VITO'S VIEWS

When one player tested positive for Covid 19 in March, the NBA shut down immediately.

That was then. This is now.

The sports leagues are eager to get back to playing, even though they admit some players will test positive.

The NFL is the most vulnerable because it has more players than the other sports.

Dr. Allen Sills, the league’s top medical officer, said in a recent conference call that obviously football and physical distancing are not compatible.

“We fully expect we will have positive cases that arise because this disease is endemic in our society,” he said.

“Our challenge is to identify them as quickly as possible and to prevent spread to other participants,” he added. “Everyone that’s around each other in a football environment is going to share risk.”

Not exactly. The owners won’t be sharing the risk.

And just because the players are young and healthy doesn’t mean they can’t have severe consequences. Just listen to Mara Gay, a member of the New York Times editorial board who wrote about getting the virus.

“The day before I got sick, I ran three miles, walked 10 more, then raced up the stairs to my fifth-floor apartment as always, slinging laundry with me as I went,” she wrote.

Then she got the virus and her life changed.

“The second day I was sick, I woke up to what felt like hot tar burned into my chest. I could not get a deep breath unless I was on all fours. I’m healthy. I’m a runner. I’m 33 years old.”

In the emergency room, she was asked if she smoked or had pre-existing conditions. The answer was no.

The doctor replied, “I wish I could do something for you.”

She said she was one of the lucky ones. She didn’t need a ventilator and survived. But 27 days later, she still had lingering pneumonia.

“I use two inhalers, twice a day. I can’t walk more than a few blocks without stopping.”

Her plea to America was, “Please take this virus seriously.”

The question is whether the sports leagues are taking it seriously enough.

It could be players who are infected will have minor cases. But the virus can cause permanent lung damage, which could have severe consequences for the rest of their careers.

The sports leagues, including the NFL, will try to take a lot of precautions.

But the players and the leagues may ultimately regret opening in the middle of a pandemic.

When Dan Rooney was the U.S. ambassador to Ireland, he had an interesting way of communicating with President Obama.

He sent him postcards.

Instead of bothering the president with phone calls or emails, he would jot down a few thoughts on the front of a postcard and send them to the White House via the president’s aide, Reggie Love. On the back of the postcards, of cards, were lovely pictures of Ireland.

That vignette was one of many about the life of Dan Rooney chronicled by one of his sons, Jim, in a book entitled, “A Different Way to Win: Dan Rooney’s Story from the Super Bowl to the Rooney Rule.”

Rooney is known to most fans as the oldest son of Art Rooney Sr., the founding father of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He started running the team in the late 1960s and under his direction, the Steelers became one of the most successful teams in sports. They have won six Super Bowls and have a national and international following.

But it is Rooney’s approach that makes him a unique figure in the history of the NFL, which has become a multi-billion-dollar empire fixated on ways to increase revenue.

Rooney was not driven to accumulate wealth. He was, as Jim Rooney writes, “never comfortable with the amount of wealth that he personally gained. And even more so, he felt the largest impediment to long-term success was in regard to the willingness of those involved to continue to strive for the highest levels of excellence once wealth was achieved.”

He also lectured his children about not putting on airs, although his wife, Patricia, joked that she wasn’t sure they all got the message.

He warned his children, “Don’t make money your god. If you believe money is going to make your life easier and solve your problems, you’re wrong. It’s education. That will determine if you are happy, if you are successful.”

Before the team played in Super Bowl XXX in Phoenix, most of the Steelers contingent attended an NFL party, and he teased them about going to a “rich dudes” party. He and his wife got in their rented Ford and drove to a nearby Denny’s because he said he wanted to do “something normal” the night before the game.

Jim Rooney also writes that his plan was that the Steelers would win championships, but he wanted them “to be great in all things.”

He wanted people who worked for the Steelers to think broadly, to read and learn about things that were uncommon and done well, and then to bring greatness to every effort in their daily lives and work.

