[Nick]

Originally Posted by rampete

preferential treatments to stars of a team by their respective HCs have been going on since the beginning of organized sports. vince lombardi, known to be a displinarian and just plain scary, babied bart starr in comparison to the rest of the packer players, tom landry did the same for his star players, jimmy johnson of dallas past was known for preferential treatments to the big three (aikman,emmitt,irvin), tuna of giants/jets/pats/dallas is renown for looking the other way for his star players, ala LT...

does this make it right? no, by any rationale means when you put it in any social context...but to think professional sports organizations should or will go out of their way to admonish head coaches for loosening the reigns around the star players is... :confused:

Good points, rampete. I think people who think Martz is the only one to do this in pro sports are being pretty naive.

Hadley even describes this when talking about his two examples from Martz's post-game conference:

Take his most recent press conference. Take two comments in particular that drew the ire of some in the media and many fans... relating to becoming unsettled by the play of Chris Chandler along with the role Marshall Faulk plays on game day.

It seems the favorite topic of discussion in the St. Louis sports world is how can Martz admit being distracted on the sidelines? How can the head coach admit being thrown-off his game for a brief period?

Well, it's a classic case of honesty biting you in the ass.

Do you really think Martz is the first head coach to get sidetracked during a game? Frankly, I'd be shocked if one current coach in the NFL hasn't been sidetracked at least on a few occasions during his career.

Simply stated, Martz set himself setup for criticism... and the masses obliged. While I appreciated the fact he was honest, it's unfortunate that the masses chose to feast on the "comment carcass."

The second item on the "blitz Martz" campaign relates to him addressing the fact that Faulk has "pull" in deciding which running back is in the lineup. Once again, I was not surprised, but intrigued, that a player can determine his own fate along with his teammates on game day.

Well, now the talk is all about not paying attention to which player is on the field, blah, blah, and blah.

Number one, many of the same media that are now taking shots at Martz are the same people that have said time again that Faulk "is like having a coach on the field." I've heard numerous media members talk about the fact that Faulk has the greatest comprehension of the game of any player they've covered.

If that is true, what is wrong having a say in personnel? If Faulk is like "having a coach on the field" or possessing incredible, game comprehension... why shouldn't he be heard from on the sidelines or in the huddle?

Do you think Faulk is the first player to possess such freedom? Obviously that's not the case, the only difference is the fact that Martz was honest in sharing the fact.

Do you really think that Martz is the first coach that failed to realize a certain player wasn't on the field in a given situation? I've heard broadcasters mention numerous times this season that a player wasn't on the field in a given situation with the position coach was taking a verbal lashing from the head coach. How many times have you watched a game witnessing a team calling a timeout to change personnel?

Just asking, when a team has two few or too many players on the field isn't that lack of personnel awareness? How many times has the position coach or coordinator been chastised for the blunder without having the whole city insinuating that he's incompetent?

Hadley basically set Martz up for criticism by discussing the treatment of certain players compared to others, and people bit on it, seemingly not reading the rest of the article where Hadley illustrates that Martz's tactics are more widespread than people think. People here these things about Martz and think they're exclusive to him and bad coaching, and that's why he needs to go. This kind of stuff happens to everyone, and I would place a very hefty bet that half of the teams in the league have some kind of problem with this issue of some players having more wiggle room than others.

That doesn't make them right, but he wasn't the first and sure won't be the last to do it. If some people think it's such an injustice, perhaps they should travel down to their local little league or youth games and nip it at the bud. As someone who participated in youth sports up until high school, there was ALWAYS a case of this in everything I did.

Personally, while I see no reason to crucify Martz for these crimes since he's far from the only person to do it I'm sure, I hope it all changes. The discipline level on this team has me disappointed, not only because of the things listed in this article, but also because of the number of penalties this team - specifically the offensive line - pile up because of stupid mistakes. Something should have been said or done to Torry Holt after those 2-3 false start penalties he had in that one game. If nothing was done, then that policy needs changed. All players need to be responsible for their play. If you tear down one guy for making a fumble, then you'd better be tearing down Isaac Bruce for it, too. Hopefully the Rams staff comes to some kind of understanding on how to treat all players fairly and with respect, if indeed this is as significant of a problem as Hadley makes it out to be.