Bowlen wouldn’t even be sniffing the HOF if he hadn’t inherited Elway

When the contributors’ committee met last week to select a candidate to be voted on at the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame selection meeting next February, they were looking at a strong field.

It included Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen, former general managers Bobby Beathard and George Young and scouting pioneer Gil Brandt of the Dallas Cowboys.

They could have easily just picked a name out of a hat.

Since there aren’t a lot of other slam-dunk contributor candidates at the moment, all four figure to be selected in the next three years.

There will be two nominated in 2019, then one a year after that.

Continue reading “Bowlen wouldn’t even be sniffing the HOF if he hadn’t inherited Elway”

Gruden’s constant hints of coaching return now beyond tiresome

It won’t be long before Jon Gruden will have more years in the broadcast booth than he spent on NFL sidelines as a head coach.

Gruden coached 11 years in the NFL, four with the Raiders and seven with the Buccaneers. He won one Super Bowl.

Now he’s entering his ninth year as an ESPN announcer, and by 2019, his announcing career will have lasted as long as his coaching career. And then maybe even longer.

That means his coaching career is probably over. Teams aren’t likely to hire a coach who hasn’t been on the sidelines for nine years.

And the Bucs are putting him in their Ring of Honor, a sign they think his coaching days are over. But for some reason, Gruden likes to keep his name in the coaching mix. It sounds like an ego thing.

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Time to look back … and time to look ahead

From typewriters and linotype machines to computers and the Internet.

Those were just some of the changes I’ve seen in the news business during my six decades of writing for newspapers.

So now, in another sign of the changing times, I’m starting my own website.

On this site, I plan on commenting on current events – giving my opinions and observations – as well as talking about how things used to be.

I won’t try to say things were better back in the day. Times change and you have to change with them. Which is why I am now blogging. But they were definitely different.

Sometimes, I feel like a buggy-whip maker driving a race car because things have changed with the speed of light.

Continue reading “Time to look back … and time to look ahead”