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A good move NFL will like Jets' hiring of Edwards
Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King appeared on Thursday's edition of Sports Tonight to talk about the latest NFL coaching news and the Super Bowl. He was interviewed by CNNSI.com's Vince Cellini and Bob Lorenz. Vince Cellini: The New York Jets hired a new head coach Thursday in Herman Edwards from Tampa Bay. How does this aid in the plight of African-American coaches in the NFL? Peter King: I remember talking with Tony Dungy, Edwards' boss, a couple of months ago and he said, "Last year I talked to two owners in the NFL trying to get them to just interview Herman Edwards. I wasn't asking them to hire him. I was just asking them to spend 15 minutes on the phone with him." I said, "What happened?" Dungy told me, "They never picked up the phone." Three of the Jets' four coaching interviews were with African-American candidates. So I think this is going to start to turnaround a trend that the NFL was very embarrassed about. Forty-one of the previous 42 permanent head-coaching hires had been white men since Tony Dungy was hired five years ago. With this hire and with Baltimore defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis probably going to get a sniff right after the Super Bowl, I think that this story in the NFL will be put to bed. Bob Lorenz: Marvin Lewis is probably going to get more than a sniff. There's a lot of interest in him. Let's talk about what's going on in Detroit. I remember this past Sunday you said that Lions GM Matt Millen was talking a good game about the fact that head coach Gary Moeller was his guy. But you don't think it's going to go that way. So which direction is Detroit going? King: I don't think Millen is having good fortune right now. I think he'd really like to see either Marvin Lewis or Denver offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak come in. But I think he's troubled by the fact that Kubiak said Thursday, "Look, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to go interview with Detroit. I think I'm going to stay here in Denver if I can't go to Houston." Since it looks like Houston is getting close to hiring Dom Capers, Kubiak will probably stay put and take away one of Millen's prime candidates. I sort of think it's Lewis in Detroit or maybe, possibly, Millen will go back to Moeller and stick with him for one year. Cellini: The Browns also have a coaching vacancy. Who's the hot candidate in Cleveland? King: I know that team president Carmen Policy and the Browns' braintrust were very interested in bringing in Bill Parcells. They sent out big-money feelers to Parcells and his representatives about coming in there and running the whole show. I don't think Parcells has any interest for two reasons. One, the Browns fired his good friend Chris Palmer after only two years. And two, Parcells is just not ready to get into coaching right now unless it's an absolute nirvana situation. At 5-27 over the last two years, Cleveland is not nirvana. Lorenz: Let's go back to the Jets' situation for just a minute. Wouldn't Marvin Lewis have been a better fit for the Jets than Herman Edwards? King: I think what happened here is that you had the Jets sitting back there with new general manager Terry Bradway, a guy who knows Herman Edwards very, very well. He worked with him in Kansas City, knows him, likes him and respects him. Bradway doesn't know Marvin Lewis that well. He doesn't know him personally and he hasn't worked with him. A lot of times when you're a general manager you hire who you know. Plus, Bradway would have had to wait 11 days before he could have hired Marvin Lewis. What does that mean? It means that Edwards now gets to have the pick of an awful lot of assistant coaches. If the Jets waited almost two weeks to make their hire, they wouldn't have that luxury. Cellini: Giants quarterback Kerry Collins has made a remarkable comeback this season. Collins couldn't have been more finished when he was let go by the Saints. And there he was in the NFC Championship Game with a record day of five touchdown passes. It's an amazing comeback, is it not?
King: To me, the story of Kerry Collins is the story of a guy who finally learned how to handle pressure in his personal and professional life. He gets drafted by Carolina in 1995, first player picked. He skips the third day of his first minicamp. He calls his head coach, Dom Capers, and says, "Coach, I can't handle the pressure. I can't come in today." Now, let's fast-forward to last week. He gets the game plan faxed to him by offensive coordinator Sean Payton. The pressure is all over him. This game is all on his shoulders. After he looked at the game plan he told me he started to laugh. He said, "I was so happy. I was so at ease at what they were trying to do." That is the key right now. This is a guy who can handle pressure and who wants the pressure of the game against the Ravens on his shoulders. Lorenz: People seem to think this is going to be a boring game, Ravens vs. the Giants. What I'm hearing a lot of is 6-3 or 3-0. But what about Super Bowl jitters? How about this theory? A couple of mistakes defensively, a couple of touchdowns and maybe a 17-14 game. Do you see this as a very close game? King: In the first place, every year somebody says, "Hey, it's going to be a crummy Super Bowl" or "It's going to be a great one." I remember a few years ago when it was Buffalo and Dallas. Boy, two great offenses. It's going to be a great game. It was a 35-point blowout and the Bills turned it over eight or nine times. Now this game right here, to me, the reason why it's going to be a great game is that every single play could be the most important one of the game. Most times when a team makes a mistake in the first quarter, it's no big deal. Now if there's a turnover in the first quarter, that could be it. The Ravens forced 49 turnovers this year and they scored on 34 of them. They are great at capitalizing on mistakes. So I think any play could decide this and that's what will make it a fun game. Lorenz: You know what we'll do? We head to Tampa and keep our fingers crossed and hope for exactly that, a good game. We'll see you down there Peter. Sports Illustrated senior writer Peter King covers the NFL beat for the magazine and appears each Sunday on CNN's "NFL Preview."
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