When a franchise chooses the wrong guy

As we enter the last quarter of the season, the rumors are beginning to fly about coaches and GMs on the hotseat. Often times, someone is made to be the scapegoat for a team's woes and there are a few times when a franchise has canned the wrong guy. Often times, it's evident at the time of the firing. Other times it is not. I want to recap a few times when a franchise canned the wrong guy and want to talk about coaches or GMs who may be unjustly fired this offseason.

1. San Francisco 49ers (1997)- George Seifert. Now I've heard he was fired. I've also heard he resigned. Regardless as to what happened, I don't think it should've gone down that way. There were lots of things the franchise did wrong throughout the 90s that led to the team being in the state it was in following the 1996 season. I glistening 12-4 record, but we weren't scaring anyone because we could no longer beat the top teams. Add in some terrible drafting, save for 1994, the talent level on the team really took a nosedive and we were really held up by the efforts of Steve Young (when healthy( and Rice during this time. The issues that plagued us didn't really improve after Seifert was gone and the wheels completely came off a few years later when Young got that final concussion in 1999 and a 2-1 team became a 4-12 team. I place the blame for our problems at the time on the front office of Carmen Policy, Dwight Clark, and to an extent, Eddie DeBartolo.

2. San Francisco 49ers (2003)- Sreve Mariucci. Of course it's us again. Under new ownership, Mariucci led us out of a temporary nose dive to some level of respectability. Back to back playoff appearances, an incredible playoff comeback, and a team that seemed poised to make a run, it was said Mariucci wanted more power. The Yorks opted to push Mariucci out and went with Bill Walsh's handpicked guy, Terry Donahue. That sent the team into a downward spiral until....

3. San Francisco 49ers (2015)- Jim Harbaugh. I see a pattern with our team. This time, it was Baalke over Harbaugh. I don't know what the source of contention was, but I find it hard to believe it couldn't be worked out. Regardless, the decision was made that Harbaugh was out and the team went with Trent Baalke, who seemingly was going to bring in someone to solve our offensive woes. We see how that worked out.

4. Chicago Bears (2013)- Lovie Smith. I disagreed with this firing then and I disagree with it now. Coming off of a 10-6 team, I saw the Bears as a team lacking offensively, couldn't keep Jay Cutler healthy, and it was mostly due to the bad drafting the Bears had for years. I thought Ray Charles could see this from the grave. Nevertheless, the Bears gave Lovie the ax and the Bears haven't even had so miuch as a 9-7 season since.

5. New York Giants (2016) Tom Coughlin- This is another one I disagreed with, but maybe it was Coughlin's time. Two years removed and it is abundantly clear that Coughlin wasn't the guy. Coughlin ends up in Jacksonville and all of a sudden, the formerly woeful Jaguars are in the midst of the playoff run. Since Hollywood is doing all of these remakes, they should do a remake of The Miracle Worker and make it about Tom Coughlin. As for the Giants, they gave themselves a headstart by firing the head coach and the GM who was truly at the root of their problems. The team once had pass rushers galore, running backs galore, and receivers galore. Now, not so much.

6. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2016) Love Smith. Lovie makes his second appearance for a wrongful termination. He seemingly learned from his major failure in Chicago by getting a decent OC the second time around. They drafted Jameis Winston first overall in 2015 and the trajctory of the first two seasons had Tampa looking like a team poised to make a run. 2-14 in 2015 in year 1 and 6-10 in 2016 in year 2, with his rookie franchise QB. I thought things were looking up for Tampa and they suddenly decide to fire Love Smith, with Jay Glazer being quoted as saying he wishes the team were more successful over the last two seasons. I wonder if he wishes the Bucs were more successful this season. Does Dirk Koetter lose his job?

Any others that anyone can think of?

Mooch benefited from good talent...just look at his career after getting fired...lucked into the job anyway should have never taken Seiferts Job.

Originally posted by jcs:
Mooch benefited from good talent...just look at his career after getting fired...lucked into the job anyway should have never taken Seiferts Job.

I more so give credit for the turnaround from 2000 to 2002. Without that, it doesn't look very good. Also have to consider, didn't he coach under Matt Millen in Detroit? Who was going to be successful under those conditions?

Originally posted by LifelongNiner:

Originally posted by jcs:
Mooch benefited from good talent...just look at his career after getting fired...lucked into the job anyway should have never taken Seiferts Job.

I more so give credit for the turnaround from 2000 to 2002. Without that, it doesn't look very good. Also have to consider, didn't he coach under Matt Millen in Detroit? Who was going to be successful under those conditions?