He wrote very specifically about what he expected each person within the organization to do. He kept the plans in the credenza behind his desk and would refer to it often.

It included a sense of purpose and he believed that the team should be doing something that was meaningful for football and also for Pittsburgh.

When fans came to the game, he wanted them to feel it was an enriching experience, and when people thought about the Steelers, he wanted them to have a sense that the Steelers were about more than wins and losses.

He also hired the right people. One of them was Joe Gordon, described by Jim Rooney as Dan’s his most important business partner. Most books on the Steelers overlook Gordon’s role in implementing Dan Rooney’s vision and putting his own stamp on the team.

“He became Rooney’s closest collaborator in what we would now call marketing and branding,” Jim Rooney wrote.

Gordon’s role involved much more than just being a PR type. “Gordon was a one-man band, arranging interviews and sponsorship deals, booking player appearances and always keeping an eye on what was being written and said about the team,” Jim Rooney wrote.

He said Gordon and Rooney were a perfect match because they would argue but not compete with each other, and that Dan created an environment where, as with his other executives, he and Gordon could freely share their ideas and hash them out.

But while they saw the value of marketing, they didn’t go overboard.

Dan once sent commissioner Roger Goodell a football jersey resembling a NASCAR driver’s uniform, adorned with sponsorship decals and corporate logos. He was sending a message that they needed to draw a line on marketing.

“Our business is the game, we’re not in this to make all the money in the world,’’ Rooney once told The New York Times. “I think some other teams still do things our way. But on this, we might be the last guy on the mountain.”

As the league tries to find more and more ways to increase revenue, he may well have been the last guy on the mountain.

Rooney even hated to see blue-collar fans who could barely afford it wearing too much Steelers gear because he felt the league was exploiting them.

The league even once had an idea of signs wrapped around the goal posts that read, “Feel the Power.” Rooney ordered them removed. When the league told him they had to stay up, Rooney replied, “We’re not feeling the power.”

He also opposed expanding the season, which will be extended to 17 games in the new CBA and probably eventually to 18 in the next one.

“I would rather not get the money (from expanding the season),” Dan said, “You have a system that works. Why add them?”

He often said when he left a stadium, “Pull down the center pole.”

Jim Rooney writes that Dan always felt the spectacle of NFL games was not better than the circus and that the league should never forget that.

It has already forgotten that.

Although Dan Rooney was noted for having a stable organization – the team has had just three head coaches in a half century – he has made tough decisions like firing his own brother, Art Jr., as head of personnel (a decision I still question) and firing a personnel executive, Tom Donahoe, who was the grandson of the man who presented Art Rooney Sr. at his Hall of Fame induction.

And when he died in 2017, he left the organization in stable hands with his oldest son, Art Rooney II, in charge.

Despite his impact on making the Steelers the team they are today, it could be argued that he had even more important accomplishments in being a close confidant of three commissioners, devising “The Rooney Rule” to improve minority hiring in the NFL and as ambassador to Ireland.

Long before he became ambassador, he worked behind the scenes to bring peace to Ireland in the era known as The Troubles.

President Clinton acknowledged the role he played in building bridges in the decades before the peace process.

Clinton said so much of what took place in the 1990s “would not have been possible without what (Rooney) did for 15 or 20 years before the so-called process started.”

And The Rooney Rule changed not only the NFL but corporations around the world, and a version was adopted in both houses of the U.S. Congress.

Unfortunately, the NFL has not been making as much progress in minority hiring as it did with Rooney being on the scene to prod his fellow owners.

As Patricia Rooney said, “Maybe they thought when he left, the rule left.”

It is another example of how much Rooney’s vision is missed in today’s NFL.

The likes of his leadership may never be seen again in the NFL. 

Jarrett Stidham as good as Bill Belichick apparently thinks he is?

The answer to that question will determine how the rest of Belichick’s career turns out with the New England Patriots.

Stidham had some red flags when he was drafted out of Auburn a year ago. He didn’t play as well in 2018 as he did in 2017.

