Steelers Want Bill Cowher Decision TODAY
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| Tuesday, January 2, 2007 |
It appears the year-long speculation over Bill Cowher’s future with the Pittsburgh Steelers is finally about to come to a head.
A Pittsburgh Steelers source told ESPN’s Chris Mortensen that team chairman Dan Rooney and team president Art Rooney II will meet with Cowher and are expected to push Cowher to make a decision Tuesday on whether he will resign after 15 seasons as head coach. Cowher had hoped to take up to a week from the end of the season before making a decision.
The team source told Mortensen that the Rooneys believe Cowher likely is going to walk away and want to start the process of finding a new coach, in part because their in-house potential replacements, offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt and assistant head coach/offensive line Russ Grimm, are potential head coaching candidates for other NFL teams.
The 49-year-old Cowher, whose tenure with the same team is the longest of any current NFL coach, began weighing retirement shortly after the Steelers won the Super Bowl in February. He is signed through 2007 but, for the first time since being hired in January 1992, could not work out an extension.
[...]
Cowher, for the first time, seems focused on being one of the NFL’s highest-paid coaches in his next contract. Cowher made about $4 million this season, or about half of what Seattle coach Mike Holmgren is making. The Steelers are giving no indication they are willing to pay any coach $8 million a year. However, there seems little doubt Cowher could make that kind of money should he retire, work next season as an NFL analyst for a TV network, then sign with another team in 2008 or 2009 after all of his daughters have left home.
More power to him if he can get that kind of money. Still, there can’t be a better situation in the NFL than working for the Rooneys. They’ve shown incredible loyalty and patience in a business where those things are seldom seen. Cowher has been an excellent coach, to be sure, but he’s had several down years, including three straight years of missing the playoffs from 1998-2000:
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| * — Won Super Bowl | ||
Any other owner would have fired a coach with that long a losing streak, especially one who had not yet won a Super Bowl after nine seasons. The Rooneys have not hesitated to keep him around, though, and have been rewarded with two trips to the Super Bowl and one ring.
Aside from ego, it’s not as if making $8 million a year instead of $4 million will lead to a major lifestyle change; it’s not the equivalent of going from $40,000 to $80,000.
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