5 Questions for Week 14

5 questions from the Doc.  The Juice’s anwers will be in bold.

1.    Will we ever see a female coach (head coach or assistant) of a major men’s sport team (lets say NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB, and NCAA Men’s Basketball and Football)?

When my wife and I were grad students at Vanderbilt, we used to attend a lot of the women’s basketball games, and got to be pretty big fans of some of the players.  Our favorite was their tiny floor-general of a point guard named Ashley McElhiney.  She had a great head for basketball and seemed destined to run a team herself when her playing career was over.  Ashley became the first female coach of a male professional basketball team in 2004, when she was hired to coach the American Basketball Association's Nashville Rhythm.  She was incredibly successful in her first year, but was undone by psychotic ownership.  Some info from Wikipedia:

Her coaching career got off to a good start, with the Rhythm achieving a 9-2 record at the start of the season and McElhiney being reported to have the support of the male Rhythm players.  Dontae’ Jones, a former NBA player then with the Rhythm, was quoted as saying, "It’s going to go a long way toward how women succeed from here on .... If I can help her continue to raise that bar, then I’m doing my job." Another Rhythm player, Adam Sonn, commented, "She comes in, and it’s just normal. It’s just a coach coaching."
The Rhythm's season was marred by an incident in which one of the team's co-owners, Sally Anthony, attempted to fire McElhiney in the middle of a game on January 29, 2005, on the grounds that McElhiney was playing Matt Freije after Anthony insisted that Freije be benched. McElhiney nevertheless finished coaching the game, which the Rhythm won. She was reinstated as coach by decision of the team's other two co-owners before the team's next game.
The Rhythm finished with a 21-10 record, qualifying for the playoffs and the chance to host a first-round playoff game. However, the team's owners chose to withdraw the team from the postseason, stating, "We've lost several players and felt we were not ready for the playoffs." McElhiney resigned as coach later the same week.

Here’s my point: the right woman is capable of coaching just as well as the right man.  Unfortunately, hiring a female coach to coach professional men is still so controversial, only a psychotic owner has done it.  We need someone like Ashley McElhiney to get a decent opportunity in a less than insane situation at the minor league or semi-pro level and be successful.  That will remove the stigma and get the ball rolling.  When will this happen?  It just requires the right random circumstances coming together, so it could be next week, or it could be twenty years.  But it’s just a matter of time.

2.    The Cowboys and Vikings experienced a bit of a turn around after firing their coaches. What do you expect from Denver? With a final 4 of @Cards, @Raiders, Texans, Chargers, can they influence the AFC West race?

There’s no doubt the Broncos could have a huge influence on the AFC playoff picture.  The question is whether they will react the same way to the coaching change that Dallas and Minny have.  It’s pretty obvious in the Vikings’ case that many of the players genuinely disliked coach Chillidog, and felt liberated by his firing.  In Dallas, the story may be similar, although there the players probably didn’t hate Grandpa Wade, they just didn’t respect him.  In both cases, it’s also possible that the replacement coaches are actually doing a better job of preparation, play-calling, and management than the asshats they replaced.

The Broncos could be a different story.  I’m not sure how well players got along with McDaniel.  He came across as a hyper-douche on TV, but that doesn’t mean much.  He obviously had problems with Marshall, but that kid is a nutcase.  Also, as much as he seemed like an ass, McDaniel apparently put in the hours and prepared hard, and I don’t remember him having too many problems with clock management or play-calling.  Also, I don’t think Denver has the talent Minny and Dallas have, so my guess is that they aren’t going to all-of-a-sudden become a great team in the next couple weeks.  I’m guessing they go 2-2 down the stretch.  The question is, will one of those wins be against the Raiders or Chargers?  I’m guessing not.

3.    I heard that Pat Bowlen (owner of the Broncos) is going to claim that he can fire Josh McDaniel ‘with cause’ since he knew of Spygate II and tried to sweep it under the rug. McDaniel has so far escaped punishment from the NFL by claiming ignorance. If Bowlen proves McDaniel knew about it and wins the case, what should his punishment be? Fine? Suspension?

This question makes me think of college coaches (like Pete Carroll leaving USC or John Calipari leaving Memphis) who jet right before the shit hits the fan, voluntarily or not, and then have no negative personal repercussions while their old program gets burned for their negligence.  Proper punishment for this sort of thing requires cooperation between all NCAA schools and the pro leagues.  If it was up to me, McDaniel would be fined if he’s still owed any money, and he’d be prohibited from holding any NFL or NCAA job for 12 months.  Same for guys like Pete Carroll.  No way we’ll see that kind of cooperation any time soon, though.  There’s no direct monetary benefit to the NCAA or NFL, so they aren’t interested.

4.    Let’s say the NCAA comes to its senses and adopts a play-off for the National Title. What is your system? Include locations of games played (does the bowl system still exist?).

Good question.  I think the bowl system is so corrupt and stupid, and so entrenched, that it needs to be completely torn down if we’re going to have a proper playoff.  I say it should operate similar to the NFL or DII and DIII colleges: up until the championship game, the team with the higher ranking hosts each game – the current BCS ranking system is fine by me.  I’d want a 24-team tournament, with 1^st-round byes for the top 8 teams.  All travel is funded (and planned – to “protect the kids’ study time”) by the NCAA from the profits made by television contracts.  The final championship game is played on Jan. 1^st at the same stadium every year (or rotates between a few stadiums) that is as neutral as possible: i.e., no DI team can play home games there.  New Orleans Superdome, Chargers Stadium in San Diego, and Cowboys Stadium in Dallas come to mind as good possible sites (with good winter weather and plenty of civic capacity for the attending hoopla).  Important rule: no new coach may be hired or even RECRUITED by any school until two weeks after the Jan 1^st championship.  It’s become a fucking arms-race, and it needs to be curtailed.

5.    Reverse question. Let’s say the NFL comes to its senses and adopts the college-scheduling format. After 12 games in the current NFL season, we basically have a full college season. What are your five ‘BCS bowls’? Here are the rules. Superbowl is between the two best teams. The 4 four remaining games are purely for entertainment and therefore cannot feature two teams that have played during the year.

Wow, that’s a tough one!  Your “no playing during the year” rule makes it really hard, and I had to look at the schedule a lot.  I assumed you meant the teams had not played each other yet this season, since we’re scrapping the remaining 4 weeks (Chicago and NYJ don’t play until Week 16).  Also, I made them all AFC vs NFC.  My “bowls”:

The North Face IceBowl: Baltimore vs. Green Bay

The Delta SkyBowl: Kansas City vs. New Orleans

The “Priceless” Bowl (Presented by American Express): Chicago vs. NY Jets

The Jack Daniels’ Hard and Straight Bowl: Pittsburgh vs. Philly

The Superbowl: Atlanta vs. New England

Bonus Game:

The Tampax Heavy-Flow Bowl: Carolina vs. Buffalo