Titanic Departure
Did Mike Heimerdinger leave the Titans for money, or did he escape a sinking ship?
by Randy Horick
Mike Heimerdinger left for the money.
Well, of course he did. Reassure yourself that he did. That's what Titans fans want to believe about the story they didn't want to hear.
The team's stellar offensive coordinator, the guy who coached Steve McNair to an MVP season, suddenly took a lateral career move for a 150 percent pay increase last week. It had to be for the money.
Why else would anyone go to New York for longer than a weekend and live with New Yorkers? To our Nashville sensibilities, it had to be about the Benjamins. We at least can relate to that. Hell, for a million dollars, most of y'all would leave your grandmother at home in her wheelchair with a can opener and a quick goodbye hug. Ah-ah-ah—be honest.
That's what I thought.
A raise of $600,000 is apt to buy a whole lot of your attention. It's almost enough whipout to make a man move even to Filthadelphia, the city that represents Fallujah's North American soulmate.
That the money was ample reason, however, doesn't necessarily make it the only reason why Heimerdinger—who had interviewed for a head coaching position only the week before with San Francisco—would accept another coordinator's job. All other things being equal, surely he would have remained in Nashville.
Titans fans would rather think it was all about the money than come to grips with the other possibility: that Heimerdinger knows a ship that's taking in water when he sees one, and got himself a lifeboat.
The Jets' new OC left some tantalizing hints: the Titans' "roster uncertainty" and the "upside" of his new team's relatively young offense. Translated, those hints may allude to bigger problems for the Titans than the loss of a fine coordinator.
And that's certainly unsettling to fans who have seen nothing but upside over the past seven years, even when the Titans weren't actively winning.
Saying the Titans face roster uncertainty is like saying that Donald Trump has a few tonsorial challenges. This team has salary cap problems that would make Sisyphus' job seem like a gravy train. By comparison, fixing Social Security will be easy.
This spring's cap casualties may include such stalwarts as offensive lineman Fred "False Start" Miller, safety Lance Schulters and—gasp!—wideout Derrick Mason. Losing Miller and Schulters would create holes enough. But the release of Mason, the Titans' most dependable workhorse at WR (and one of their best community assets, too), would leave a hole that could not be filled from the cast currently on hand.
If I were Heimerdinger, the potential departure of Mason would weigh heavily on my mind during the moments when I was not thinking about whether Steve McNair was going to return. Publicly, the Titans organization expresses confidence that Steve will be slinging footballs again this fall. I'm not so sure. Maybe Heimerdinger isn't either.
And even if he returns to the team, McNair may not return to his old, pre-injury form. And even if he returns to form, how much longer will he play? Two years? Maybe just one?
There's one other thing. Little birds whisper that McNair was none too thrilled with the Titans' pullback from the five-wide, empty-backfield formations over which he so often presided to devastating effect a year ago. Of course, the injury to Tyrone Calico and the departure of Justin McCareins left fewer guys to spread.
But I can't help but suspect that the emergence of Chris Brown—who, when healthy, is better than Eddie George in his prime—had more to do with the relative narrowing of the offensive vision. It's never exactly been a state secret that Jeff Fisher, given his choice of weapons, would rather grind down defenses with a siege engine like George or Brown than hit them with an aerial blitzkrieg. As generals go, he's closer to Ulysses S. Grant than Stonewall Jackson.
So if I were Heimerdinger (who built his reputation on opening up the Tennessee offense while balancing Air McNair with a powerful running game), I might wonder whether my boss wanted to shift the balance back more in favor of the old third-and-Eddie formula; it sure seemed that way until Brown got hurt and Billy Volek was allowed to fling early and often. I would look at the Jets and see a team not unlike the Titans were five years ago: a team with a promising, potentially great young QB; a future Hall of Fame running back; very good, young wide receivers; and a very fine head coach. And then I would look at the Titans and see an aging team that still faces a day of reckoning.
And I'd conclude it'd be better to ride the tide of an improving team and look like the offensive genius who was responsible (and get a $600K raise to boot) than stay with an organization that may find it difficult to maintain its 1999-2003 standard of success.
The Titans have been much smarter than the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers, to cite two infamous examples of teams that faced cap-tastrophes. Those organizations held on to their aging stars too long and paid a huge price for years; the 'Niners still haven't recovered.
You can make a good case that Titans general manager Floyd Reese is the smartest manager of personnel in the NFL. He understands that, to remain competitive, you must average an annual roster turnover rate of about 25 percent. When it comes to the business of player contracts, you have to have all the sentimentality of a Corleone.
Reese has done a far better job than most GMs of cushioning the blow of replacing an aging team. He let go of past-their-prime favorites like Blaine Bishop, Randall Godfrey—and Eddie—when they still had value. Barely missing a beat, the Titans filled those holes with the likes of Tank Williams, Peter Sirmon and Brown. Last spring, instead of trading up for a marquee draft choice, he opted to trade down and choose a raft of quality but less expensive players. As a result, the Titans had six or seven rookies in 2004 who stand good chances of becoming strong every-down players.
But even Reese acknowledges a sobering truth that fans would prefer to deny: the day is coming when he will have to "blow up" this team. Maybe that apocalyptic day, when valuable veterans will be sacrificed to free up funds for a youth-oriented rebuilding movement, will come this year. Maybe it will be next year or the next. And maybe, just maybe, the Titans can survive the transition without making a habit of five- and six-win seasons.
Still, if I'm Mike Heimerdinger, I'd take the money, thank my old boss for the opportunity, and run like hell.
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