ShareThisWith most of the league's football minds gathered in Mobile, Ala., this week for Senior Bowl practices, there were more than a few raised eyebrows at the comings and goings around the league already this offseason.
Especially about the way things went down in Denver and Tampa, where two Super Bowl-winning coaches -- Mike Shanahan and Jon Gruden -- were sent packing since the regular season's end.
Basically, though, when the varnish of chatter is stripped away on all sides in each case, the team owner simply asserted himself as the team's owner. Sometimes the folks who sign the checks like to remind people who holds the pen.
Titans owner K.S. "Bud" Adams perhaps said it best when the salary-cap load was crushing his roster after a Super Bowl appearance following the 1999 season and a 13-3 finish in 2000.
"You know," he reportedly told team officials when he felt he was not getting the whole story, "I own this team."
And while Shanahan had total control over the Broncos' football operations, only one person has total control over the franchise, and that's owner Pat Bowlen.
Bowlen didn't like the direction things were going and some who call him a friend in the league believe, in Bowlen's mind, Shanahan drifted away, at least some, from the one guy he shouldn't have -- Bowlen.
Same for Gruden, who was said to have had a disconnect with those above him on the flowchart. His firing this past week came a little later than such things usually do following a season; there usually is sort of a two-week period after the regular season when the big changes get made.
But in a brief statement, the Buccaneers ownership -- Malcolm Glazer and his sons -- sent Gruden on his way. Gruden's dismissal was announced the same day the team announced a new assistant coach, linebackers coach Joe Barry, had been hired for the defensive staff.
Toss in just one playoff win for Shanahan since the team won the Super Bowl to close out the 1998 season and no playoff wins for Gruden since his team closed out the 2002 season with the title, and it's a pretty clear formula for what happened.
Elsewhere, teams certainly have leaned younger in their hires thus far, in both head coaching positions and top personnel jobs.
The Buccaneers promoted Raheem Morris, 32, to replace Gruden as head coach and promoted Mark Dominik, 37, to replace Bruce Allen as the team's general manager.
Overall, teams have shied away from older general manager candidates like Charley Casserly and Floyd Reese, who have built Super Bowl teams and are currently working as television analysts.
The Chiefs fired Carl Peterson after he had held the job for 20 years.
The Lions, who went 0-16, even promoted from within, making Martin Mayhew their GM, while the Browns are expected to name George Kokinis, 41, their general manager by week's end.
Kokinis has been the Ravens' pro personnel director.
The Broncos interviewed two 32-year-old candidates for their head coaching job -- Morris and Josh McDaniels -- and did not interview anyone from outside their organization older than 49.
Rick Dennison, retained as the team's offensive line coach, was the oldest person to interview for Denver's head coaching job. He's 50.
It all means that with McDaniels now the head coach in Denver and Morris the head coach in Tampa, two of the six youngest head coaches in league history -- at the time of their hires -- have been named in the last two weeks.
(Contact Jeff Legwold of the Rocky Mountain News at legwoldj(at)RockyMountainNews.com.)
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