The job of an NFL head coach only got tougher last week, and it will get significantly tougher this week.
Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress was able to get back his quarterback, Brett Favre, but he had to endure stories about a strained relationship with the passer and how much authority he sacrifices by letting Favre be Favre. Clearly, Childress is doing a tightrope act to appease a 40-year-old quarterback who is still good enough to get the Vikings to a conference championship game and maybe the Super Bowl.
Meanwhile, the training camp portion of preseason work ended for the Washington Redskins, but coach Mike Shanahan is still battling Albert Haynesworth over conditioning and other things. In the past couple of decades, no coach has had more control and authority than Shanahan, who ran the Broncos as if he owned the team. Those not on the same page usually boarded one-way flights leaving the Mile High City.
Shanahan ultimately will get his way, but hearing Haynesworth voice his displeasure over how Shanahan is using him with the second-half backups is almost unprecedented.
The head-coaching job for future years will get tougher this week, when NFL owners are expected to rubber-stamp a plan to expand the 2012 regular season to 18 games. To do so, the league will start working with the players' union to revise the offseason schedule. Expect a significant drop in OTAs -- those organized training activities that are supposedly voluntary but really aren't. Expect the enhanced schedule to shorten the time players can be pushed to train in team facilities.
If the regular season is extended, training camps as we know them will never be the same. Coaches will have only two preseason games to figure out rosters and prepare their players for the regular season whether they like it or not. Favre might be OK with that, as he had his way in blowing off the training camp part of the summer to spend more time in Mississippi.
"In college, you practice three weeks before you play a game," Favre said after Sunday's exhibition game against the 49ers. "I think physically speaking, as players get older, the chemistry, the camaraderie, all of those things are very important. If you can get that in college in a short amount of time, you can obviously get it in pro football because you spend a lot more time in pro football on football. You don't have to worry about class and things like that. There are some other restrictions in college football.
"If it is eight weeks of training camp, then it is eight weeks. If it is two weeks, it is whatever anyone else is doing really. I keep using college as an example. As much time as we spend in pro football, you still make a ton of mistakes. … If it is two preseason games, which I would much rather have, then you go in, knock it out and do it for real."
Absolutely TERRIBLE decision if this does indeed pass.
