Josh Boyer out as defensive coordinator for the Miami Dolphins. Also out: safeties coach Steve Gregory, outside linebackers coach Ty McKenzie, and assistant linebackers coach Steve Ferentz.
Archive for the ‘NFL’ Category
Quick lazy firings watch.
Thursday, January 19th, 2023Firings watch.
Tuesday, January 17th, 2023Quick firings watch.
Wednesday, January 11th, 2023There haven’t been any additional head coach firings in the past couple of days, but there have been a few lower level firings:
Mike LaFleur out as offensive coordinator for the Jets.
Scott Turner out as offensive coordinator for the Washington Generals Redskins Commanders.
The Tennessee Titans fired offensive coordinator Todd Downing on Monday. Also out: ffensive line coach Keith Carter, secondary coach Anthony Midget and offensive skill assistant Erik Frazier.
Obit watch: January 9, 2023.
Monday, January 9th, 2023Bernard Kalb, former foreign correspondent for CBS, NBC, and the NYT.
He reported for The Times from 1946 to 1962, for CBS during the next 18 years (during which he joined his brother, Marvin, on the diplomatic beat) and as NBC’s State Department correspondent from 1980 to 1985. Then, for nearly two years, he served in the Reagan administration’s State Department — a stint that ended contentiously.
As a CBS correspondent in 1972, Mr. Kalb accompanied President Richard M. Nixon on the trip to China that proved to be a major step in the normalization of relations between the two nations. He also made virtually every overseas trip with Henry A. Kissinger, Cyrus R. Vance, Edmund S. Muskie, Alexander M. Haig Jr. and George P. Shultz during their tenures as secretary of state.
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Russell Banks, novelist.
Joyce Meskis, former owner of The Tattered Cover.
In addition to creating a bookstore famed for its vast selection and bibliophile-friendly atmosphere, Ms. Meskis often took a stand in matters related to censorship and the First Amendment. Sometimes those positions were not easy ones to embrace.
In 1991, for instance, when she was president of the American Booksellers Association, she testified against the proposed Pornography Victims Compensation Act, a bill introduced by Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, that would have allowed victims of sex crimes to sue distributors of pornography, including bookstores, if they could demonstrate that pornography influenced their attacker. Opponents of that bill (which died in committee) were sometimes labeled pro-pornography, but Ms. Meskis knew the real issue was that the law would make bookstores wary of selling anything controversial.
Similarly, the case she took to the Colorado Supreme Court some two decades ago pitted her against law enforcement officials, who were trying to build a case against a customer suspected of making methamphetamine. In 2000 the police found two books on drugmaking in a trailer home used as a meth lab; they also found an envelope with Ms. Meskis’s bookstore listed as the return address. Hoping to link the drugmaking to the recipient whose name was on the envelope, they sought Ms. Meskis’s sales records — and, though her stand read as pro-drug to some, she again saw the bigger picture.
“This is about access to private records of the book-buying public,” she told The New York Times in 2000. “If buyers thought that their records would be turned over to the government, it would have a chilling affect on what they buy and what they read.”
In 2002 the State Supreme Court ruled that both the First Amendment and the Colorado Constitution “protect an individual’s fundamental right to purchase books anonymously, free from governmental interference.”
Adam Rich. Other credits include “CHiPs”, “Silver Spoons”, and “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star”.
Owen Roizman, cinematographer. “The French Connection”, “The Exorcist”, and “Network”? Wow.
Art McNally, NFL official credited as being “the father of instant replay”.
Earl Boen. Other credits (he has 291 as an actor: man worked) include video game spun offs from a minor 1960s SF TV series, “Battle Beyond the Stars”, the good “Hawaii 5-0”, and “Richie Brockelman, Private Eye”.
Your Bloody Monday thread.
Monday, January 9th, 2023The NFL regular season ended yesterday. You know what that means.
Yes, the firings will continue until morale improves. This is your Bloody Monday NFL firings thread, which I will try to keep updated today.
