Good morning, all. I hope your week is off to a better start than some former NFL coaches. Although, fear not, even when given the heave ho, they are well compensated.

I must say that the Miami Dolphins dismissal of coach Brian Flores came as a shocker. The team rallied to have a winning season, swept the New England Patriots for the first time since 2000, and judging by the outcry on social media by the Dolphins’ players, Flores had the support of the lockerroom. Go figure. The Monday after the end of the NFL’s regular season is always filled with intrigue. As of this writing Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Zimmer and GM Rick Spielman are out of jobs and so are Bears’ coach Mike Nagy and GM Ryan Pace.

Speaking of which, I dare say before the outcome of Sunday night’s game between the LA Chargers and LV Raiders, not even many NFL fans could have named the head coaches of those two teams. More fans can now.

At stake for the two teams was a playoff berth. The winner would keep playing, the loser would go home. However, if there was a tie, both teams would make the post season and the Steelers would go home.

The odds of an NFL game ending in a tie? Let’s say you have a better chance at winning LOTTO. So what happened? The Chargers, down 15 points midway in the 4th quarter, rallied to tie the game. Then after both clubs traded field goals, the Raiders’ drive was seeming stalled at the Chargers 39 on 3rd-and-4 and a 1:20 left in OT, when Chargers’ coach Brandon Staley called a time out. The stoppage in play seemed to change the Raiders’ strategy, as they ran 10 yards for a first down and kicked the game winning field goal. Raiders interim head coach Rich Bisaccia admitted there was conversation on the sidelines, before the time out, of running out the clock and settling for the tie. I’m not so sure that would have happened, as a tie would have meant a Raiders at Kansas City playoff matchup next week. But one thing I believe is certain, many more of us now know who coaches the Chargers and the Raiders.

Speaking of coaches
Leave it to UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma to put things in perspective. Ravaged by Covid, Auriemma’s Huskies had four straight games postponed. Auriemma told Hearst Media’s Mike Anthony the joy of coaching is teaching players and watching them develop and grow into outstanding students and athletes. With the pandemic, that blueprint has been obliterated not only for Geno but all coaches.

“All the things that made coaching what it is - what it was - is, to me, personally, it’s no longer that,” Auriemma told Anthony.

Auriemma stated Covid has effected everyone and it’s all negative. “I don’t know that there’s one positive aspect that has come out of these past two years, for anybody.”

May be there has been a positive or two, but from a coaching perspective, it’s hard to disagree with Geno.

And then there is baseball
This is usually the time of year, when baseball’s “Hot Stove League” is in full blast. Not so now, as the MLB owners and players are in a labor standoff because of the owners’ lockout. With both sides apparently unwilling to budge on a new labor deal, no talks planned, and a delay in the season’s start a possibility, I give you this You Tube clip from more innocent days, when the New York Yankees appeared on the Ed Sullivan show on the eve of the 1958 season to sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” with the man who wrote the lyrics to the song, Jack Norworth. Stick with the clip, until the end, when the most talkative of the group, Yogi Berra, uttered words that brought a tear to my eye and I’m sure that of the entire audience.

That is it for this week. Enjoy the NFL playoffs and thank you for your support.

SPORTSCASTER DAN