Change of guards in NFL yet to inspire change of fortunes – NFL Feature
The Super Bowl title trophy switches hands on a yearly basis. For example, the New York Giants are reigning champions. A year earlier, the Green Bay Packers held the honours.
It can be said that a change is on the cards for this season also, but there are a few teams who appear to be heading nowhere. At least, they are not heading to the top.
The Cleveland Browns, for example, end up with four or five wins each season, no matter how rash changes they introduce to their squad or management. They have tried as many as 16 offence leaders in last 13 years, for the same result, indeed. The Cincinnati
Bengals have made it to playoffs three times in their history.
This stagnation has frustrated even the teams’ owners, giving birth to a trend of change of guards, lately.
Last year (2011), the Jacksonville Jaguars were sold by Wayne Weaver and bought by business tycoon Shahid Khan. This year (2012) Cleveland Browns are let go by Randy Lerner and purchased by truck-stop magnate Jimmy Haslam. A couple of years earlier, the
St. Louis Rams had met the same fate.
There were some fears that Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay might get disappointed over one of the worst records of the league history that his team got in the 2011 season.
He appears to stay around for a while. He probably has learnt from the recent examples that change of guards does not translates into change of fortunes, automatically.
The Jacksonville Jaguars’ experience, at least, speaks of it, so far. Former owner Wayne Weaver had reportedly given a target to his then head coach Del Rio to help the side through to playoffs in the 2011 season. It never happened and the team finished
the season 5-11, and that was it for the owner.
His first act was to sack the coach. He even did not wait for conclusion of the regular season. He had seen beforehand what was ahead of him. Then the next move by him was selling of the franchise.
Since current owner Shahid Khan has accepted the reign of the Jaguars, he has boasted great plans for his franchise. The foremost target for him is to make the team consistent winners on the field.
Let’s not discuss his ambition of making the side a role model off the field here because it has taken a bad start following arrest of rookie receiver Justin Blackmon on driving under influence (DUI) charge.
The team’s on-field start is even worse and they have been struggling to stage better performance, yet again.
The poor showing by the Jaguars is also contrary to coach Mike Mularkey’s optimism that the Jaguars had potential to become consistent winners on the field.
So Irsay knows change of guards does not guarantee a turnaround and success of a franchise itself, although his own experiment of clean-sweep has failed to work for him.
He, however, does not see much on the stake for being in the so-called rebuilding phase. The question is how long he can survive or bear with the losses, or will he wait for arrival of another Peyton Manning. There is a hope rookie Andrew Luck turns out
to be so.
Even then Irsay will have to wait for another couple of years, at least. So while he might be successful in bucking the trend of change of guards given it is not success-guaranteed, his own experiment is not workable, either.
The league might see a few more teams changing ownership hands in the meantime.
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