Once touted as a first-round pick, he slid to the second round in most draft projections a year ago. He was often compared to Derek Car.

But then he fell to the fourth round when Belichick grabbed him. He only threw four passes in his rookie season, completing two for 14 yards with no touchdowns and one pick.

Belichick, though, seems ready to hand him the starting job now that Tom Brady has moved on. He must have liked how Stidham looked in practice last year and in the preseason.

His only real competition is Brian Hoyer, who knows the Patriots system from his previous stints with the team but is the definition of a journeyman. Still, Belichick didn’t sign a veteran free  agent quarterback or draft a quarterback or even a wide receiver.

It could be noted that Belichick gave Brady the job when Drew Bledsoe got hurt even thouogh he went only 1 for 3 for six yards and no touchdowns or picks in his rookie season.

Belichick obviously thinks he can plug Stidham into Josh McDaniels’ system and keep the Patriots winning.

If Stidham can do that, it will add to Belichick’s legacy. If he flops, it will be noted that Belichick has coached seven years in the league – five with Cleveland two with the Patriots— and In those seven years, he made the playoffs only once with Cleveland.

He did go 11-5 with Matt Cassel in 2008 when Brady was hurt but it wasn’t good enough to make the playoffs.

Of course, the Patriots will still be favored to win the AFC East and go to the playoffs, but the real test will be once they get there. Last year, with Brady, they lost at home to Tennessee, their first home playoff game since 2012.

Can they do better without Brady? We’ll see. At least we will if there is a season.   

Are great coaches born or made?

That is a topic that is a focus of the new book by veteran coach Martin Rooney entitled, “Coach to Coach: An Empowering Story on How to be a Great Leader,” from John Wylie & Sons.

Rooney comes down on the side that great coaches are made and presents a lot of interesting advice for coaches and fans interested in what makes a good coach. And on how to be a better human being.

Not too many books on coaching mention that the best thing you can do for your kids is love your wife.

Instead of simply presenting his advice, he does it as a fable with an old coach instructing a young coach, who is having problems on the job and at home on how to become a better coach and person.

The old coach says the Golden Rule in coaching that that a coach has to be more enthusiastic about someone else than himself. And he says they need empathy. And that the best way to become stronger is to lift someone else up.

His Holy Grail of coaching is: Do and say the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, to the right person to get the best results.”

In his first sessions with the young coach, he writes the word enthusiasm with the IASM in capital letters on a blank piece of paper. The IASM is an acronym to stand for I AM SOLD ON MYSELF.

The old coach says he wants the young coach to really soul search about what it is you love to do and why you love to do it.

His second assignment is for the coach to apologize to a player he got into tiff with at practice after a loss.

Another piece of advice to say to players and people. “I’m proud of you.”He also says, “A coach also can’t get too caught up in wins and losses. If victories on the field create defeats for the coach at home, that will be the biggest and most costly loss.”

It is interesting advice, but I don’t know how realistic it is. If coaches don’t win, they don’t have a future. And many successful coaches have not exactly had an Ozzie and Harriett home life. Vince Lombardi is one example.

Rooney certainly has experience as an athlete and a coach. He is a former US bobsledder, Division I track athlete, judo black belt, record-setting powerlifter and two-time Guinness World Record holder, coach and motivational speaker.

His mission is to improve coaching, and it is a worthy one. As he says in the first paragraph of the book, “The world needs better coaches.”

The book provides a lot of good advice. But the question is whether it will make a better coach if the coach doesn’t have a natural aptitude for coaching remains one that is difficult to answer.

OK, we understand the players seem destined to take the money and give the owners a 17-game season.

But are they selling themselves short when they are putting player safety on the back burner to get more money?

The real question is: Are they getting enough to take the risks of playing that extra game?

According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, the owners will increase the players’ percentage of the designated gross revenue from 47 to 48 percent if the schedule stays at 16 games. But they get 48.5 percent for a 17th game.

