Breaking: Tony Dungy Done in Indy, Per Jay Glazer
NFL January 12th. 2009, 11:09am
Jay Glazer at Fox Sports reports:
While the team has scheduled a 5 p.m. press conference, Dungy is walking around the team’s complex saying good bye to players and team employees and informing them that the transition should be a smooth one for new coach Jim Caldwell.
According to one source, Dungy explained that he has talked it over with his family and they believed this was the proper time to step down, while the Colts nucleus was still in tact.
Damn. The run is over, right? Discuss
63 Responses to “Breaking: Tony Dungy Done in Indy, Per Jay Glazer”
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January 12th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Well, it sucks to see him go, but Caldwell is virtually a clone of the man. Plus, he was a choker, anyway. Softspoken coaches are pussies who can’t ever get it done when it counts. We need a screamer! We need a screamer! We need a screamer!
/Spittle’d
January 12th, 2009 at 11:13 am
What run? One super bowl amidst many epic playoff failures? Either way, as long as they have Payton, they will still be in the hunt.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Damn. Just when i was hoping my bday would be smooth and easy, and I’d be done early to coast.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:15 am
“what run?” have you been following football for the last decade?
January 12th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Congrats, you were the first of many irrational comments this thread is likely to see. Way to go. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Glazer breaks another one.
bsanders37 — With the Colts personnel it’s pretty much impossible to make any radical changes with this team anyway. I don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s just that this team has a certain way of playing both sides of the ball and they aren’t built to do much anything differently.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Great run IMO. Gruden should be thanking him for his one and only ring.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Can we compare Dungy to Bobby Cox?
January 12th, 2009 at 11:18 am
in records yes, in personality no.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Nah, Caldwell is the exact same type of coach as Dungy and all the coordinators and position coaches are sticking around. Plus, the core of the team is intact. If they can get the o-line healthy and squared away this offseason and acquire some defensive tackle and linebacker help through the draft, they’ll be a lot better than they were this year when the play of Manning, Freeney and Mathis probably won them about four more games than they should’ve.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:19 am
They still have Peyton, Right?
January 12th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Quality coach. Resurrected two moribund franchises and brought them to their best years (Tampa’s SB trophy should include a ‘Thank you’ to Dungy for all he did in clearing out the driftwood).
I really thought he’d retire after his son’s suicide. I’m surprised he hung on for this long. Even still, he walks away with a ring and respect. I doubt we’ll be seeing him on a panel on Sunday mornings though.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Nah, I’d say Bill Cowher is probably better. Numerous playoff losses and one Super Bowl win to show for it, right?
January 12th, 2009 at 11:21 am
@Roethlishotdog: Maddux>Manning
Just throwing that out there.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:21 am
TBL - Happy Birthday. Mine was yesterday!
Dungy was bound to walk away and, although some folks will argue with “only” one Super Bowl, I find that laughable. There are only a few teams that have had more success than the Colts the last decade.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:21 am
He’s not loud or stupid enough.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:21 am
With the exception some peeps at Canon and Sony, pretty much every one agrees that Dungy > Belichick.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Don’t forget all the Tampa players who say they view him as more responsible for that Super Bowl in than Gruden. Or the fact he was one blown call away from leading that Tampa team over the Rams, on the road, and making his first Super Bowl several years before he did.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:22 am
why don’t they just make peyton manning head coach? that’d be tits.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Happy BDay TBL, now get to work.
Don’t like the Caldwell hire, long time Dungy assistant that brings absolutely nothing new to a stagnant organization. I’m sure he’s a fine coach and probably should have had an opportunity somewhere else by now, I just think the Colts needed to get some fresh blood.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:23 am
This analysis is all well and good. But what does Archie Manning think?
January 12th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Just playin fellas. They will be fine without Dungy. They have Payton, and if they start falling off, it’s not because of losing Dungy. It will be because they are in some cap trouble coming up here soon.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Colts still win 10+ games next year.
book it.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Say what?
January 12th, 2009 at 11:25 am
If you think Dungy > Belichick, does that mean you also think 1 > 3 ???
January 12th, 2009 at 11:26 am
at first glance, i’d say no. how can you compare sports when one doesn’t have a cap and the other does.
if you want to compare the pistons to the colts, that’s fine; but coaching wise, i dont think there’s anything there.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:26 am
yes, 1 > 3*
January 12th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Just like 35 > 45
/Oklahoma’d
January 12th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Here’s hoping Dungy takes a year off, then replaces Brad Childress in Minnesota in 2010.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:27 am
But Cowher didn’t make the playoffs every year. And your last sentence describes Dungy just as well.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:27 am
They’re actually in better shape than they’ve been recently thanks to Corey Simon’s wasted ass finally coming off the books. If they cut Harrison, they’ll be in excellent shape in comparison to recent offseasons.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:28 am
@bsanders — Dungy’s won a Super Bowl, he’s a very good coach, and the recent negativity is mostly crap.
But part of what I will remember about his time will be the times Peyton Manning waved the punt team off the field while Dungy sat on the sideline looking stunned.
Hey, it’s all up for consideration, right?
January 12th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Folks forgetting that Gruden beat his own former team (Raiders) in that Super Bowl. So you can say Gruden coached Dungy’s team, but the runner-up was Gruden’s team! Plus Gruden got the Bucs over the hunp. Clearly some of Dungy’s legacy has to be that he built great teams that didn’t always get it done in the clutch.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:29 am
And your first sentence helps Cowher how? Again, why would anyone want their team to not make the playoffs?
