Star & Coach Both Shown The Door

[AHF]

It occurred to me that we have seen an unusual event now twice in the last few months. A high profile coach and the team's star at its prime leadership position have some profile disputes and then both end up gone shortly thereafter. We saw this with Fisher & Young in Tennessee and with Sloan and Deron in Utah. Can you think of any other examples of this happening? I found both of those situations to be pretty unusual and was wondering if anyone could come up with similar situations.

[coachx]

Brett Farve and Mike Childress.

Its a little different in that Farve was at the point of obvious retirement but the same general premise non the less.

Edited March 3, 2011 by coachx

[AHF]

Brett Farve and Mike Childress.

The whole Vikings team seemed to hate Childress though.

Let me rephrase that to:

Star player desired by other teams and highly respect coach. I don't think anyone would touch Favre now and Childress seemed on the verge of getting fired anyway. The situation I am talking about is one where the coach seemed secure before the public spat with the player.

[coachx]

Let me rephrase that to:

Star player desired by other teams and highly respect coach. I don't think anyone would touch Favre now and Childress seemed on the verge of getting fired anyway. The situation I am talking about is one where the coach seemed secure before the public spat with the player.

Vince Young is hardly a star QB. He will have a tough time finding a starting job next season. Young and Fisher had been hating each other's guts for years. Half the locker-room thought he was mental. Everyone knew the owner and the coach were on different pages from the day Young was drafted.

Farve and Childress were at least once a great marriage of QB and coach. The coach wanted Farve and Farve wanted to be a Viking and play in Childress system.

Edited March 3, 2011 by coachx

[AHF]

Vince Young is hardly a star QB. He will have a tough time finding a starting job next season. Young and Fisher had been hating each other's guts for years. Half the locker-room thought he was mental. Everyone knew the owner and the coach were on different pages from the day Young was drafted.

Farve and Childress were at least once a great marriage of QB and coach. The coach wanted Farve and Farve wanted to be a Viking and play in Childress system.

I agree the coach wanted Favre but I am not sure how much Favre wanted to play in anything but the Favre system. Childress complained quietly about Favre freelancing even last year but had no leverage then. Also, I don't think many people thought much of Childress.

I agree that Young is far from a star like Deron. I fully expect him to be starting next season but we'll see how that goes.

What I found remarkable about both situations is that they are the sort of classic conflicts where a team is expected to pick between the player and the coach and in both cases both the coach and the player ended up gone which was an outcome few people anticipated. With Young and Fisher, people speculated that the owner might side with Young given their Texas connection, etc. and the good record Young compiled as a starter while others speculated that Fisher's long tenure and success would win out with the team endorsing him.

With Sloan it was perhaps even more shocking that the team was so not committed to retaining Deron that they shipped him out weeks later but they didn't back Sloan and ended up losing two franchise cornerstones.

To use an old-school comic analogy, it was like Archie ultimately dumping Veronica and Betty for some redhead.

Edited March 3, 2011 by AHF