I haven't read Sal Paolantonio's book, The Paolantonio Report, but I've seen various snippets on ESPN.com. SalPal's most recent excerpt is the main story on the WWL's NFL page, and it's worth investigating. In an article about the league's most overrated and underrated coaches, Paolantonio takes Marvin Lewis and Jeff Fisher to task. It's fairly easy to argue that Lewis hasn't had a very successful run in Cincy -- he's only made the playoffs once, and his team has become a joke in recent years due to the off-field misdeeds performed by various Bengals players. But overrated? I don't know that too many people "rate" Lewis as one of the league's elite.
The passage about Jeff Fisher is far more troubling. It almost seems as if Paolantonio has some sort of personal beef with Fisher, because he's cherry-picking information from here and there to make a case for Fisher as overrated. Sal points to four different 8-8 seasons as the personification of mediocrity, but three of those seasons happened from 1996 through 1998, when the franchise was moving from Houston to Tennessee. Fisher should get an upheaval waiver of some sort, but this isn't even mentioned. Fisher is also taken to task for his "postseason failure" -- as if losing to the 2003 Patriots, 2000 Ravens and 1999 Rams in the postseason is somehow reason for shame. Three of the best teams of the last decade, and the Titans happened to be in the way. Do people think of the 1970's Raiders as a subpar team because they frequently failed to upend the Dolphins and Steelers?
There's also the small matter of the Tennessee franchise having to escape salary cap purgatory over the past few years. As Mark Maske detailed in the Washington Post in this 2005 article [1]:
In February, the Titans gutted their roster because they were about $27 million over next season's salary cap. General Manager Floyd Reese said just afterward, at the NFL scouting combine, that everyone in the organization had been braced for it, but it was painful nevertheless.
The club released wide receiver Derrick Mason, cornerback Samari Rolle, defensive lineman Kevin Carter, offensive tackle Fred Miller, fullback Robert Holcombe and kicker Joe Nedney. That was bad enough, but it was only the beginning. Tennessee later said its goodbyes to tight end Shad Meier and wideout Eddie Berlin, declining to exercise options in their contracts. The Titans declined to tender contracts to three restricted free agents (wide receivers Jason McAddley and Darrell Hill and linebacker Justin Ena) and three exclusive-rights free agents (tackle Matt Martin, guard Marico Portis and linebacker Jordan Kramer). Cornerback Andre Dyson and backup tailback Antowain Smith departed as unrestricted free agents, and the Titans traded defensive end Carlos Hall to the Kansas City Chiefs for a fifth-round draft choice. Reserve offensive tackle Jason Mathews retired, and safety Lance Schulters likely will be released soon.
The Titans lost three top-shelf players in Mason, Rolle and Carter. Those three signed contracts with new teams with a total value of $80.5 million, including $26 million in bonus money (add in Miller's deal with the Chicago Bears and the figures become $103 million in total contract money, including $32 million in bonuses). The Baltimore Ravens were the biggest beneficiaries of the Titans' salary-cap purge, signing Mason and Rolle. The Miami Dolphins landed Carter, whom the Titans tried but failed to re-sign after cutting him.
The Titans, predictably, added next to nothing in free agency, needing to resort to performing their roster rebuilding by obtaining the comparatively cheap labor that comes via the draft. They surprised no one by opting for a cornerback with the sixth overall pick in the draft, but did surprise some in the league when they selected West Virginia's Adam (Pac-Man) Jones instead of Miami's Antrel Rolle (no relation to Samari).
The Titans went 9-23 in 2004 and 2005, but they've made an estimable comeback in what is now the NFL's toughest division. Paolantonio rakes Fisher over the coals for drafting Pacman, but he doesn't mention Reese's involvement in any of the Titans' personnel issues. Could this be because Reese also writes for ESPN.com? I hope not. He then goes onto compare Fisher to Dennis Green in a manner that is favorable to Green, which certainly left me at a loss. If you give Fisher the offense Green had in Minnesota, I dare say he'd do alright, and he'd probably do better then Green did in Arizona (16-32 record, and one fabulous press conference).
On the other side of the coin, Sal gives us Indy's Tom Moore and Tampa Bay's Monte Kiffin as two coaches who are underrated. I find it interesting that he's got head coaches as overrated and position coaches as underrated, but whatever. I don't have any problem with either one of these fine gentlemen receiving credit for their accomplishments, but Kiffin is probably the best-known assistant coach in the NFL, and he's turned down more than one offer to be a head coach to stay in Tampa Bay. There may be a case for Moore as underrated -- he probably doesn't get the credit he's due because Peyton Manning is seen as the mastermind of the Colts' offense, though this isn't mentioned in the article.
I like Paolantonio as a television personality -- he seems very much at ease with what he's doing, and he provides good moderation when he hosts Edge NFL Matchup with Ron Jaworski and Merrill Hoge. It's just difficult to agree with the arguments he puts forth in this article, and if it's an example of the level of analysis in the book, he would have been wise to run it by a few of his more knowledgeable football friends prior to publication.
Links:
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/06/10/BL2005061000907_pf.html