If you Google the phrase “Fire Jeff Fisher” you get 2.333 million results and, really, I think that’s a little low. After frightening every Los Angeles Rams fan early in the season with the rumor of a proposed three-year extension, Fisher seems comfortably on his way out. The only question is will owner Stan Kroenke pull the plug in the season to satisfy an increasingly bloodthirsty fanbase or will he just let Fisher’s contract expire at the end of the season.
As the Rams entered their bye the word came out that Fisher’s fate would be determined over the team’s next four games. As of Sunday afternoon, Los Angeles is already 0-1 in those four games (at the Jets, Dolphins and at the Saints). After that the Rams play at New England, host Atlanta, then play at Seattle. There is no reason to believe for a second the Rams won’t lose every game.
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The only problem with this call is the Rams players. I’ve said for the last two seasons this is the most talented Rams roster since 2003. Unlike that year, there isn’t a coach on the sideline that knows what the hell to do with them. Every single coach on Fisher’s staff is just like him, unfit for a job in the NFL.
That same talent level, as well as the chance to coach in the Los Angeles market will make the Rams very appealing to a top-level coach. Kroenke isn’t afraid to spend money, even when he’s tossing it down the toilet on a bum like Fisher. There will be no reason Los Angeles won’t have its pick of top coaches in the offseason.
Jeff Fisher wins the NFL Mannequin Challenge because he has stood still while the rest of the NFL has passed him by.
— Rich (@rcoop21) November 7, 2016
With the exception of cornerback Trumaine Johnson and safety T.J. McDonald, the Rams entire defense is still under contract in 2017. While Fisher has kept Jared Goff on the bench, he was still the most highly-touted quarterback in the last draft (not by me, but by pretty much everybody else). For all the guys sitting on their couches or on other team’s staff, getting handed this defense and a potential franchise quarterback will keep Kroenke’s phone ringing.
So who should the Rams go after? I have three names and feel good about all of them. Either of these men will not only know how to develop Goff, but transform the entire team into a winner and it won’t even take a full season to do it.
Jon Gruden
Gruden is entrenched at ESPN and rakes in around $6 million a year as an analyst on Monday Night Football and through the draft process. Does he even want to come back to coaching? Back in January, he told Paul Finebaum he still had the desire.
“I love football,” Gruden said. “I’ll be the first to tell you, I miss coaching. But I do look at my job here as a lot like coaching. I get a chance to be around it 364 days a year and I feel like I’m improving, but I don’t have a team.”
Gruden’s name is tossed around anytime a job opens up and this offseason will be no different. But Gruden will be in a different place this offseason. He’s had to sit across doofus Sean McDonough all year and should be as tired of the bald nincompoop as I am. L.A. is L.A. and with a team primed to make a jump, Gruden could easily jump Bristol’s ship.
Mike Shanahan
Of the coaches on this list, Shanahan probably makes the most sense. He’s coached in Los Angeles before with the Raiders before they moved to Oakland. He’s currently out of work and is a name floated around, like Gruden’s, when a job comes available. He built a Super Bowl team around John Elway once and all you have to do is envision Jared Goff and Todd Gurley in that kind of offense to know how natural a fit it would be.
Mike Martz
Like Shanahan, Martz is currently sitting on his sofa and much like Gruden and Shanahan, he’s content to stay there unless the right situation comes along. Martz, of course, was the architect of the Greatest Show on Turf that won one Super Bowl for the Rams in 1999 and nearly won another in 2001 in spite of some epic SpyGate cheating on the part of the Patriots.
Martz has an affection for the Rams. They’re the only team he doesn’t watch. Martz flamed out with the Rams because of his own hubris. He thought their success was more about his schemes than the players that ran them. He shuffled Kurt Warner out town for Marc Bulger and watched Warner take another NFC West team to the Super Bowl.
Martz has been humbled since and has since admitted he should have never let Warner go. Most importantly, Martz loves Goff and compared him to Warner when the Rams drafted him.
“I put the tape on and watched Goff play in college, and I was mesmerized,” Martz told the L.A. Times. “He made some throws that only really elite players can make under duress. To me, that’s the difference that can make a great player, what they do under duress. Just the skill level to make a throw off-balance, and knowing your going to get your butt kicked. That’s what Kurt did.”
Martz is a QB guru. He turned Trent Green into a Pro Bowl starter, then Warner and then Bulger in his time at the controls. He can do it again.
