I don't think this is true. It is true to the extent that "total control" is a mythical goal that can't be reached, but a coach and a coaching staff can command respect. In the NFL, there are (and were) locker rooms that are run with a much greater degree of professionalism than the locker room in Miami in 2013. That doesn't mean those locker rooms don't have their incidents, but in these locker rooms incidents don't become destructive patterns. We can place the blame anywhere we want, but ultimately, either the power structure made Philbin toothless or Philbin's own personality made him toothless. I understand that good managers in all workplaces are relatively rare, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
I bet you'll find most of those locker rooms that are "more" professional have coaches that have power with personnel. If you want to blame anyone in charge for this, blame Ireland, he's the one that brought in these guys and wouldn't get rid of them when Philbin wanted him to...which was well before this stuff blew up. Then again, most of the people complaining about this will also complain that we didn't give potential new GMs enough power. This whole thing is one giant ball of stupid.
My point was that the Shula example didn't fit, full stop. All a coach can do is "control the situation." The locker room is the situation. Does a manager "control the employees" or does a manager "control the workplace?" I'm not trying to argue in a realm of ideals that never existed anywhere. It seems the conversation is drifting that way for some reason. Also, if Philbin didn't have the power to move people on and off the roster, then he needed to use the extent of his power to make the situation work. From here, it doesn't look like he did. It strikes me as especially odd because o-line is supposedly his area of expertise.
What specifically could Philbin do, if everyone involved pretended they were fine and enjoyed the level of joking around that was going on and he had only x amount of olineman to deal shuffle around. Let's not forget all the shuffling that happened in the offseason. There was so much that people started to question the intelligence of doing it...well, now we know why it had to happen.
to quote Gary Stevens after his departure form the team; you can't make chicken salad with chicken ****... a good personal man gets the talent that the coach/s wants and needs. pretty sure based on all that has transpired that Ireland had his own agenda and it did not match Philbins.
You have a point here. Philbin's role limited his power, and his lack of experience also limited his power. I still think he failed to manage the situation. It's as if Philbin is the manager of a McDonald's for lunchtime on Saturday, and he's unhappy with the employees he was assigned for his shift, so he goes into the back office and plays solitaire on his computer all day. Meanwhile, the employees (whom he never wanted, of course) are back in the grill area flinging food at each other. As a customer, if get upset because my order is taking forever and I complain to the manager, I'm not going to take "I didn't choose which employees were working today" as an excuse for the foodfight. It's the manager's job to get the employees to do their jobs.
Oh I'm quite sure that Philbin was not in the back office playing solitaire. I'm quite sure he was all over his coaching staff to "fix" it which made things quite uncomfortable for all parties involved including Martin. I can't imagine the stress that he had on himself not to mention the pressure from the coaches. can't imagine what that kind of stress and pressure can do to a person and then throw on top of that a perceived demotion from LT to RT...
I appreciate what you're trying to say with that analogy, it just isn't accurate though. What Philbin saw was a bunch of guys getting along. He saw that because Martin purposely made sure that's what everyone saw. Its not like Martin was sitting at his locker bawling every time a joke was made at his expense and philbin saw this and did nothing. He saw that the oline was simply not talented and that was the reason for the poor on field play - not the joking around. He probably figured at least there's camaraderie among these guys so maybe they will gel. If Martin had approached Philbin about his specific issues with the players, there's no reason to think Philbin wouldn't have handled it immediately. When Martin's father came to Philbin with OTHER problems, Philbin handled that immediately. When CJ went off acting the fool during his PC, Philbin wasted no time in dealing with it by having a man to man talk with him. The situation didn't present to anyone on the team as an actual problem until Martin slammed down on the lunch table and walked out. There was no reason before then to think there was a problem.
considering you are clearly not engaging in any form of discussion here, I consider this personal attacks on the poster and not his posts. and as much as I know this will so clearly hurt you to the core you have now made my ignore list.
Can you do anything besides post Barry Jackson articles and call me names? Everyone is bored with our conversation. Use some facts to argue your point, instead of being a whiny douche nozzle. You know, something you've never done before.