WHY GOD WHY?!?!?!

Today I'd like to discuss a very disturbing recent trend in sports: I like to call it the "If you don't win the championship, immediately fire the coach/an important player." trend. I understand that it's the team's goal to win the super bowl/World Series, but what is the deal with this? Over the past few years, it seems to have gotten much worse. It seems like a lot of GMs don't understand one important aspect of sports: VARIANCE

You can't win every year. You just can't. George Steinbrenner doesn't seem to understand this. I know that you're trying to improve your team. I know you want to win the world series. BUT you just can't 100% expect to win it every year. Their problem all year had been pitching, and it was still pitching during the playoffs. In order to give yourself the best chance to win, you want to be as strong as you can in each position. Joe Torre is the best manager in baseball! Isn't that obvious?? Why don't they take a chunk of that 250 million they were paying A-Rod and get some pitchers?

Now, if there's one thing I like about baseball, it's that they play a lot of games during the season, and that large amount of games lessens the variance a good deal. So unlike other sports, namely football, the teams that make it to the playoffs are inarguably the best. It's tough to make the playoffs in baseball. That said, how many games are actually played in the playoffs, compared to the season? 162 during the season, then a 5 game series, then two 7 game series'. A lot of variance can occur within that small of a series. Now, I'm not saying that they should play longer series' (and thank god they don't) , all I'm saying is that you can't expect to have everything go your way every time over such a small period of time.

Ok so forget baseball... the biggest mistake EVER made in sports in my opinion was the Chargers firing Marty Schottenheimer last year. 14-2 during the regular season. And here's the thing. That team, playing at its absolute best, will win that game against New England 50% of the time. I'd say that's fair. And here's the other thing. They pretty much were playing their best. That was a great game. It came down to a last second FG. Now if we think that the variance in Baseball playoffs is bad, think about the variance involved in just ONE game in a league like the NFL where teams are closely talented, ESPECIALLY in the playoffs.

The Chargers were playing amazing football, they had a well established running game, LT is breaking records like crazy, even Philip Rivers is looking good. The team is working like a well oiled machine. Then you lose a close game to a good team in the playoffs, and you fire Marty, who gives you your best chance to win? (Or at least a better chance than Norv Turner) They have the same team, different coach. They were great last year and horrible this year. I mean bad, too. LT can't have an LT like game for his life (although his off days are quite impressive still), Philip Rivers looks like me at a Brookfield East practice... it's just a real mess. And that idiot GM brought it upon himself and the city.

Now there are coaches that deserve to be fired. Callahan, Weis, Mangini... the list goes on. But when you're consistently giving yourself a great chance to win, don't screw it up royally by making a 180 degree change in coaching. It's bad for the players and bad for the team overall. I want to see Marty-Ball again....