people stay stuff all the time whether they mean it or not and then don't end up following through for a million different reasons as well. i'm going to quit smoking. i'm going to start dieting and working out everyday. i'm going to leave my wife this weekend and then we can always be together. this hangover is so bad that i promise i'll never get that drunk again. ever.
so we have frank telling some buds that he's leaving back in january. who cares. maybe he thought he really would, maybe it was a negotiation play, maybe frank says a million ridiculous things a day that most people would just roll their eyes at and go back to doing whatever they were doing. then we have some players that say that they'll leave. maybe they will. maybe they won't. who cares. i don't believe that a whole team would do as well as this team did down the stretch if they were all quiting, but again whatever. none of it really matters to me.
what does matter to me is that the frank/currie situ was handled horribly by both sides from beginning to end and possibly/probably ended with currie telling frank that he wouldn't be returning. i really don't think frank had the choice to stay. so frank took the first job he could get and that was done. all the while, our job search seemed to focus mainly, if not solely, on one of the few coaches that should have been just absolutely unhireable. it just makes no sense. like, if you want to kick frank out then whatever i guess. but don't kick him out and then replace him with oscar weber. the combo was just indefensible.
Quoted the whole thing because it's a good post, but wanted to comment on the bolded part: I think that the public perception that Currie chased Frank off, may have played a major part in the chicken crap hire. (I don't know if he chased him off or not, but there is no doubt that perception is there) I think he felt like he had to go after a "safe" hire. Somebody that had been a high major head coach and had a history of winning at the high major level. Unfortunately, those guys aren't easy to get. oscar actually fits that description in a "don't look too closely" way, and there is no doubt he could get him since he just got fired. I think Currie may have felt his leash was too short with the fanbase to take a gamble on an unproven up and comer after chasing away a proven guy. Frankly, it probably did apease a large number of the unwashed masses. I think an amicable split with Frank would have opened up options more.
None of that was meant to defend Currie. Just some insite into what he was possibly thinking. This is something I thought about during the coaching search as well. I thought it would be somebody with some high major wins, who had stumbled and was getting a second chance (like an Alford). I was suprised that it was oscar at the time, but the only thing that didn't really fit the model was that he was immediately hired after fired from a high major. I think he drastically underestimated the backlash from that part of it. Honestly, I did too.
