As far as we can tell, here’s how the Bill Cowher rumor mill has churned over the last 24 hours. Yesterday evening, he agreed to talk to the Jets. This morning, ESPN’s John Clayton reported that Cowher will not coach in New York because of GM Mike Tannenbaum would still have full personnel control. This was then refuted a few hours later by Clayton’s colleague Chris Mortensen, who claimed that the Jets would do anything, including replacing Tannenbaum as GM, to hire Cowher, thus The Chin was still interested.

All of this is for naught, however, if we’re to believe NFL Network Adam Schefter, who seems to be ready to stake his reputation on what he is calling “facts”:

No matter what anyone says, Bill Cowher is not going to be the New York Jets next head coach. If he talks to them — which is a possibility simple [sic] for the fact that he is smart enough never to big time anybody — it is to do nothing more than to inform them that he is not interested in the New York coaching job in 2009 nor any other head coaching job at this time and he respect [sic] the job the Jets do. …

Cowher’s not coming back. Not for the 2009 season. Put that in headlines [ed. note: as you requested, sir].

There you have it, Jets fans. No Cowher for you. Although Herm Edwards should be available any day now.

UPDATE: Speaking of Schefter and coaches, he is now reporting that Mike Shanahan has been fired by the Bronces. No one is safe!

(Via PFT)

Jets
head coach Eric
Mangini will cease to be the Jets head coach sometime this morning,
according to Andrew Marshan of ESPN 1050 Radio. The Jets missed the playoffs at
9-7 after losing four of their last five games.

Mangini just finished up his third year as Jets head coach. In 2006, he took
over a Jets team that was largely regarded as being very short on talent, and
went 10-6 and made the playoffs with pretty much the same team that had gone
4-12 the last year. At that point, he was dubbed "Mangenius."

In 2007, Mangini’s Jets sputtered to a 4-12 record.

This year, though, they rebounded once again, starting the season 8-3 and
stomping the guts out of the then-undefeated Titans in Week 12. Somewhere around
there, though … things took a turn.

I think we can say with a great deal of certainty that had the Jets not
collapsed and gone on to make the playoffs, Mangini would not have been fired
today. So if we look at the collapse as the determining factor in his firing, we
have to look at the causes of the collapse. and here’s a hint: It’s not Mangini.

Is it Mangini’s fault that Brett Favre suddenly turned into Bubby Brister
circa 1995? Give Mangini a decent quarterback, and he’ll go 8-3 and beat the
Titans. Give him a guy who throws 2 TDs and 9 INTs over a five-week period, and
he’ll go 1-4 … as would every other coach in the world.

I’m going to be saying this a lot today and tomorrow, but the blame here is
being placed at the wrong man’s feet. Eric Mangini is just as good a coach today
as he was in 2006 when the whole world loved him. Firing him is the easy move,
but that doesn’t make it the smart one.

Mea culpa, late pass, whatever you want to call it: I missed something key to the Cavs success this season. Though to be fair, I was supposed to.

Last week, I praised Mike Brown, including the changes in the team’s offense — presumably his doing — as one of the reasons LeBron’s likely serious about staying. However, it turns out Brown isn’t behind the new look when Cleveland has the ball. He’s discreetly hired an offensive coordinator. Take it away, Mr. Windhorst:

In his second season as Brown’s assistant, Kuester has taken over much of the detail operations of the offense. He has brought some new concepts to what the Cavs call their "early" offense, an effort to make them more effective in transition and less bogged down.

It was part of a mini-makeover Brown made to his staff in the off-season. He didn’t publicly announce it because he didn’t want to add any undue pressure to his coaches.

There’s also a defensive coordinator now (Mike Malone), and that’s Brown’s specialty. So it’s not as if this means Coach has no hand in what happens on offense. But reading Windhorst’s piece — which, I know, is over two weeks old — you do get a sense for just how instrumental Kuester’s been in this season’s improvements. Frankly, that version of things is a lot more plausible than Mo Williams and Delonte West suddenly unlocking Brown’s inner offensive genius.

With the exception of the whole secrecy thing, this reminds me of the role Tom Thibodeau played in defining the 2007-08 Celtics as a defensive squad. That doesn’t mean, though, that he deserved more credit than Doc Rivers, or that Kuester’s the real brains behind the Cavs. There’s a big difference between having the ideas and leading a team. Or knowing how to pick, and use, your assistants if you’re the head coach. For further evidence of this symbiotic relationship, look no further than the saga of Phil Jackson and Tex Winter.

There’s
a movement out there to try to get Mike Ditka
in the Illinois governor’s office in place of current enterprising governor
Rod Blagojevich.

Ditka’s qualifications, of course, are many. He’s got a career record of
121-95 as a head coach in the NFL. He seems like a fair-minded guy. He was
strongly considered as a candidate to run against Barack Obama for a U.S. Senate
seat in 2004. He’s got a fantastic mustache. From what I can tell, he’s fluent
in two languages, English and Emmitt.
And if it came to it, he could probably afford to buy the spot. I heard that
happens sometimes in Illinois.

The website, dagoverner.com, has this
message:

We da people of Illinois are sick and tired of scumbag politicians who think dat it’s their job to lie, cheat and steal. No more! We deserve somebody in charge who we can trust. Somebody who we can depend on. Somebody who we know understands the difference between right and wrong and won’t be afraid to kick corruption in the ass harder than da ‘85 Bears beat down da Patriots in da Super Bowl! 

Dat’s right, my friends. Da man for da job is Coach Ditka. So let’s make it happen! Ditka for Governor!!

It also has a lot of "Ditka for Governor" merchandise for sale.
It’s probably worth noting that Ditka’s said nothing himself about wanting to be
governor, and isn’t thought to be a serious candidate. Given that, one might
think that the primary purpose of the website would be to sell merchandise. But
I don’t think anyone would ever use the internet in a less-than-honest way.

Gracias, Critical
Fanatic.

Pro
Football Talk has
been reporting it for a couple of days, and the AP’s
gotten on the bandwagon today: It seems that Cleveland Browns defensive end
Shaun Smith punched teammate Brady Quinn’s face in a weight room
altercation. 

Tight end Darnell Dinkins backed up the story during a radio interview,
saying that Smith left some kind of a mark on Quinn’s grill.

Skip
Bayless is not going to like this. Unless he’s into that rugged, weathered
look, in which case the affection might only grow. And that’s fine. I think the
relationship Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mark Wahlberg had in Boogie Nights was
beautiful, and if Skip’s admiration for Brady could blossom into something like
that, well, there can never be too much love in the world.

No one seems to have any details about what started the fight, and Romeo
Crennel wouldn’t say anything about it. He didn’t deny it, though.

“I never talk about family business,” Crennel said. “I haven’t talked about family business since I’ve been here. So I’m not going to address it at this point or start talking about it. If it happened, it stays in house.”

Unfortunately, Crennel’s probably the guy who stands to lose the most from
the fight. Whether or not he remains employed as the Browns head coach could be
decided in the next week or so.

A four-win season is one thing, but the perception that he can’t control his
locker room would be another thing entirely. Smith and Quinn might as well have
just cut out the middle man, and socked Romeo in the nose.