Coaching Confidential: Inside the Fraternity of NFL Coaches

by Myers, Gary

  The Broncos indeed were fined in 2001 for reported infractions concerning deferred payments to Elway and Terrell Davis for circumventing the salary cap between 1996 and 1998, during which time the Broncos won their Super Bowls.

  “I don’t think I have to go down that road anymore,” Shanahan said in response to Davis’s comments.

  The strength of the relationship between the millionaire and billionaire owners and their head coaches is often a direct reflection of wins and losses. When Shanahan was winning Super Bowls and getting the Broncos to the playoffs just about every year, you heard about his tight bond with Denver owner Pat Bowlen. But when things went bad in 2008 and Denver fell apart down the stretch, turning an 8–5 first-place record into an 8–8 nonplayoff year, Bowlen decided to fire his friend.

  Shanahan’s shelf life eventually expired in Denver. And his next stop was working for the mercurial Daniel Snyder.

  On the opposite side of the table where the coach sits when he’s told to pack his bags and take his playbook with him is the rich owner doing the firing. It’s never a pleasant experience, but Daniel Snyder of the Redskins is really good at it. After buying the team in 1999, he fired Norv Turner, Marty Schottenheimer, and Jim Zorn; didn’t bring back interim coach Terry Robiskie; and had Steve Spurrier quit after two years and Joe Gibbs go back into retirement after four years. By the time he hired Shanahan in 2010, it was his seventh head coach in twelve years. During exactly the same period, Andy Reid was the only coach of the division rival Eagles. The Giants had two. The Cowboys had five, but then again, Jerry Jones is Snyder’s role model.

  Finding common ground with his coaches has not been an easy thing for Snyder. He tortured Turner; ran off Schottenheimer; made a bad decision on Spurrier; revered Gibbs as a kid growing up in Silver Spring, Maryland; had no respect for Zorn; and allowed Shanahan to try to re-create the magic he had in Denver with Elway. Shanahan made a mistake trading for Donovan McNabb his first year, made a bigger mistake trying to get through the 2011 season with Rex Grossman and John Beck, and then traded three first-round picks and a second-round pick to move up four spots in the 2012 draft to position the Redskins to take Baylor’s Robert Griffin III, the Heisman Trophy winner. Elway won two Super Bowls playing for Shanahan. Jay Cutler was starting to develop in Denver when Shanahan was fired. Griffin gives Snyder hope that the future is secure at the most important position.

  Snyder has developed a reputation as a meddling owner to be avoided if longevity and continuity are high on the list of a coach’s goals. Snyder pays well but has a reputation of being impossible to work with for any length of time before he sends his coach running for the exits.

  He was just a baby when he bought the Redskins and Jack Kent Cooke Stadium in May 1999 for $800 million. Snyder is a college dropout and a self-made American success story. He was thirty-three years old when he joined the exclusive NFL ownership fraternity. He got his financial empire started by leasing jets to fly college students to spring break. He initially was to be the minority partner in the purchase of the Redskins after his group had won a bidding war. But majority owner Howard Milstein withdrew the bid, knowing NFL owners were going to turn him down on the basis of the debt structure. Snyder then put together his own group in which he had controlling interest, which was approved by the NFL. He never would have been satisfied as Milstein’s minority partner. That’s not his personality.

  Snyder had a lot to learn when he bought the Redskins. He was a football fan but had no football background. But early on he was so involved in every aspect of the franchise that it seemed only a matter of time before he was coaching the team himself. He has learned how important it is for the owner to be supportive of his head coach rather than undermine him. “You trust him, he trusts you, you can accomplish a lot,” he said.

  It was too late in the off-season and too close to training camp when Snyder’s bid to buy the Redskins was approved for him to do anything about Turner. At his first home game after he bought the team, Snyder said there were signs imploring him to fire Turner. “I was overwhelmed,” he said in his office in Redskins Park. “I was a pure fan, and I was a little young.”

