Rumors keep connecting Vrabel to the Patriots. But there are rumors that Johnson-to-the-Raiders is gaining traction.
Detroit making the Super Bowl and us waiting for him to make a hire thinking its happening…then he goes elsewhere and we scramble for someone else with a bunch of scrapheap assistants…
You are very wise.
The top three considerations on the offensive side of the ball are all in the playoffs to date.
Would also say that the game had passed John Fox by at the point we hired him. I don’t see that as much with McCarthy. Not saying he’s my top choice, but well ahead of over half the list I’ve seen we have.
Now i know why Kliff has reportedly been saying he is fine where he is.... because he is still being paid by the Cardinals! He'd probably lose money if he took a HC job.
Think I'm taking a similar view with Jiddy here, altho I agree with your take that McCarthy is far from claiming the game has passed him by. I suppose my own bias is bleeding thru in that I'd prefer someone on the younger side. And as great of a coach as Pete Caroll has been, I'd place him more in the Bill Belichik category as a HC who'd be more transitory as opposed to potential long term.
I tried to find what his Cardinals contract is worth on Spotrac, but apparently they don't provide contract info on coaches. However, on one site, EssentiallySports, it states his remaining 3 year contract from the Cardinals ('25 thru '27) is worth $18m. If the Bears have a major boner to sign him, this amount seems relatively easy to top in order to make it worthy of jumping ship.
His contract as OC with the Commanders is ambiguous but one site estimates he's making about $5 to 6 mill in D.C. So my poor math skills say $25 mill per year pulls him out of both contracts. (And maybe the Cardinals contract is garaunteed ?)
What really, really , REALLY stung about it wasn't just due to the higher expectations just about all of us had in preseason, but the fact they actually got off to a pretty decent start. They were 4-2 after Week 6, riding a 3 game winning streak, and with those last two games in this period we smacked the shit out of our opponents by a combined 71-26 count. It began to look like the sky was the limit.
I wouldn’t say it was , “poof!” and the magic was gone. I think maybe people were seeing what they wanted to see In those first six games and aren’t remembering who we beat and how we beat them. Levis handed us the opening day win. The Rams win was against a badly depleted squad . The offense looked good against Jacksonville and Carolina who were both struggling mightily (though I admit there was hope in seeing the offense function well in those games)… The Indy loss was a HUGE red flag, etc…
