him to a running back. He played eight seasons and accumulated 1,990 rushing yards, 757 of them in 1966, his best year.

Jeanine Ann Roose. She was the young “Violet” in “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and…that’s it.

She went on to attend UCLA, becoming a psychologist and later a Jungian analyst, according to TMZ, which quoted her as once having made a comparison between her life and the movie’s story line.
“It’s a Wonderful Life was the only movie that I was in and it been an amazing lifetime experience to have been in such a collectively meaningful picture. … It became clear that my desire was specifically to help others who were struggling with finding meaning in their life — not unlike Clarence in the movie who helps George see the meaning of his life,” she said.

Max Julien. He was “Goldie” in “The Mack” (opposite Richard Pryor). Other credits include “Mod Squad”, “The Bold Ones: The Protectors”, and “The Name of the Game”.

Obit watch: December 29, 2021.

Wednesday, December 29th, 2021

Comment I made to Lawrence last night: “Sure,” the NYT reporter said, “I’ll cover the obituary desk between Christmas and New Year’s. Nothing ever happens between Christmas and New Year’s.”

I’m being kind of short with these first two because everyone is on them like a fat man on an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.

John Madden. ESPN. LAT.

Madden retired from coaching the Oakland Raiders in 1979, at age 42 and with a Super Bowl victory to his credit, but he turned the second act of his life into an encore, a Rabelaisian emissary sent from the corner bar to demystify the mysteries of football for the common fan and, in the process, revolutionize sports broadcasting.

“Rabelaisian emissary”. Gotta give that guy credit.

As inclusive as he was beloved, Madden embodied a rare breed of sports personality. He could relate to the plumber in Pennsylvania or the custodian in Kentucky — or the cameramen on his broadcast crew — because he viewed himself, at bottom, as an ordinary guy who just happened to know a lot about football. Grounded by an incapacitating fear of flying, he met many of his fans while crisscrossing the country, first in Amtrak trains and then in his Madden Cruiser, a decked-out motor coach that was a rare luxurious concession for a man whose idea of a big night out, as detailed in his book “One Size Doesn’t Fit All” (1988), was wearing “a sweatsuit and sneakers to a real Mexican restaurant for nachos and a chile Colorado.”

…

Madden ditched the dress code and encouraged individual expression, tolerating his players’ penchant for wild nights and carousing because, he knew, they would always give him their full effort — especially on Sundays. Unlike the disciplinarians of his day, he imposed few rules, asking them only to listen, to be on time and to play hard when he demanded it. Madden told The New York Times in 1969 that “there has to be an honesty that you be yourself”; for him, that meant treating his players as “intelligent human beings.”

I wouldn’t say I was ever a big Madden fan. I had nothing against him, it was more a matter of me not being a big football fan in general. But that seems like a good general leadership principle: be yourself, and treat your people like intelligent human beings.

But when Madden retired, having been pummeled by ulcers and panic attacks and what is now regarded as burnout, he could boast of a résumé that included a Super Bowl XI demolition of the Minnesota Vikings in 1977; a .759 regular-season winning percentage (103-32-7), best among coaches who have worked at least 100 games; and an on-field view of some of the most controversial and memorable moments in football history: the notorious “Heidi” game (1968), the Immaculate Reception (1972) and the infamous Holy Roller play in 1978, his final season.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Madden was offered the “Ernie Pantusso” role on “Cheers”, but turned it down.

Harry M. Reid. Las Vegas Review Journal.

Jeff Dickerson, ESPN reporter covering the Chicago Bears. He was only 44.

I wanted to note this, even though he wasn’t as famous as the other guys. The ESPN obit makes Mr. Dickerson sound like a really good guy who was taken too soon:

Even after being placed in hospice last week, he told colleagues he was there merely to humor his doctors. No one around him heard a word of self-pity, and he disarmed those who expressed concern by asking them about their own lives.
“JD always wants to know how you’re doing,” Waddle said. “I’d ask him how he’s doing and his first response is, ‘How are you doing? How are [Waddle’s daughters]?’ The dignity with which he has carried himself through some of the most difficult times any human being would be asked to go through, what his wife went through and the dignity and strength and grace that he showed at her side throughout all of this … I don’t know anybody I’ve met in my 54 years in life who has handled adversity over the last decade with more grace and strength and dignity than Jeff Dickerson. I know a lot of people go through [stuff]. I do. I’m sympathetic to all of it. But what Jeff Dickerson has had to go through the last decade is cruel.

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Known for his friendly demeanor, clear voice and straight talk, Dickerson reported the facts but was not afraid to tell his listeners and readers what he thought about the Bears. He confronted team management when necessary, but never made a show of it.

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“He always carried a care for the subject that he was going to write about,” said Gould, who co-hosted an ESPN 1000 radio show with Dickerson during a portion of his Bears career. “As a player you can appreciate that the wisdom he put on paper was as neutral and correct as it ever was going to be. It was always going to be your words. It was always going to be what the story was. It was never going to be someone filling in the blanks …
“Players definitely noticed. He always wrote a true story. He always wrote what was happening at the moment. He didn’t try to back the bus up over somebody. He tried to get it exactly how the story was. … I think you saw a lot of guys give him a lot of credit because they knew he would write it right.”