  Snyder couldn’t wait to get the first notch on his belt. His trigger finger was antsy, but Turner ruined his plan. He won the NFC East in Snyder’s first year with a 10–6 record, the first time the Redskins had been in the playoffs since 1992, Gibbs’s final year. Then the Redskins beat the Lions in a wild-card game but lost in the next round in Tampa 14–13. The Redskins had a chance to win, but a botched snap on a field goal attempt from 51 yards with just over one minute remaining prevented the ball from getting into the air. Even so, the Redskins had something to build on.

  Snyder then went out and tried to buy the Super Bowl. He signed Deion Sanders and Bruce Smith, two Hall of Famers whose best football had already been played. He signed safety Mark Carrier. Then he created a quarterback controversy by bringing in Jeff George to compete with Brad Johnson, who had just taken the ’Skins to the second round of the playoffs. Snyder wrote checks for over $40 million in signing bonuses. The Redskins also had the second and third overall picks in the 2000 draft. After the Browns selected Penn State defensive end Courtney Brown, the Redskins picked linebacker LaVar Arrington from Penn State and offensive tackle Chris Samuels from Alabama. Snyder and the Redskins had created a tremendous buzz around Washington and throughout the NFL.

  That put the pressure on Turner to work all those new players into the team, not let a quarterback controversy split the locker room, and, of course, win games, get the Redskins into the playoffs again, and this time take them further than the second round. Snyder made it even more difficult for Turner by transforming training camp into an easy opportunity for opponents to scout the Redskins. The Redskins became the first team to charge admission to watch training camp practice. The price: $10 for anybody fourteen or older. The NFL has a rule that teams can’t scout camp practices or scrimmages unless there is an admission fee. Then anybody can attend. There have been stories over the years about how teams spy on one another’s training camp practices, but spying was not necessary with the Redskins in 2000. For $10, everybody was welcome, including opposing scouts, and teams did take advantage of the opportunity of seeing Washington up close.

  Predictably, the Redskins were a disaster in 2000. Snyder couldn’t wait until the season was over and allow Turner to leave in a dignified way. He fired him with three games remaining in an 8–8 season. Turner was 7–6 when he received his parting gifts. “I didn’t hire him,” Snyder said.

  That led Snyder to hire Schottenheimer, an old-school coach with old-school values. Hard work. Discipline. Marty Ball. Snyder gave him total control, and Schottenheimer went 8–8. After the season, Snyder decided that giving all the power to one person was not in his best interests. Schottenheimer had the power and didn’t want to give it up. There was only one thing for Snyder to do. He fired Schottenheimer.

  “I like Marty and still do to this day. We are good friends,” Snyder said nearly ten years later. “He’d still be here if he didn’t want to do it all. He was insistent on doing it all. That was something that I don’t think works. One guy can’t do everything. He was a machine on that front. He wouldn’t drop the personnel side and give us a chance at more of a team energy.”

  Snyder was going back on the deal. When he hired Schottenheimer, he gave him the control. Now he was taking it back. “I saw it for a year and said that is not going to work,” he said.

  Snyder had to pay for his decision. Schottenheimer was just one year into a four-year $10 million deal. Snyder was responsible for the $7.5 million left on the contract. It didn’t take Schottenheimer long to bounce back from any scars he might have incurred from getting fired by a man a generation younger. He was hired immediately by the Chargers, and that reduced Snyder’s financial obligations.

  Snyder now had some work to do. That was two coaches fired—three if you want to count interim coach Terry Robiskie, who was not given t
he job permanently after Turner was dismissed. Who would be the next to make lots of money and be miserable?

  Steve Spurrier, come on down. The University of Florida coach, a former NFL quarterback, was considered an offensive genius, so creative that not even the best defensive minds in the league would be able to stop him. Spurrier loved to be courted and had turned down the Tampa Bay Bucs’ overtures in 1996 after Jimmy Johnson elected to go to the Dolphins and before the Bucs hired Tony Dungy. He had turned down Snyder the year before when Snyder hired Schottenheimer. Snyder was offering a five-year $25 million contract, and Spurrier signed on with full confidence that his Fun ’n’ Gun offense could work in the NFL. “There is no doubt in my mind,” he said.

  Besides, he needed a job. He had unexpectedly resigned from Florida a couple of weeks earlier. Now he was Snyder’s fourth coach in thirteen months. Spurrier ridiculed NFL coaches who felt they had to see the sun come up in the morning out their office window or they were not doing their job. “I like to believe I can spend two hours and get as much done maybe as some coaches do in four or five hours,” he said.

