Coach of the Year

Just a couple days ago the NFL awarded the Coach of The Year award to Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints. The voting went as follows:

Sean Payton-44 votes
Eric Mangini-3 votes
Marty Schottenheimer-2 votes
Jeff Fisher-1 vote

Sure I could sit here and nitpick and tell you why I'd vote differently. Instead, I'd like to show you what this illustrates about the media.

As everyone knows, the media is slanted towards the East coast and players/coaches that they like. And I cannot fault them for this either. I mean when you see/hear about the same teams day in and day out you're going to focus on their exploits more-both good and bad. And if you like someone you are more inclined to root for them to succeed.

But what this does show is how the media labels a coach or player, specifically Jeff Fisher and Vince Young. When you think about VY, most think winner. That he gets the job done no matter what. On the flip side, what do you think about the name Jeff Fisher? Maybe that he's had a long career with the same team. Anything else? The 'stache you say. Sure both sound good. And that's why he only received 1 vote for Coach of the Year.

Most fans, and media included, think that the reason for the Titans surprising record is because VY "led" the team to victory. Never mind that he was one of the worst QB's statistically. Does anyone give Fisher any credit? Of course not.

Not only did he have a QB that threw more INT's than TD's, he also had the 2nd worst defense in Points Allowed. But what he did was hand off more than anyone giving his running game the opportunity to eat up as much clock as possible. It kept his porous defense off the field and the ball out of his turnover prone QB. Truly marvelous coaching job.

Furthermore, look at these records after moving to Nashville, Tennessee.

8-8
13-3
13-3
7-9
11-5
12-4

Then after accumulating arguably one of the top 3 talented teams, management broke up the team and here we are today.

Want more proof? Who has the toughest division? The one with the Colts and Jaguars or the one with the the 2nd place Panthers at 8-8 and the 3rd place Falcons at 7-9?

What team is more talented the Saints with Brees, Deuce and Reggie in the same backfield or the Titans? I'll answer the question for you. Just first name one Titan other than VY.

Rockets AAA team

For the last couple years the NBA has had a sort of minor league called the D-League. It's similar to a baseball team's minor league system in theory but in actuality it's quite different. The setup is as follows:

There are 12 teams that comprise the league. Each team has roughly 3 "parent" NBA teams. These NBA teams can stock their D-League team with up to 2 players but they have no control over how much each plays or even what system they use. These assigned players can only be 1st or 2nd year players. The league was especially beneficial to high schoolers that weren't yet ready to play in the NBA but since they aren't drafted any longer it's mostly 2nd round picks or undrafted players.

But I noticed this year a bit of a twist. For the first time, there's a D-League team that has only 1 parent team. The Lakers created their own team with their own coaches and players. They did it, mostly due to the fact that they run the triangle offense.

You see, normally if a team needs a player they simply pick whichever player they like, regardless if the player is on "their" team or not. But for the Lakers, none of the players were familiar with their system so they had to spend each night trying to get them up to speed on the terminology and plays. So they decided to just create their own team of players that will be already familiar with the system.

The Utah Jazz recenlty decided to field their own team next year. I believe each team will follow suit very soon, except for the Clippers cheap asses. I think it will be very helpful for teams to tailor their players to what their team needs are. For example, the Rockets team would be comprised of outside shooters that are used to making the entry pass and waiting for the kick out/open shot. Players would already know the system and culture of each team and be ready to step in much more ready.

Foreign players typically continue playing overseas for at least 1 year after they're drafted but I believe as this league continues to take shape, teams will demand they play here. The quality of instruction will be much more tailored and they'll still be able to log quality minutes. Not to mention, they'll be exposed to the American culture and their assimilation process will be much easier without the pressure of the NBA too.

The system will be virtually just like baseball's and I'm guessing it will be within 5 years. The only problem is each team would have another 10 players or so to sign. And I'm sure players won't want to be stuck on the D-League roster for years so there likely would be a max number of years imposed. Or the NBA could force each team to protect, say, 5 players or so each year and allow other teams to sign a player if they wanted, with the provision being he has to be on their NBA team for the entire next year. This is very similar to baseball's Rule 5 draft for minor leaguers.

Let me know what you think.