In the wake of Mike Holmgren stepping down as the Seattle Seahawks' head coach following last season, he has become the subject of accusations that he didn't give a supreme effort.
According to Colin Cowherd of ESPN Radio, Holmgren "mailed it in" as the Seahawks skidded to a 4-12 season.
Citing a source, Cowherd said Friday that Holmgren didn't work very hard during the final weeks of the season.
Per Mike Sando of ESPN.com, here's what Cowherd had to say about Holmgren's work habits.
"A source told me late, like Week 13 or Week 14 in the NFL season, a source that does not want to be identified on this network, that Mike Holmgren had essentially mailed it in," Cowherd said on his syndicated radio show. "Very little energy, looking forward to retirement. Putting in 9-5 hours. Bill Belichick is going 5-9 p.m. There was very little cohesiveness.
"He was on his way out before Jim Mora took the job over. And it was sort of a un-energized last year in Seattle. Not that he mailed it in by your standards or my standards, but by NFL standards, 17 hours a day, Holmgren wasn't there emotionally."
Interesting.
While it's not exactly a shock that a coach or a short-timer in any profession might not exactly put in the overtime during their last couple of weeks on the job, it might not be out of character in Holmgren's case. Or necessarily a detriment to the team's outlook.
According to Sando, who covers the NFC West and previously covered the Seahawks as a newspaper beat writer for several years, Holmgren typically worked short hours compared to his NFL brethren.
Sando noted that Holmgren traditionally would arrive around 9 in the morning and would work until 6:30 to 8 in the evening. That was reportedly how Holmgren conducted business, though, when the Seahawks were winning, too.
"Some people in the Seahawks organization were naturally pointing to the post-Holmgren era as their chance to shape the franchise," Sando wrote. "This did not make them anti-Holmgren; this made them human.
"Relative newcomers to the organization probably had a skewed view of the relatively short hours Holmgren worked because they weren't around when the team went 13-3 with Holmgren working a very similar schedule."
So, did Holmgren mail it in?
Not in Sando's estimation. However, he he did acknowledge that last season did take a major toll on the former Super Bowl winning coach.
"By the end, he didn't have a whole lot left," Sando wrote. "It was probably the most draining year of his career from a football standpoint. I'm sure that affected his energy levels during the season.
"Throw in his lame-duck status and I'm sure he wasn't as effective as he'd been in the past. I would not necessarily call that mailing it in."
Only Holmgren could honestly say for sure what his mindset was at that point.
However, it's something that a future prospective NFL employer will certainly be curious about down the road when/if Holmgren throws his hat in the ring for job openings.
seatle won 2 of their 4 games in week 15 and 16. maybe he should of mailed in all year.
2 days of attempting to listen to Colin Cowherd had me wanting to stab out my ear drums with an icepick. That guy is just awful.
Do you really want to run with every false accusation for unnamed sources?
Who is this Cowherd East Coast local nobody that is making this up?
When Hasslebeck went down with injury it was very difficult for the team to come back.
It is a very safe bet that this East Coast nobody with a radio show never saw a Seahawks game last year.
It is very evident he has no knowledge of the subject.
There is a saying: "work smarter, not harder." Holmgren's overall record speaks for itself. Wasn't former Chiefs head coach Gunther Cunningham known as a "sleep on the couch in his office" kind of guy? And, didn't he totally suck as a head coach?
Personally, I have respect for coaches who also tend to the matters in their life other than football (listening, Andy Reid?), rather than having tunnel vision about the game. Bill Parcells admitted he had no life outside the game when he coached. Here's his record compared to Holmgren's:
Parcells: 303-172, .637 winning percentage, 2 Super Bowl wins, 3 Conference championships, 8 division championships in 19 seasons.
Holmgren: 272-161, .628 winning percentage, 1 Super Bowl win, 3 conference championships, 8 division championships in 17 years.
Those records are virtually equal, no? I chalk up the extra SB win Parcells has to a series of freak occurrences and highly questionable calls (all of which went in the Steelers favor in the game) that happened in the Seahawks SB appearance.
Very contradictory comments. I'll back up "The Herd"; Holmgren did indeed mail in his last season.
As for future jobs for those considering Mike: live and learn from the past...
GO HAWKS!!!
This does not surprise me. Fassel came from his system and always had 1/2 his brain on the team and 1/2 on his yacht.
Of course he did. I've never been that impressed by the guy, who ESPN deems some sort of Coaching giant. He won the SB once, big deal.
I like Colin Cowherd a lot but his "sources" could be anything.
I wrote into the show quite a few times correcting errors he made on his show and after coming back from break he'll state the correction and mention how his "staff" corrected the error.
Yeah, ok. Plus he's already been accused of stealing material from others like blogs.
Uhh... Bob Nelson. Cowherd is an East coast guy? If you knew anything you'd know he pretty much lived his entire life on the West coast, specifically in Seattle.
He's an admitted Pac-10 homer, to put it in his own words.
and it took this brain surgeon Colin Cowherd only 8 months to bring this up??
if theres ever one radio show to aviod
its his.
First....Bill Belichick works more than 4 hours a day during the season.
Second....Oh wow. What a surprise....you mean when his starting QB was Seneca Wallace, and he was heading for retirement, he wasn't busting his ass to get his team to .375 instead of .250? That's unpossible.