That apparently means the players are getting a half of one percent of revenue for the 17th game. Since the owners really want that 17th game, shouldn’t they at least get a one percent increase to 49 percent?

According to Schefter, the players will get $5 billion more over 10 years if they go from 47 to 48.5 percent.

Sounds like a lot of money and both sides will put the spin on it about how much the players are getting.

But remember, $5 billion for 10 years is $500 million a year and remember, the players have to split it 1,500 ways.

Also, most players will pay about 40 percent in taxes – maybe more – depending on the state they live in. Now we are down to $300 million or less than $10 million per team.

And it is split 53 ways per team with the quarterbacks and star players getting a lot of it.

The players are going to get an increase in the minimum wage but it won’t be a windfall.

Maybe my math is wrong and we only have what Schefter has reported to go by.

And as revenue increases, they will get more over the life of the contract. And it will go up more if they play the 17th game than it will if they stay at 16.

Still, it seems like players should get more than a one half of one per cent increase to give the owners a 17th game. They take the risk of suffering injury, including CTE. The owners take no risk and the fans don’t play to see them.

The player reps – or the players themselves – should vote no. But if they take the deal, they can stop complaining the next 10 years about how players in other sports get paid a lot more money than they do.

It is easy for the players to take the money and run. But this is a time to stand up to the owners if they are going to take the risks to give the owners something, that they really, really want.

One of the toughest things for any successful college coach to do is to walk away in his prime.

The temptation is to stay too long the way Joe Paterno, Bobby Bowden and Woody Hayes all did.

Bob Stoops didn’t make that mistake. He coached at Oklahoma for 18 years from 1999 to 2017, won a national championship in his second year and kept the Sooners a force in college football while going 190-48 before stepping down on top as an icon.

He chronicled his career in his autobiography, “No Excuses, the Making of a Head Coach,” which was published by Little Brown and Company.

Even though It was published last fall, it is very timely because in the last page, he mentions that he decided to return coaching in the XFL with the Dallas Renegades.

He will make his debut Saturday when the new league kicks off its first season.

He ends the book by writing, “Two years ago, I got to write my own ending. I needed that time to decompress and recharge…Now I get to do something even better. I get to write my own beginning.”

It will be interesting to see what his new beginning is like. Is the XFL a springboard to him returning to big time college football? He did decide not to pursue the Florida State job at the end when FSU appeared to have him at the top of their list.

It remains to be seen if the XFL will scratch his coaching itch or whether he whether he will decide to go back into the pressure cooker as the coach of a big-time college time to cap off his career.

Either way, he is already had a fascinating career and his bio is one of the best I’ve read because it is so candid.He admits that it was almost a football miracle that put him on the road to becoming a successful coach.

He grew up in Youngstown as the son of a coach, but was not heavily recruited. The only Division I school (now known as FBS) to offer him a scholarship was Bowling Green. He was recruited by an assistant but when coach Denny Stolz met him, he wasn’t impressed, and rescinded the offer.

That left his options as staying home and playing for Youngstown State or going to Southern Illinois.“I would have been fine. But I am not sure I would have been happy,’’ he said.

Then came the miracle. The Iowa coach, Bob Cummings, offered him a scholarship. He was from Youngstown and played at the same high school his dad did.

But the team went 2-9, he didn’t play as a freshman and Cummings was fired at the end of the year.

He was ready to transfer, but his dad told him that he would wind up like one of those guys who go off to school, come back and amount to nothing.

That was the end of his transfer talk and he returned to Iowa where Hayden Fry had been hired as head coach.

He says that Cummings bringing him to Iowa was his first big break. The arrival of Fry and his defensive coordinator Bill
Brahler at Iowa was the second one.

They turned the program around and Stoops wound up playing in the Rose Bowl, becoming a team captain, making first team All-Big Ten honors and even honorable All-American mention.

And he not only met his future wife there, but Fry offered him a job as a graduate assistant coach.