Starting with yesterday’s “Damn, you didn’t even wait to get him in the house” firing: Lovie Smith out as head coach of the Texans after one season. 3-13-1 as Texans coach. From the NYPost:
This team was so inept, they couldn’t even get the first draft choice. What the heck happened? The Texans used to be at least competitive.
Joe Woods out as defensive coordinator in Cleveland. At least the Browns were competitive (7-10 this season).
More later, if there are any more firings today.
Edited to add: Kliff Kingsbury out as head coach of the Cardinals, and Steve Keim stepping down as GM. Keim’s resignation is apparently for health reasons.
Kingsbury was 28-37-1 overall, and the team was 4-13 this season. Interestingly, both Kingsbury and Keim had their contracts extended last March.
Obit watch: January 3, 2023.
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023Very quick roundups from the past few days:
Fred White, drummer for Earth, Wind and Fire.
Anita Pointer, of the Pointer Sisters.
Jeremiah Green, drummer for Modest Mouse.
Uche Nwaneri, former offensive lineman for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was 38.
RoadRich sent over an obit for Ken Block, rally driver and YouTuber. He was 55, and died in a snowmobile accident.
Chris Ledesma, music editor for “The Simpsons”. He worked on every episode through May of 2022.
Merry Christmas!
Monday, December 26th, 2022I know, it is December 26th, but as I always say: all people of goodwill know the Christmas season runs through January 6th.
Today’s Christmas present: Nathaniel Hackett out as head coach of the Denver Broncos, less than a year after being hired.
The Broncos are 4-11 this season (and in Hackett’s tenure) and lost 51-14 to the (5-10) Rams on Sunday. But they did beat the Texans in week 2, so they’re not quite the most pathetic team in the NFL this season.
Obit watch: December 21, 2022.
Wednesday, December 21st, 2022Franco Harris, one of the great Steelers. Archive version, but the NYT keeps saying “This is a developing story. A full obituary will be published soon.”
The 6-foot-2 running back won four Super Bowls with the Steelers as they established themselves as the N.F.L.’s dominant team of the 1970s, and he was named to the Pro Bowl in each of his first nine seasons. But it was a single, heads-up play that more than anything defined his career.
On Dec. 23, 1972, the Steelers were trailing, 7-6, in a divisional round playoff game against the Oakland Raiders. With less than 30 seconds to play in the fourth quarter, the Steelers quarterback, Terry Bradshaw, lofted a desperation pass to John “Frenchy” Fuqua, only to see the ball deflect toward the ground. But Harris scooped the ball out of the air just inches from the turf and ran untouched for the game-winning touchdown, a miraculous finish that has been replayed thousands of times since.
Five decades later, Harris, who played college football at Penn State, remained one of the most beloved Steelers players, an instantly recognizable face in Pittsburgh. He rushed for 12,120 yards over 13 seasons, 12 of which were with Pittsburgh, and was a linchpin of the Steelers’ most successful era, winning Super Bowls in the 1974, 1975, 1978 and 1979 seasons.
I want to mention pigpen51’s obit for Les Lowery, leather and saddle maker. I was unfamiliar with him until pigpen posted, but he sounds like a really good guy: anybody who helps people walk is doing a mitzvah in my book. I spent some time trying to find more about Mr. Lowery online, but everything I did find was paywalled.
Mike Hodges, director. Other credits include “The Terminal Man”, “Morons From Outer Space”, and “A Prayer For the Dying”.
Frank “Cadillac Frank” Salemme, notorious New England mobster.
Firings watch.
Sunday, December 18th, 2022Not exactly a firing, but relevant:
NFL officials have informed the owners of the league’s 32 franchises that teams have spent $800 million on fired coaches and front-office executives over the past five years, league sources told ESPN.
The message, delivered this past week at the owners meetings in Dallas, was sent by the league as a reminder that as some franchises mull significant changes at the end of the season, hundreds of millions of dollars have been squandered recently by teams that may need to act less hastily.
NFL officials went so far as to compose spreadsheets specific to each team about the employees they fired and the costs incurred by the team, according to sources. The league wanted each team to see the exact cost for instability and the employees that they paid for services no longer rendered.