I give that credit to Walsh, I mean he didn't even have to develop Garcia who was winning CFL cups

Originally posted by jcs:

Originally posted by LifelongNiner:

Originally posted by jcs:
Mooch benefited from good talent...just look at his career after getting fired...lucked into the job anyway should have never taken Seiferts Job.

I more so give credit for the turnaround from 2000 to 2002. Without that, it doesn't look very good. Also have to consider, didn't he coach under Matt Millen in Detroit? Who was going to be successful under those conditions?

I give that credit to Walsh, I mean he didn't even have to develop Garcia who was winning CFL cups

If it were just the talent level, what happened to that playoff team in 2003? Mooch deserves some credit. And Garcia didn't exactly come to us completely polished. He was benched a game or two for Stenstrom in 1999.

Originally posted by LifelongNiner:

Originally posted by jcs:

Originally posted by LifelongNiner:

Originally posted by jcs:
Mooch benefited from good talent...just look at his career after getting fired...lucked into the job anyway should have never taken Seiferts Job.

I more so give credit for the turnaround from 2000 to 2002. Without that, it doesn't look very good. Also have to consider, didn't he coach under Matt Millen in Detroit? Who was going to be successful under those conditions?

I give that credit to Walsh, I mean he didn't even have to develop Garcia who was winning CFL cups

If it were just the talent level, what happened to that playoff team in 2003? Mooch deserves some credit. And Garcia didn't exactly come to us completely polished. He was benched a game or two for Stenstrom in 1999.

Injuries and the start of Cap hell.

Nice thread.

I'm going to add Mike McCoy OC Broncos. How a HC can hire a guy, yank his QB replace him with replacement level players and then fire his OC is beyond me. Vance Joseph was a terrible hire, and John Elway has a lot of explaining to do for his "life after Manning" prep and coach selection. If he wasn't a hero from his playing days he'd have been canned.

The Browns who had Belichek and Raiders had Shanahan.

The Cowboys had JJ and could have won more championships with him.

Holmgren should've got the hc job over seifert but we won 2 more titles so ppl never really mention it

Originally posted by socalniner:
The Browns who had Belichek and Raiders had Shanahan.

The Cowboys had JJ and could have won more championships with him.

These are, or should be, near the top of any owner-as-idiot list. Good post!

Originally posted by crabman82:
Holmgren should've got the hc job over seifert but we won 2 more titles so ppl never really mention it

Agree! Seifert was a pretty good coach, but Holmgren could have continued the Walsh offensive dynamic.

You can always count on the Browns in a discussion like this. They hire a lawyer, Sashi Brown to the GM post, his credentials were he went to Harvard Law School. He negotiated contracts and according to the Browns presser was close with the former GM. Did this guy ever strap on a helmet? He's a money-ball type, I guess. Hired when he was under 40 and fired at 41. The big question is how does a team justify keeping a coach who is 1-27.

Originally posted by RishikeshA:

You can always count on the Browns in a discussion like this. They hire a lawyer, Sashi Brown to the GM post, his credentials were he went to Harvard Law School. He negotiated contracts and according to the Browns presser was close with the former GM. Did this guy ever strap on a helmet? He's a money-ball type, I guess. Hired when he was under 40 and fired at 41. The big question is how does a team justify keeping a coach who is 1-27.

He did work for marvin lewis who has managed to stay at cincy forever but never has won anything so maybe some of that rubbed off on him

Originally posted by crabman82:
Holmgren should've got the hc job over seifert but we won 2 more titles so ppl never really mention it

This is an interesting one. In a lot of ways, George Seifert did appear to be next in line because he had a longer tenure. Mike Holmgren clearly was more of an heir apparent in terms of being an offensive mind and it does make sense in that regard for the team to pick Holmgren over Seifert. If we hire Holmgren, we definitely lose Seifert to Cleveland. I have kind of a soft spot for George and think he was more done in by bad personnel moves than his abilities as an actual coach. Best case scenario? We convince Mike Shanahan to stay on as OC and be the heir apparent to George Seifert. Not sure how long that arrangement would have worked, but I certainly would've tried.

Originally posted by dtg_9er:

Originally posted by crabman82:
Holmgren should've got the hc job over seifert but we won 2 more titles so ppl never really mention it

Agree! Seifert was a pretty good coach, but Holmgren could have continued the Walsh offensive dynamic.

Holmgren was on top of his game all the way into the mid 2000s, plus he knocked us out three times in the mid 90s. Who knows how many more titles we coulda won with him on our side instead of GB.