Thursday, Feb. 11
An early contender for worst Headline of the Year goes to The Washington Post for this shot-in-the-groin: "Marty Schottenheimer, NFL coach whose teams wilted in the postseason, dies at 77" the headline read.
Ouch.
Poor Marty, who died at 77 from Alzheimer's Disease. He sure didn't deserve that kind of sendoff.
The Post later rewrote the headline to read: "Marty Schottenheimer, one of the NFL's winningest coaches, dies at 77."
I'm not opposed to headlines ripping bad people when they die. One of my favorite headlines was "Dahmer gets just desserts" after the notorious cannibal serial killer was murdered in prison by a fellow inmate.
But Schottenheimer was highly-respected - and highly-successful with a 200-126-1 coaching record. Among those who came under the Schottenheimer coaching tree as assistants under him were Bruce Arians, Bill Cowher, Tony Dungy, Herm Edwards and Mike McCarthy.
The writer of the story does not compose the headline. That's done either by someone on the sports staff, or on the newside working on what's called the universal desk. You have to wonder if the original Post headline was done by someone who had an axe to grind against Schottenheimer, or possibly lost money betting on Schottenheimer's teams in the playoffs.
Yes, Schottenheimer's teams went 5-13 in the playoffs, including 0-3 in conference championship games. Some of those losses were due to bad kicking, costly turnovers and bad luck.
I like to remember Schottenheimer more as being highly successful with three franchises, Browns, Chiefs and Chargers. He coached for 21 seasons. His teams made the playoffs 13 times and won eight division titles. He has the eighth-most coaching wins in NFL history. Schottenheimer is the only eligible coach with more than 200 victories not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
RIP Marty.