Hey, maybe it was the SEAHAWKS who mailed it in, huh? Maybe their stinking up the field every week caused Wally Walrus to lose his desire. This is one of those chicken or the egg arguments.
By the way...Vince Lombardi was a 9-5 coach. It's just that he was such a phenomenal teacher and coach that he got excellent results during those hours. Five NFL titles in nine years says a lot.
How many coaches lose their receiving corps and have to hire guys off the street by the second week?
How many coaches have lost their entire starting offensive line?
He lost his pro bowl qb, and also had to use his 3rd string qb for a couple games.
We lost Kerney in week 7, Lofa Tatupu got a concussion, Trufant, Lofa and Kerney all had to use a cast for a little bit.
I know football has injuries, but we were devastated.
If you want a bigger detail about the injuries (and adjusted injuries for lost), check this out http://seahawkaddicts.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-bad-were-injuries-in-2008.html
After getting all those injuries, there's not much left to fight for. So if he didn't give it their all, can anyone blame him?
Colin CowTurd used to be a local sports reporter in Portland, Oregon. I think on channel 8 KGW.
His "sources" are most likely just in his head.
"Very little energy, looking forward to retirement."
Really? He was recently thinking of taking a year off and maybe getting back in the game.
That doesn't sound like a man ready to go fishing and drink Geritol for the rest of his life.
East Bay Ray:
That was a very intelligent post.
I am not a Seahawks fan, but I don't believe Holmgren "mailed it in." Like others said, the Seahawks had nothing going for them last year. In my opinion, when the Eagles played them, I thought that was the "easiest" win they had all year. It was due to Seattle's lack of talent, not their coaching.
It is totally unfair to judge someone's effectiveness by how long they stay in the office.
if im Holmgren i could care less what anyone says... he already has his ring so i guess he knows a little something..
TF BuckFutter
I think he was implying that Belichick works 16 hrs a day.
When/if he throws his hat in the ring for another coaching gig, I'm sure there will be about 32 NFL employers curious about his alleged "mailing it in "technique.
What the hell - once he reached 8 losses he probably did mail it in - but I have never understood what it is that coaches do who work 16 hour days - it is insane to suggest they have the ability to change the game outcome by their hard work - games are won by players - not coaches - yes coaches can get their players ready - they can energize the locker room and the sideline [want an example of mailing it in - look at the pictures of Bill Cowher on the sideline - arms crossed - no passion - nobody near him during his final Steeler season].
Football is a really simple game - coaches need us to think it is complicated - get good players - give them the info they need to succeed and don't ask them to do things they are not able to do.
well, dont tell them yer quitting, in advance.
they did have a lot of injuries...
cunningham sucked? not compared to herm edwards. perhaps the chiefs offense took off under vermeil, but the chiefs defense suffered after the departures of marty and gunther.
yes the phrase "work smarter not harder" comes to mind.
if one is basically not doing much productive at times from 0500-2100 then by all means get yer ass home at a decent hour. some folks stay extra long hours at work due to the absence of a home life (or desire to avoid someone) and/or the desire to try to show the boss that they are really working hard.
if ya hire good people then turn them loose to do their job and trust them, then ya dont need to be on their asses all the time. holmgren should have had "his people" there and i thought he did...
I dunno East Bay Ray, seems to me it's a case by case basis and there is no rule of thumb.
Joe Gibbs WAS a guy like Gunther (he made NFL coaches sleeping on cots famous) and had so little life outside the NFL that he's retired now twice from the game to be with his family and do other things.
His record:
16 years: 154-94 .621
playoffs: 17-7 .708
4 Super Bowl appearances and 3 Trophies with 3 different Quarterbacks and 5 different RB's. This includes 4 conference championships, 6 division championships in an era where Parcells was in his coaching prime and the likes of the 49ers were riding high with Montana, Young and Rice along with arguably the greatest team of all time in the 85 Bears. So clearly there is more than one way to skin a cat and if Joe Gibbs doesn't warrant respect both for how he coaches and how he handles himself off the field then no one should.
This is one of those "consider the cource" deals. Colin Cowherd is a blowhard who is wrong more often than he's right. He's just another hack who does very little research compared to the amount he runs his mouth. The fact that Holmgren put in the same hours when they went 13-3 says all ya need to know about this. There is no story here.
There were a lot of feelings in Green Bay that Holmgren mailed it in during his last season with the Packers. It was felt that he was more excited about moving on to Seattle than beating the Broncos in the 98 Super Bowl.
Sounds like he took a page from Bill Cowher's " I Left my Heart in North Carolina" saga.
@ poiuyt...
You're an idiot if you think a coach wouldnt be excited about trying to win ANOTHER superbowl.. you make Packers fans look stupid..
no that Packers fan is right... Holmgren was answering more questions about his post-Packers life ---- He wanted to be GM along with Head Coach --- and he couldn't wait for GM Ron Wolf to retire.
So yes, we Packers fans wondered about his commitment to winning a 2nd Super Bowl when he was spending a helluva lot of time talking about joining the Seahawks as GM and Head Coach during Super Bowl XXXII week.
I won't even get into the SB game-time blunders a 1st year head coach doesn't make let alone an experienced coach in that loss to Denver.
Colin Cowturd is a biased BSPN jakcass. nothing more, nothing less. His opinions should matter to no one.