That started him on the road that eventually led to Oklahoma and he entitled the chapter about his arrival at the school as “Lonely.” You don’t often hear coaches talk about being lonely at a new job when their family hasn’t joined them.

He said when he was visited by an old friend, he hugged her like she was his wife.“I made his go to lunch with me,’’ he writes. “I just needed to talk so someone with a connection to my past. It surprised me that I reacted that way, but that was the depth of my loneliness.”

That is the kind of candor that makes it such a good book. It is more than about football and gives a lot of insight into his life.

Now he begins the next chapter of his life in the XFL.

1. This was an easy game to handicap. Not surprisingly, the game was won by the team with a better quarterback. Even though Patrick Mahomes struggled for the first three quarters, he made the big plays in the fourth quarter to win the game while Jimmy Garoppolo wasn’t able to counter and overthrew Emmanuel Sanders when he had him open deep for what could have been a game winning score.

2. San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan didn’t learn any lessons from being the offensive coordinator when Atlanta went through the 28-3 disaster in the Super Bowl. He again showed he doesn’t know how to manage a game, notably at the end of the first half and in the fourth quarter. The 49ers had a 20-17 lead with six minutes left when Raheem Mostert ran five yards on first down to the San Francisco 25. Shanahan then called two pass plays and both were incomplete and the 49ers punted. Shanahan didn’t even seem to understand why he should have called a run on second down. He said it wasn’t about bleeding the clock, but moving the chains. But the 49ers averaged 6.4 yards a carry and a run would have been better shot to move the chains. Shanahan was the goat of the game.

3. There was a lot of chatter after the game that this is the beginning of a dynasty since Mahomes isn’t even in his prime yet. They have a chance but it won’t be easy to win multiple Super Bowls in the salary cap era. The Patriots did it but after winning three in four years, they went a decade before winning three more.

4. General manager John Lynch said after the game the the 49ers will be back. Don’t count on it. Seattle and Atlanta haven’t been back since they flopped on the cusp of Super Bowl wins. And they have to worry whether they have the right coach and quarterback to do it. And it is easy to forget that if Seattle hadn’t botched things after being a yard away from winning the season finale, the 49ers would have been a wild card team after losing three of their five regular season games.

5. The Super Bowl TV ratings increased slightly from last year but it was still only the 10^th most watched Super Bowl. The Super Bowl still draws the biggest ratings of an TV show all year. But the audience doesn’t seem to be growing.

6. It remains to be seen if the Chiefs are on the cusp of a dynasty, but another question is whether the Patriots dynasty is over. Bill Belichick was booed at the game and flashed three of his six Super Bowl rings, but he may not win a seventh one. Even if Tom Brady returns, he is showing his age and the Pats don’t have an alternative.

There will be millions of words written to analyze the upcoming Super Bowl in the coming days.

But let’s make it easy for you if you want understand why the Chiefs are going to win.

They have the better quarterback.

That’s it.

There are times in the Super Bowl when the quarterback is a wash when two Hall of Famers face each other like Bradshaw vs. Staubach and Montana vs. Elway.

There are times when neither quarterback is a Hall of Famer like Trent Dilfer vs. Kerry Collins.

But when one team has the edge at quarterback, it wins. This dates back to the early years when Bart Starr beat Daryle Lamonica, Joe Namath topped Earl Morrall and Len Dawson beat Joe Kapp in the second, third and fourth Super Bowls.

And note that Tom Brady won six of them but except for beating Hall of Famer Kurt Warner with the help of poor coaching by Mike Martz, he beat five quarterbacks who have combined to win one ring.

They are Jake Delhomme, Donovan McNabb, a young Russell Wilson, who threw that ill-fated pass which was a bad call by the coaching staff, Matt Ryan, handicapped by Kyle Shanahan’s poor coaching, and Jared Goff.

So, the choice in this Super Bowl is Patrick Mahomes over Jimmy Garoppolo.

The 49ers may have the better team but they’re not going to beat the Chiefs with Jimmy G. throwing eight passes the way he did against the Packers.

