The second season of Amazon’s All or Nothing includes a visit with (spoiler alert) former Rams head coach Jeff Fisher on a piece of land he owns outside of Nashville that seemingly covers more than 100 acres. He’s still thinking about the thing that covers only 100 yards.
“I want to get back on the sideline,” Fisher says. “Not going to happen this year, obviously. We’ll just see what happens.”
What happens will be that, in a league with 32 teams, someone likely will give the 59-year-old Fisher another shot. Although it instantly became fashionable to pounce on him a year ago (with Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson kicking the door open to widespread national criticism), Fisher has strong connections at 345 Park Avenue.
Inevitably, there will be an owner who isn’t quite sure what to do when hiring a new head coach. Invariably, that owner will ask one or more high-level executives at the league office for advice. Impossibly (in the opinion of plenty of that team’s fans), Fisher will receive a glowing recommendation.
Yes, Fisher currently sits atop the all-time regular-season loss record with Dan Reeves, knotted at 165. But Fisher has won 173 times, and more often than not his teams are relevant past Thanksgiving, which is the key to keeping fans engaged through the end of the regular season, or at least close to it.
Perhaps more importantly, Fisher has shown that he can coexist with eccentric billionaires. Fisher worked for years with the late Bud Adams, who later in life developed a habit of firing off double-barreled middle fingers. The Oilers/Titans owner made it nearly a full generation without sending that same message to Fisher.
He also lasted nearly five full years with the Rams, a franchise that by many indications was planning to leave St. Louis long before it became obvious that they’d be gone. And Fisher has now presided not once but twice over the relocation of an NFL franchise, experiences that come in handy when shepherding players through distractions.
The question isn’t whether Fisher should or shouldn’t get another chance. The question is whether he will. At some point in the next few years, some owner out there will choose someone who has coached 350 combined regular-season and postseason games over someone who has coached zero of either.