Quote:
Originally Posted by patteeu
While your analyses are interesting, one thing they don't take into account is the personnel philosophy at the time (long-range-thinking versus mortgage-the-future thinking). Both Schottenheimer and Vermeil were benefitted in their last 27 games by a mortgage-the-future philosophy (especially Vermeil) while their predecessors had to deal with the smoldering ruins. Herm took it on both ends because after dealing with the declining talent left to him by Vermeil, he went radical-young his final year which hurt him but has ended up helping Haley.
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Yeah, that's a good point. And in the only words of defense I'll ever say for Herm, he and Tom Wiggin both inherited teams whose best players were either immediately retiring or had just retired. I think that made a difference for those two as well, shifting blame from Vermeil, Cunningham, and Stram (yes, Stram), who should have been replacing those players and didn't. While Stram is obviously golden, the decline in talent his last three years was precipitous, and he had more than enough time to reload before the whole thing collapsed.
I think Stram and Vermeil (and to a lesser extent Marty) were all milking the last reserves of their key veterans at the end, and then left as the ship went down.