  He liked to needle opposing teams and coaches. Peyton Manning could never beat Florida, and when he elected to return to Tennessee for his final season, Spurrier couldn’t help himself. “Peyton Manning came back to win the Citrus Bowl again,” he said. “You can’t spell Citrus without the UT.”

  The ol’ ball coach, as he was known, lasted two seasons in Washington. He liked to play golf, and that was hard to do in November in Washington. He didn’t care about defense, which is something that needs to be played in the NFL. He was out-coached. He wanted out so badly, he gave up the remaining three years on his contract. He left $15 million on the table and a 12–20 record as his legacy. He couldn’t cut it against the big boys.

  “I’ll tell you this,” Snyder said. “Spurrier is a heckuva guy. The NFL stumped him.”

  Snyder was reeling. He had a proven winner in Schottenheimer and forced him out in a power struggle. Spurrier was a coveted college coach, but that often doesn’t translate into success in the pro game. “I took a chance, and I think everyone respected the chance I took,” Snyder said. “I don’t regret taking the chance trying to get Spurrier. He was a cool guy. I still get along with him.”

  Snyder then went for a can’t-miss with Redskins fans. He brought back the legendary Joe Gibbs. He had retired after the 1992 season, and now it was 2004. Gibbs won three Super Bowls in Washington with three different quarterbacks and was still revered by the passionate Redskins fans. The issue was whether Gibbs had lost his fastball after all the years in the NASCAR pits. He stayed four years, made the playoffs twice, and was gone.

  “We were very close in ’05 to going all the way,” Snyder said. “In ’07, we went to the same place, Seattle, in the rain. Joe felt if we got through Seattle in ’07 and ’05, we might win the whole thing.”

  That was a bit of revisionist history. Or wishful thinking. The Redskins beat the Bucs in 2005 and lost in Seattle in the divisional round. If they had won that game, they would have played in Carolina in the NFC championship game. In 2007, the Redskins lost in the wild-card round to the Seahawks. If they had won that game, they would have played in Dallas and then played either the Packers or the Giants in the next round. In each case, they were a long way from the Super Bowl.

  After the loss to the Seahawks after the 2007 season, Gibbs left the Redskins again. Snyder was devastated. He idolized Gibbs. “It was a spectacular experience,” he said.

  Snyder turned on all his charm in a futile attempt to talk Gibbs into coaching the fifth and final year of his contract. “I joked around with Joe at the end,” Gibbs said. “You can’t quit. He said, I’m not. I’m retiring. I pleaded with him not to retire. I love him. We are very close.”

  If Snyder had not been able to talk Gibbs out of retirement in 2004, he was close to hiring Jim Fassel, who had just been fired by the Giants. It almost happened again after Gibbs left, and this time the story got strange even by Snyder standards. After Gibbs had left, Snyder promoted Vinny Cerrato, his right-hand man, to be general manager and executive vice president of football operations. He had been with Snyder every year except the season Schottenheimer was in charge. When something went wrong, Snyder had an easy out. He blamed Cerrato. That would come in handy.

  In the weeks after Gibbs retired, Snyder hired Jim Zorn, the quarterback coach for Mike Holmgren in Seattle, to be Washington’s offensive coordinator. Snyder made that hire even though he didn’t have a head coach. Fassel, who already had interviewed with Snyder and Cerrato, was so sure he was getting the head coaching job that he started to gather his belongings in Phoenix for the move to Washington. All that seemed to be in Fassel’s way was Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, who just finished an incredible playoff run when New York’s defense shut down Tony Romo and Brett Favre in the NFC playoffs and then held Tom Brady and the Patriots’ record-breaking offense to 14 points in the Super Bowl. Snyder was not going to make any decisions until he had a chance to interview Spagnuolo.

