Black Monday Notes and Random Thoughts

By Rich Herrera

Today is day they don’t mark on the NFL calendar; it would be too ghoulish if they did. Black Monday is as big a part of the yearly schedule as the draft and the Super Bowl. It’s the morbid day all fans of losing teams cry for, and the day that bad owners blame someone else for their shortcomings.

Fans yell and scream for the head’s of the Head Coaches and GM’s who fail to win a Super Bowl, even if you have brought them one before. It doesn’t matter that your team was devastated by injuries. It doesn’t matter that your QB spent more time on crutches than he did in the huddle. Nope it is simply your fault that they are home watching the playoffs, and if we just get rid of you, the Head Coach, a magic wand will wash away all the losing that was your entire fault. Listen I understand that these coaches are big boys and make more than most of it and us comes with the territory. But for everyone rejoicing at someone getting the axe today, do they also think of the call the fired coach has to make to tell their family they got fired.

Too bad we can’t have a Black Monday for owners in the NFL. Today is the day they blame everyone else for their bad organizations.   We missed the playoffs fire the coach, we have another losing record, fire the GM. But honestly it starts at the top with the owner who sets the tone and the culture. If he is clueless and tone deaf the team will be as well. Why do some teams lose year after year, coach after coach, GM after GM, maybe it wasn’t the guys who got fired and left, maybe it’s the ones who stayed, and are sitting in the owners suite.

There are two types of owners in the NFL. The first are billionaires who bought an ultimate toy to play with, and NFL franchise. These are successful men in business and in life who are surrounded by smart men and women. Trouble is when they get to be an owner, almost all of them are unqualified to work for the team they bought. Just because you own a team doesn’t mean you know anything about the game. If I was rich and brought a Rolls Royce, it means I know how to buy one, but I have no real clue to how it works. Think about this, how many owners would get hired to work for a team if they didn’t own it. They are experts in their own field of interest, oil, trucking, law, but would they get job in football ops as an intern or capoligist, NOPE. The difference between their real business and the NFL is, if they run their real company into the ground they go bankrupt. In the NFL they just get more revenue sharing, and the value of the franchise continues to rise for the next cyber genius who developed a billion dollar app an wants to be accepted into the ultimate rich kid fraternity.

The other type of owner is one that had the team passed on to him from his family. Some grew up around the game and worked for the family before becoming owners. Some of them live in the high roller world of the NFL but don’t have the same wealth as newer owners in the game. Remember that is was a different world when the league started and many of the men that became owners didn’t have wealth outside their team’s value. Some old school owners weren’t even the principle investors instead they brokered the deal to get the team and found the investors to make the deal. There are a few that really are great owners and have taken what their family started and made it better, like in Pittsburgh. Others not so much, like in Oakland. The best example of this type of owner is Michael Bidwell of the Arizona Cardinals. He took over the team from his father. His dad didn’t have much success with the team on or off the field. Michael set off on his own becoming a Federal Prosecutor and made his own way in the world before coming back to the family business. I had dinner with him over a decade ago and thought to myself one day he will be a great owner. With the playoffs beginning next week, he has a serious shot at raising the Super Bowl Trophy. Others like in Oakland and Indy are just flailing this morning because they just can’t figure it out.

Other owners will stare blankly at the Cardinals if they win Super Bowl 50 and wonder why not me, why not my team? Maybe that is the question they should be asking themselves if they are in Miami, Dallas, Oakland, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. If they look around and can’t find the weakest link in the organization maybe it’s time to look in the mirror and be honest with everyone, maybe it is you.