Requiem for a HARFHARFHARFyweight: Thursday Open Thread

So technically the biggest “news” of the day isn’t really news at all, with Ben Roethlisberger making the formal announcement of his long-expected retirement. I’m not going to waste your time or my energy with some bullshit “complicated legacy” take on his 18 year career. He was an asshole rapist with rocks in his head and a cannon for an arm. Very few people seem to have liked the man, which is almost impressive for a guy with two Super Bowl rings playing for a Top Four Stan-Filled Fanbase. He subsisted on the crumbs left by Tom Brady and managed to be just as unlikeable. No doubt he will end up replacing Terry Bradshaw on a pregame show.

COACHING NEWS

Jesus, I missed my traditional Blackish Monday coach-firing roundup and we’re suddenly two deep in the hiring phase? And neither one was an interim? The world spins faster every day….

*The Denver Broncos have hire Youngish White Failson Nathaniel Hackett as their new head coach. He is the son of long-time offensive coordinator Paul Hackett, and seems to be a less charismatic but less despicable Lane Kiffin.

This goofy-looking fucker…

He is most notable for his stints with Doug Marrone in Buffalo and jacksonville, where he ran offenses famous for their high-powered passing attacks.

No…wait…

His offenses historically sucked at passing (EJ Manuel and Blake Bortles were his main QBs) but ran it well, making hay with The Immortal Fred Jackson, CJ Spiller and Leonard Fournette. In 2019 he was hired as Green Bay’s offensive coordinator and had much greater success with his new “Let Aaron Rodgers Decide What He Wants To Do” offense.  He does fulfill the general brief: he’s relatively young (yes, Old White Roofing Supply Salesman is only 42), white, goofy-looking and never would have gotten a sniff in the NFL if he weren’t a legacy.

Some coaches are hired because of the staff they promise to bring on board. Hackett may have been hired because of the QB he might bring with him. You see, Aaron Rodgers likes him- a damning indictment if there ever was one. Rodgers was strongly rumored to be pushing for a trade to Denver last offseason, so the conspiracy-minded amongst us see this as an attempt to convince Q-aron that he still wants out of Wisconsin. Regardless, he’s got Adam Gase written all over him: a “genius” only in the reflected radiance of a HoF quarterback.

INSTANT AND IRREVOCABLE VERDICT:

*The Chicago Bears have hired Indianapolis Colts DC Matt Eberflus.

THIS GUY EBERFLUS, I CALL HIM “THE SOUND OF MUSIC” BECAUSE HIS NAME RUNS THROUGH MY HEAD TO THE TUNE OF “EDELWEISS”!  Oh, and because he might be a fascist prick. More on that below.

Eberflus’ “coaching lineage” is deeply concerning, doing most of his early work under The Wolfman Rob Ryan (AWOOOOOOOOO) and Rod Marinelli. He was then hired to be Josh McDaniels’ defensive coordinator in Indy during McDaniels’ less-than-a-day tenure. Frank Reich retained him anyway, and he’s turned the Clots defense from a huge liability to an asset that largely kept that team afloat.

The concerning part, to me, comes from a 2018 profile in The Athletic. The centerpiece of that article:

This man is not running a defense. He’s instilling a culture. It is an obsessive, uncompromising and ultra-demanding culture of hustle, discipline and teamwork.

Eberflus will not bend his inflexible rules for anyone. If you’re on the field, you will fall in line. You will buy in. The alternative is, well, there is no alternative.

Eberflus brought with him an intense grading system which assesses demerits, of sorts, to players who do not play with maximum effort. They are known as loafs, and literally every play of every game is graded.

Now, this is basically hardcore pornography for the Superfans portion of the Bears fanbase, who cum violently everytime someone yells about SMASHMOUTH FOOTBALL on sports radio. But as we’ve seen with so many micromanaging martinet coaches over the last 10 years, you better have some immediate ans sustained success, because otherwise you are going to lose the locker room real quick.

There are also concerns that the hire does nothing to address the Bears’ most fundamental issue: the inability to develop a quarterback since Sid Luckman.  Well, that and being run by Ginny McCaskey’s idiot children. The grade should be “incomplete until we see his staff” but that’s not my style.

INSTANT AND IRREVOCABLE GRADE: