Saints coach Sean Payton isn’t the only guy whose team lost in the wild-card round of the playoffs facing recent -- and rampant -- rumors that he’ll be leaving his job. Rumors also are swirling that Eagles coach Andy Reid abruptly will leave the team. And that ESPN’s Jon Gruden will replace him.
For starters, a Reid-for-Gruden swap couldn’t immediately happen, unless chronic use of the “F” word qualifies Gruden for some sort of Tourette’s-style disability status under the Rooney Rule. Though it seems much easier these days to find a candidate who’ll participate in a perfunctory interview, a bang-bang, Reid-out-Gruden-in simply wouldn’t work.
Apart from the inability to introduce Gruden a day after bidding farewell to Reid, a source with knowledge of the situation says that Reid is going nowhere. Sure, it’s become hard to accept much of anything at face value of late when it comes to the Eagles, given the whole “Kevin Kolb is still the starter . . . no, he isn’t” and the whole “Sean McDermott is still the defensive coordinator . . . no he isn’t.” But given that the rumors are that Reid will be gone within the next day or so, I’m more than willing to trust my source on this one.
UPDATE: A prior version of this post contained somewhat clumsy wording regarding the notion that Gruden could qualify as a Rooney Rule interview because he says the “F” word a lot. A couple of readers apparently thought that I was suggesting chronic use of the “F” word constitutes some sort of a racial stereotype. My question is this: Which race doesn’t include folks who chronically use the “F” word?