January 12th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Obviously “sat” was not what he was doing. Oops. “Stood”.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:31 am
he built great teams that didn’t always get it done in the clutch.
I can think of 10 NFL cities who’d dream of such misery.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:31 am
That only happened a couple times, and it was usually a 50/50 proposition. And honestly, it was when they were trailing in playoff games and when you’re Peyton Manning and the other option is putting your defense out there to get a stop, what would you do?
January 12th, 2009 at 11:31 am
At what point did Cowher have one of the top 5 Qb’s in the history of football. Am I undervaluing Bubby Brister?
January 12th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Jay Glazer ftw
January 12th, 2009 at 11:33 am
ESPN, beat to the punch once again by Glazer.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:33 am
I laugh at all those people that think this will be good for the Colts. I bet there are 26 GMs and owners who wish that they had him as their coach.
Aside from this Harrison situation, his players are never in the news for bad behavior, they are always in the playoffs, his players love him, a majority of the fans like him. A SB trophy in the last 3 years.
How many other teams can say this about their coach?
January 12th, 2009 at 11:35 am
The way I see it, you have guys like Chuck Knoll, Paul Brown, Lombardi, Bill Walsh, Landry and Belichick on the Mount Rushmore of NFL coaches.
Then, just below them are guys like Jimmy Johnson, Holmgren, Shanahan, Cowher and Dungy. Great coaches all with great resumes, but not enough to put them in the top tier.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Oh, I understand why Peyton did what he did. And everyone runs their team differently, obviously. But can you imagine Brady ever doing that to Belichik?
Again, a minor thing in a very successful career for Dungy. But I’ll never forget the look on his face when it happened.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Exactly correct. I can only dream of our local team playing a clutch game, let alone a playoff game.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Well said. Which is why, as a Colts fan, I’m happy as hell his entire staff is still in place and his predecessor is cut from the same cloth. They’re fun to watch, they’re in the hunt every year and they’re not the Cowboys. And other than the Patriots, there’s no team in the past seven years since Dungy’s been in Indy that’s done better.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Am I undervaluing Bubby Brister?
And Neil O’Donnell. And Tommy Maddox. And the Artist Formerly Known As Slash.
Cowher was in charge of picking his players. He never made a move for a big-time QB that I can remember until drafting Ben R.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Don’t forget all the Tampa players who say they view him as more responsible for that Super Bowl in than Gruden
Then also don’t forget Warren Sapp looking into the camera on the America’s Game series on NFL Network and saying that Dungy was a great coach and that Sapp loved him, but that Dungy needed to go. The change and “uncomfortableness” that Gruden brought helped the Bucs, at least to win that one Super Bowl.
I like Dungy, love Peyton and Polian, and I think he was a very good coach, but I think the love for the guy is a little over the top (see: Tebow, Tim)
January 12th, 2009 at 11:40 am
His teams always had a great chance of winning the Superbowl every year.
There are at least 10, if not more, teams that realistically have no shot of making the playoffs every year. About 5-10 more have little to no shot of winning the Super Bowl (see Jets, NY).
bsanders is right. Man is a top 5 NFL coach of the post-Walsh generation.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:44 am
The steelers were built around defense and the colts were built around offense. Both lead to one superbowl under Cowher and one superbowl under Dungy. Both are great NFL head coaches.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:45 am
I see what you’re saying bsanders about the staff being in place, but I feel like simply promoting a guy already on staff to the head position may not be the best thing for the franchise. There could be another candidate out there who is better for the job but they don’t even interview anyone? Seems strange to me
January 12th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Not really. He and Tom Donahoe famously clashed over personnel and essentially the Rooneys had to “choose” between them (Donohoe went to go fuck up Buffalo for while, so I think they made the right choice).
January 12th, 2009 at 11:45 am
He was a good coach.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Completely agree. I don’t see why to praise one you have to criticize the other. Cowher left at a time when he wasn’t taking any criticism, though. So I guess he gets points for that.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:46 am
I like Dungy, great guy, good coach, but I have zero confidence with him in big games. Seems like his teams never have the killer instinct.
But then again, I don’t see the Colts play every week.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:48 am
bsanders - I wasn’t trying to argue that Cowher>Dungy. I was simply stating I felt Dungy was a better comparison to Cox since he did make the playoffs every year (which Cowher can’t say).
January 12th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Wow, Merril Hoge looks near tears on Sportscenter. They are holding Dungy’s funeral on ESPN now, it’s so somber.. reminds me of when Brady went down.
January 12th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Seriously cracker, your Dungy hatred is a little scary. He’s gone now. Feel free to exhale and let the hate leave your body.
January 12th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Jpq, right on!
January 12th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
sanders, just an observation. Calm down dude. I did say they did the same thing for Brady.
January 12th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Dungy won a Super Bowl, and never, ever did anything to hurt or embarrass the NFL. The guy has been a true gentleman. Class, such as exhibited by Dungy, is darn near impossible to replace. The NFL will miss him.
Good for him, though, to retire on his own terms.
January 12th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Dungy won a Super Bowl, and never, ever did anything to hurt or embarrass the NFL. The guy has been a true gentleman. Class, such as exhibited by Dungy, is darn near impossible to replace. The NFL will miss him.
Good for him, though, to retire on his own terms.
And if you spent 5 minutes with him, you’re better for it
/Brennaman’d
January 12th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
92-33, 7 playoff appearances, 1 ring
Pretty damn good.
January 12th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
How many playoff games did Peyton win in the four years before Dungy?
How many times did the Bucs make the playoffs before Dungy?
I’ll say he was a great coach…