Schottenheimer

[Om]

After listening to Coach Marty's speech at the Redskins Welcome Home Luncheon, I felt compelled to dig up the following, originally posted soon after Marty came to town.

I believe the speech is available at www.redskins.com.

In my mind, if his players aren't motivated to excel and perform for this man ... they should probably find another line of work.

<u>1/4/01</u>

Top Ten Reasons To Like Coach Marty:

X - The man just couldn't deal with Art Modell. That's one in the plus column right off.

IX - From some angles, those specs make him look like . . . Joe Gibbs.

VIII - He cried in genuine anguish at press conferences following heart-rending losses in AFC Championship Games. "Hey, we competed?" Not.

VII - Engage spellchecker, please. I mean, how many ways could you botch "Turner?"

VI - We probably won't call him M-Schott. Think about it.

V - The Gibbs/Cooke/Casserly/Turner holdover/hangover is officially, finally over. RIP.

IV - You'll see lots of Skins pre-game speechifying on NFL Films. The man talks the talk.

III - He probably won't bail on us for another team. He's fresh out of clubs named after Native Americans to coach . . . unless he switches to baseball.

II - Total Number Of Humans Who Have Coached Super Bowl Winners: 19. Humans Who Have Not: Everyone Else (Mr. Sagan, if you please? Billions and billions).

So let's get off Marty's back about The Big One.

For now.

NUMBER ONE REASON: Martin Xavier Schottenheimer has never, ever been employed by the Dallas Cowboys.

<u>1/5/01</u>

After listening to Coach Marty's press conference yesterday, I went straight to the basement, pulled out my old helmet and ran into a couple of walls (a few years ago I might have made it through). The man was born to be a football coach.

Marty -

. . . calls the owner "Dan." Think Norv didn't cringe at that? I always thought his teeth would break from the clenching when he had to call The Danny "Mr. Snyder" in front of the cameras.

. . . calls his wife "honey" in front of a room full of TV cameras and reporters. I have no idea what that says about him, but there it is.

. . . is articulate in a way Norv never was. In one half of his first hour as coach, he used more vocabulary and exhibited more oratorical skills than his predecessor did in eight years. I noted "purview," "three-pronged plan," not to mention the use of "criteria" and "paramount" in the same sentence in just the first few minutes. Maybe we won't create another dynasty under the guy, but at least listening to him will be a treat. Anyone notice how he suckered John Saracino and George Michaels into "incorrectly" answering his theoretical question about whether confidence or success comes first? Priceless. (I hear that Kornheiser, in noting Marty's education in English, points out that he may be the only coach who knows the difference between Beowulf and Ron Wolf)

. . . quite pointedly noted that his 5-11 playoff record was a "major disappointment" to him and that improving on that is one of the primary reasons he's here. Gotta like the fact that he knows what we're all thinking and faces it head-on.

. . . gives the Redskins a public face other than Norv and/or The Danny. Don't know about anybody else, but I feel pretty good about that.

*

Two ugly preseason losses have done little to change my opinion on the hiring of Marty Schottenheimer, or dim my long-term outlook for his new team.

Hail the New Redskins ...

[ by Om on August 23, 2001.]

[bulldog]

every coach inherits players and circumstances that are not to his liking. It takes time for even the best and most organized coaches to clear out the deadwood and the players that may have talent but don't have the heart or ethic that is required to be successful.

Marty has shown himself to be quite capable of coaching the classic overachiever in his time in the NFL. In fact his Cleveland teams had perhaps an abundance of those kinds of players.

The challenge for Marty here is to blend in such players which we have been sorely missing with a core of younger stars in the making, a luxury he has never had before.

Personally, I have a lot more respect for him because he DID disassemble Norv's team and admit that as constituted it was not capable of getting to the heights it had staked out for itself.

It would have been far easier to let the purge end with Deion and allow Stubby and Centers and others to stay.

But the mix was bad. The feel of it all was bad. Even the players that left and could not agree on anything else, agreed on that fact.

Will the new course lead the team to the Super Bowl?

We hope, but we don't really know. But we DO know that last year's apex was 8-8 with the oldest team in the NFL.

What were the chances that lineup was going to get better with further age and time?

By taking the personnel actions he did, Marty ensured that we will be able to keep the Jansens and Baileys on our team and pay them fairly for being the best players that represent us each Sunday.

We no longer will have to apologize to productive players for not being able to renegotiate their deals because we have to pay lazy, overfed oafs like Stubby and players clearly in decline like Carrier and Deion Sanders.

I am sure that Marty would never have allowed a team he was coaching to acquire those players.

And that is one of the things I like about him most. He is not someone else's "YES" man the way Norv Turner was.

Schottenheimer would walk away from a situation that was uncomfortable for him with the confidence he could be employed elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Turner stuck around for 2 years after Snyder bought the team knowing the owner wanted to hire another coach.

He should have been a man about it and left. Instead he stayed out of stubbornness and because he wanted the money.

[redman]

Good posts guys. I'm gulping Marty cool-aid too right now. Ain't it refreshing!?!

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"Loosen up, Sandy baby. You're just too damn tight!" - John Riggins to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

[TennesseeCarl]

Marty appears to be the anti-Norv. So far, I think that's great. This franchise was drifting around in mediocrity and (totally undeserved) hubris. When Sonny Jurgensen, that bastion of The Holy Work Ethic, complains about a Club Med atmosphere, you know there are terrible locker room problems.

I like Marty. I like reading articles about enforcing curfews in dorm rooms. I like hearing about his tough camp and attention to detail. But the bottom line is winning. If we're not winning, I don't care if he's the second coming of Frank Kush. None of that disciplinarian stuff will matter.

This is not a team barren in terms of talent. If Schottenheimer can't win (I'm not talking Super Bowl) this year or next, the fans and the media will devour him.

[indyskinsfan]

Thanks on the posts guys, and decent thread there Om.

I like the way he approaches the game and the "men" are treated like men, with the performance being the measuring stick, not what's your rep. Reps have to be repeated to maintain a position. If you can't keep it sustained, it's time to move on.

<FONT COLOR="Yellow">H</FONT c><FONT COLOR="Red">T</FONT c><FONT COLOR="Yellow">T</FONT c><FONT COLOR="Red">R</FONT c><FONT COLOR="Yellow">!!!!!!</FONT c>

[NavyDave]

Who wouldn't go to war with this guy?

Gunnery Sgt Marty will have a lean mean fighting machine that will take this hill or that hill, next year.

This year we'll take the beach ie a playoff spot

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Take a sip of the Marty Kool Aid and Believe