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Crash of the Titans.
Tuesday, December 6th, 2022Jon Robinson out as general manager of the Tennessee Titans.
Interestingly, the Titans are 7-5 and at the top of their division…
Firings watch.
Monday, December 5th, 2022The Browns picked him first in the 2018 draft, and traded him in July to the Panthers for a fifth-round draft pick (“…that could have become a fourth had Mayfield, the first pick of the 2018 draft, played 70% of the snaps.”)
Firings watch.
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2022This is a weird one.
Sean Kugler out as offensive line coach/running game coordinator of the Arizona Cardinals..
Why fire Kugler? Well, they are 4-7…but apparently that’s not why.
Answer: there was some sort of unspecified “incident” while the Cardinals were in Mexico City for Monday Night Football. More from ESPN, although the article seems speculative.
Norts spews.
Monday, November 7th, 2022I feel like I am obligated to say something about the Houston Astros winning the World Series.
With that out of the way, I wanted to mention my Theory of Compensatory Suckage.
The Astros won the World Series. The Houston Texans are 1-6-1 so far this season, which gives them the worst record in the NFL at the moment. The Houston Rockets are currently 1-9, which is the worst record in basketball at the moment. Seems like everything balances out.
In other news: Frank Reich out as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts.
40-34-1 over roughly four and a half seasons.
The triggering event seems to have been the Colts losing 26-3 to New England on Sunday, and putting up 121 yards of offense in the process.
Obit watch: November 3, 2022.
Thursday, November 3rd, 2022George Booth, New Yorker cartoonist.
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(Hattip: Lawrence.)
Erica Hoy, Australian actress. IMDB. She was 26, and died in a car crash.
Ray Guy, punter. He was a first round draft choice for the Raiders in 1973:
It was the first time a punter had ever been picked in the first round, and it’s only happened one other time since — Steve Little, in 1978 by the Cardinals, and he was also a kicker.
Guy played with the Raiders, who moved to Los Angeles in 1982, through the end of his career in 1986. He made the Pro Bowl seven times and was a first-team All-Pro in six different seasons. He played a role in three Super Bowl championships.
Obit watch: October 20, 2022.
Thursday, October 20th, 2022Charley Trippi, football player.
Although he was a football star at a time when many players appeared on both offense and defense, Trippi was especially renowned for doing just about everything but kicking field goals and extra points and snapping the ball.
In his nine years with the Cardinals, he ran for 3,506 yards, threw for 2,547 yards and amassed 1,321 yards in pass receptions — the only player in the Pro Football Hall of Fame to have exceeded 1,000 yards in each category. He played at left halfback and quarterback, punted and returned punts and kickoffs, and finished out his career at defensive back.
Trippi took Georgia to an unbeaten 1946 season when he was runner-up for the Heisman Trophy behind Army’s Glenn Davis. He received the Maxwell Award, which also honors college football’s leading player.
He was a member of both the College Football Hall of Fame and Pro Football Hall of Fame. Mr. Trippi was 100 when he passed, and at the time was the oldest living member of both.
Roger Welsch, tractor guy.
Okay, that’s a little misleading. He was also a regular on CBS “Sunday Morning”, a professor of anthropology at the University of Nebraska, founder of the Liars Hall of Fame:
and a honorary member of the Pawnee, Omaha, and Oglala tribes. And a tractor guy.
His practical interest in tractors, especially antiques, became a fixation in his writing and speaking, and for years he maintained a popular website full of geeky farm-implement arcana. In 1988, The New York Times wrote that Mr. Welsch “is to tractor restoration, and the Allis-Chalmers in particular, what Thoreau was to the lakeside cabin.”
He wrote more than 40 books about love, tractors, dogs and women, including “Everything I Know About Women I Learned From My Tractor” (2002) and “Busted Tractors and Rusty Knuckles: Norwegian Torque Wrench Techniques and Other Fine Points of Tractor Restoration” (1997) — a book as funny as its title is droll.