Coaches Continue Snatching DEFEAT from Jaws of VICTORY

By John Busacca

Week 4 in the NFL and NCAA proved once again that coaches are the most hypocritical, lying and self serving group of men ever assembled. They have these square jaws, chomp on gum and scream and yell and demand every drop of blood a player has. In the off season, if a player doesn’t show up at voluntary off season practices (OTR) their commitment is often questioned and they are pariahs to the team. The coaches demand the players get bigger, faster and stronger. They give a pre game speech and remind their players that “This is what all of our work comes down to; all your blood, sweat and tears need to be left on the field today”!!   The players march off into combat and play through cuts, bruises, sprains, muscle tears and broken bones in some cases to leave it all on the field. After 50 minutes of playing, they are about to realize the fruits of the sacrifice their coach demanded: VICTORY WILL BE OURS THIS DAY! The coach then forgets his yelling, screaming and challenges to his pack of angry Sparta warriors and instead of having the army of 300 finish off the enemy, he retreats and hopes the invaders just go away and flash him a “I will call you sign”.

This weekend Penn State dominated Ohio State for nearly 50 minutes. The defense was swarming, their QB McSorley was destroying them and Coach Jim Franklin was celebrating a huge victory that would surely put PSU into the playoff talk in a few weeks. Having this enormous victory in hand he decided it was time to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and went soft with the defense and soft with the play calling and soon OSU was moving up and down the field because the coach was a coward. That’s right, I said he is a coward who would rather lose playing the tried and true losing philosophy of trying to run out the clock than going out and winning the game because we are better prepared, better coached and all of our hard work will pay off. In other words, Coach Franklin was telling his players that leading after 50 minutes was a fluke and they got lucky. All the ‘leave it on the field ‘talk was just that. Talk. Not only did they make their defense weak and passive, but on offense they stopped making OSU chase the QB who tormented them most of the night. As if he couldn’t embarrass his players work enough, PSU had a game ending 4^th and 5 play to keep their drive alive and after 3 time outs two by PSU and one by OSU) Franklin took the ball out of his QB’s hand and did an off right tackle run for no gain and the game was over. How in the world do you not have your QB rolling with multiple run pass options? This coach owes all his players an apology for being a weak minded coach and betraying his player’s hard work.

Cleveland’s “Huge Mistake” Jackson was back to his old ways of figuring out how to lose games. Despite a late game lead on the road to the Raiders, he continued to deploy his vastly successful strategy of finding a way to lose just when he had the game in his clutches. He gave up a 10 point lead to the Raiders, who are a wreck right now due to Chucky Gruden. With a 42-34 lead late in the game, the Browns running back came up about six inches short on 3^rd down. Some have called this controversial and claimed that he should have been given the first down. However the Raiders were out of time outs and the Browns had 4^th and 6 inches to go to put the game away. What did you have to lose, besides the game? Instead of calling his team to the sideline and telling them this is a new team, new direction, new era…..he punted to the Raiders. He went soft on defense and the Raiders scored a TD and 2 point conversion and now the Browns have ONE win in their last 36 games. At some point Huge Mistake Jackson might want to pull a George Costanza from “Seinfeld” and whatever urge he has, do the opposite. Literally, every move you make is always the wrong one. What do you have to lose besides another game? At some point you have to admit some of these coaches go out of their way to snatch defeat from the Jaws of victory.

-BSB