Mahomes will put points on the board and eventually Jimmy G is going to counter and while he may one day be a top quarterback, he isn’t there now.

That means the obvious choice is to go with Mahomes.

Case closed.

1. If Patrick Mahomes makes the Hall of Fame one day, his highlight reel will include his 27-yard touchdown run down the left sideline that spurred the Chiefs to the come-from-behind victory over the Titans. It was aided by some shoddy Titans’ tackling, but showed Mahomes is more than just a prolific passer. He may be the best quarterback in the game right now.

2. It wasn’t exactly a Joe Namath guarantee but Frank Clark of the Chiefs raised some eyebrows before the game when he talked about how it’s not hard to hit Derrick Henry. Earl Thomas had said similar things the previous week and then was stiff armed by Henry on one of his big runs. But the Chiefs held Henry in check with 69 rushing yards although it helped that the Chiefs got ahead and forced the Titans to go to the passing game. Clark talked the talk and then walked the walk.

3. Jimmy Garoppolo passed for only 77 yards and completed just two passes in the second half in the 49ers easy win over the Packers. Coach Kyle Shanahan said they stuck with the running game because it was working but the New York Times brought up the possibility that Garoppolo isn’t completely healthy after turning his ankle in the win over the Vikings. One thing is certain. He has to throw for more yards in the Super Bowl if the 49ers are to win.

4. Even though he was cut by six teams, Raheem Mostert refused to give up and was rewarded for his determination when he ran for 220 yards – the second most rushing yards in a playoff game since at least 1950 — as the 49ers demolished the Packers with their ground game. Mostert was helped by the fact the 49ers’ line opened gaping holes for him to run in.

5. Andy Reid has a glittering coaching record except for his playoff record. He’s only made it to one Super Bowl. Even after the victory, he is only 14-14 in the playoffs and 2-5 in conference title games. But now he gets a second chance to win that first Super Bowl.

6. Aaron Rodgers said after the loss that Green Bay’s championship window is still open. But after being routed by the 49ers twice in the same season, you have to wonder if Rodgers will never win another one.

1. The Titans upset the Chiefs in the regular season matchup, but it not surprising the Chiefs are favored. The Titans were at home and it was Patrick Mahomes first game back from his injury. This time, the Titans are on the road and Mahomes is at the top of his game after overcoming a 24-0 deficit in one quarter against the Texans.

2. The Titans have been outgained in yardage in both of their surprising road playoff wins. Both times they were aided by mistakes or turnovers by the Patriots and Texans. If the Chiefs don’t turn the ball over the way the Ravens did four times, the Titans may be hard pressed to pull off another upset.

3. The four coaches in the conference title game have one thing in common. They haven’t won a Super Bowl. But except for Andy Reid, they’re young coaches who are also making their first appearance in the conference title games. That is why Reid has the most at stake. He’s 1-5 in conference title games and lost his lone Super Bowl appearance. The lack of a Super Bowl is a glaring hole in his resume.

4. Derrick Henry has been the workhorse for the Titans, but Ryan Tannehill will be the key to the Titans chance for an upset. The Chiefs are going to put points on the board, which may make it difficult for the Titans to stick with their ground and pound offense built around Henry. They need Tannehill to counter Mahomes if they fall behind.

5. Aaron Rodgers is the only one of the four quarterbacks who has played and won in Super Bowl. And he’s the underdog facing a better team. But don’t look for Rodgers to repeat his poor showing against the 49ers in the regular season when he passed for only 104 yards, lost a fumble and was 0-for-13 on third down in a 37-8 loss. Look for Rodgers to make it close against the tough 49er defense and it wouldn’t be surprising if he pulls off an upset.

6. It is not surprising the two home teams are favored in the conference title games so a Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl is the chalk. But it would be fitting in the NFL’s 100^thseason for it to end with a Packers-Chief Super Bowl. That was the matchup for the first Super Bowl before it was called the Super Bowl as the Packers won for their fourth title in their five-title run in the 1960s.