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Iron unkind King: Saints left with little choice but to fire Ditka
Posted: Thursday January 06, 2000 08:12 AM
Sports Illustrated NFL writer Peter King discussed Mike Ditka's firing from the New Orleans Saints with CNNSI.com. CNNSI.com : Why did Mike Ditka have to go? Peter King : I think basically, not only did the record indict Mike Ditka but immediate prospects for the future indicted him. First of all, this is a team that has no quarterback on the roster for the long term. It certainly is going to need help at receiver. Even though they drafted Ricky Williams, they don't have a big back to block for him. And they certainly have needs on the front seven on defense, although they are better on defense than they were on offense. This is a team with six or seven major holes and the players whom general manager Bill Kuharich and Ditka have brought in the last three years just haven't done the job. Blame injuries, blame whatever you want. The fact is, Ditka was 15-33. Kuharich was 18-48. Neither of those jobs today in the NFL can get it done. CNNSI.com : What do you see the Saints doing now? King : Tom Benson, the owner of the Saints is very likely to look for a football guy. A Charley Casserly-type -- a general manager who's been in the league before and who knows the inner-workings of the league. Casserly has been strongly recommended to Benson by league officials to take that job and sort of re-shape that franchise in his image. If Casserly takes the job, don't look for him to hire some big star coach. It's more likely a Dom Capers, the defensive coordinator in Jacksonville or Jim Haslett the defensive coordinator in Pittsburgh -- both of whom coincidentally have been in New Orleans before and were very popular with Benson. CNNSI.com : How bad was the Ricky Williams draft deal look now? King : Well, after one year, the Williams deal looks terrible. But I'm of the opinion, the strong opinion that I don't think you can judge any trade right now based on one year. You can't judge a draft pick on one year. It's ludicrous. If Williams is injury-free next year and does what he is suppose to do, he'll gain 1,400 yards and everybody will be saying, "See, that wasn't such a bad trade after all." If he stays hurt, obviously the trade is going to haunt this franchise for years to come. But when this trade was made, I said I liked this trade for one very simple reason: the Ricky Williamses of the world are rare. The guys who you can get in the third, fourth, fifth round, you can go out and beg, borrow and steal one. But if Williams comes backs plays the way he can, the trade is going to look OK. The biggest problem now with Williams is making sure that he stays under his weight, which has been a problem through his career. And to make sure that he stays in the program in the offseason, works hard so that the injuries don't repeat themselves in 2000. CNNSI.com : What do you think was the biggest problem with Ditka, besides the fact with his record? Did he hang himself personnel-wise? King : I think three things about the Ditka regime. Number one, he steadfastly refused to go out and spend money on a quarterback. You know for the last two years they just picked quarterbacks basically from the trash heap of the NFL -- Kerry Collins, Billy Joe Tolliver, Billy Joe Hobert, Danny Wuerffel and Jake Delhomme. They didn't go out and spend money on a Neil O'Donnell or a quarterback who has been in the league and has had some success recently and whose had a little bit of history of taking a team a little ways either in the playoffs or just as a winning quarterback. And that was mistake No. 1. The other two things that really hurt him is that he did not have a good coaching staff around him. This year surprisingly, Mike took on his coordinators Zaven Yaralian on defense and Danny Abramowicz offensively. He took them on in public. I am of the opinion that they badly misused Ricky Williams early in the year. And if you are going to have the guy on your team and you are going to have him active, then you ought to play him. And if he wasn't going to be active and he wasn't healthy enough, then don't play him. But I think the coaching staff was a problem. And I think the third thing, and this is kind of a, you don't really know how much it is, I think the players had lost faith in Ditka. The players on this team didn't believe that Ditka was the same guy who had left Chicago eight or nine years ago and had been out of football a while. And I think most people around the team, most players, one of them had said to me that they think the years had sapped Ditka's desire. I think the players lost faith in Mike Ditka to motivate them and motivate them to be a winning coach in the NFL. And I think Ditka had lost some faith in himself. He had told someone in the Saints' offices recently, "Hey, I don't know that I'm the guy to lead this team. I don't know if I can lead an NFL team anymore." And more and more, I was hearing from guys in this organization, on this team that Ditka wasn't the same guy he was when he was in Chicago. And I think that was a real key factor. The fact that Ditka, even though he was a bit fire and brimstone-ish on Sundays, he just wasn't the same. CNNSI.com : Firing Ditka was a tough move for Benson, wasn't it? King : Benson desperately wanted Ditka to succeed. And I think if he had been given any hope this year, 7-9, a win over St. Louis, something to let him hang on to. Something to give him hope that they were close to turning it around. But the fact is, when Benson looks at this team in January of 2000, it's in worse shape than the team that Ditka took over in January 1997. Benson badly wanted to believe in Ditka, desperately wanted to believe in him because he liked Ditka. He loved Ditka's presence in the organization, loved what he meant in the city. And Benson looked at this and said, "I have no choice here. I have to make a change because I've been given no clue here that we're headed in the right direction." They've got $10 million in cap room coming up this year. They will be able to go out and buy a quarterback and do the things that it takes. But how much longer would Mike Ditka be the coach and how much success would he bring? I think he saw a dead-end street with Mike Ditka.
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