  Once the Giants returned from the Super Bowl, Snyder interviewed Spagnuolo for a total of twenty-eight hours. But Snyder already had hired Zorn as the offensive coordinator. Head coaches like to hire their own staff, but Snyder was caught off guard by Gibbs’s retirement and felt he needed to start assembling a staff before all the quality assistants were off the market. Spagnuolo decided to return to the Giants. Snyder and Cerrato asked Fassel to speak to Zorn to see if he would be a good fit on his staff. While that was going on, there was a lot of negative feedback in Washington regarding what appeared to be the imminent coronation of Fassel, who had not been offered a head coaching job in the four hiring cycles after he was fired by the Giants following the 2003 season.

  “We went through staffing. My fingerprints are all over that staff. We were framing a contract,” Fassel said. “I didn’t know it at the time, but Vinny knows and likes Zorn, and they had been close friends for a long time. Once Zorn got there and they had time on their hands, he is an engaging guy. Very glib, polished.”

  After Spagnuolo turned down the job, Snyder and Cerrato decided to interview Zorn to replace Gibbs. He was the tenth and final candidate to be interviewed. He was already in the building, so why not?

  “We conducted a full search and ended up with the right guy,” Snyder said after he hired Zorn.

  After two disastrous seasons in which Zorn managed to win twelve of thirty-two games—the same record as Spurrier—Snyder fired Zorn, and Cerrato resigned. Zorn was not ready to be a head coach. Snyder had to blame somebody. Instead of admitting he’d had the ultimate authority and made a mistake, he blamed Cerrato.

  “The mistake he made is, this is where I learned a lot, the general manager needs to prevent the owner from hiring someone who’s not qualified,” Snyder said. “And that’s why Vinny is no longer here, to be truthful with you. He’s not here because his job was to prevent the owner from hiring a not-qualified coach. Having said that, we went in and had the worst two-year experience I ever dreamed. I apologized, according to my wife, ten thousand times. I apologize openly. I made a big mistake. It’s a terrible experience when you know you got the wrong guy to lead the franchise.”

  Snyder then hired Bruce Allen, the former GM of the Bucs and the son of Redskins legendary coach George Allen, as general manager and Shanahan as coach. Snyder liked Shanahan from the first time he met him at the Pro Bowl after the 1999 season, the first year he owned the team. Snyder brought his parents, his wife, and his kids and was staying at the Four Seasons in Honolulu. One day walking around he bumped into Shanahan, then the Broncos’ coach, who had struggled to a 6–10 record in the first season after Elway retired. Shanahan and Snyder had a few beers. They had dinner a couple of nights later. They were always friendly at the league meetings and sat near each other.

  Snyder fired Zorn one year after Shanahan was fired in Denver. Shanahan sat out the 2009 season and was a natural fit for Snyder. He was
also available. Shanahan spoke on the phone with Gibbs for ninety minutes before he took the job. “My job is to help the coach any way I can and support him,” Snyder said.

  Snyder has tremendous passion for the Redskins but hasn’t figured out the right formula for success. Until the Redskins get to a Super Bowl, he will be viewed as a rich kid owner who has no idea how to win. He is the steward of one of the NFL’s most treasured franchises, and he has a responsibility to reward the Redskins’ loyal fans.

  He has grown up in the years since he joined the NFL’s exclusive ownership club in 1999. Both he and his wife, Tanya, are cancer survivors. He was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2001, and the New York Times reported that he underwent an eight-hour operation at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and now has a faint scar at the base of his neck. Tanya was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008. She told the Times she underwent two operations for early-stage breast cancer one year apart. Tanya Snyder had been active in breast cancer awareness before she was diagnosed and later became the NFL spokeswoman for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

  Snyder has faced difficult challenges that have helped put things in perspective.

  “I’m a lot older now. I’ve had cancer, my wife had cancer. We have plenty of kids,” Snyder said, sitting in his office. “It matures you. When you are young and full of energy and enthusiasm, you make mistakes.”

  If he keeps making them, he has a solution: You’re fired.

  THE JOY OF REX

  Rex Ryan was leaning against a wall outside the fashionable Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans after his second season as coach of the New York Jets. Right off Canal Street and a few blocks from the famed French Quarter, the Fairmont is the hotel the NFL often uses for one of the teams when the Super Bowl is played at the Superdome. The lobby was crawling with NFL royalty as the billionaire owners and millionaire coaches were checking in at the front desk for the annual league meetings.