Thursday, January 10th, 2008 by Adam Wagner
Dan Snyder must be dreaming (about Bill Cowher)
The Jaw is reportedly in the sights of the Billionaire Owner, which in English means that Dan Snyder is interested in contacting Bill Cowher about the Washington Redskins’ Head Coach position, one that Joe Gibbs just vacated for the second time.
The odds of Cowher coming back are extremely slim considering a couple of factors. The most important of these is that Cowher has stated that he is not interested in coming back before 2009. Well, next season will be 2008, meaning that Snyder may be out of luck. Also, Cowher receives a nice payday for doing essentially nothing for CBS, simply talking about the state of football. He has none of the stresses of dealing with motorcycle crashes or general managers or disruptive draft picks; he can just sit back and relax and enjoy watching his girls play basketball.
The Washington job may seem attractive to Cowher, in part because the Redskins’ defense ranked fifth in the league during the 2007 season and returns players such as London Fletcher-Baker and LaRon Landry, two athletes who could play for any defense in the league right now. The Redskins also have Jason Campbell, a young quarterback who is probably in the latter stages of his developmental process. Cowher would essentially be picking up where he left off with his Steelers team (Washington did overachieve in the latter half of this season, but they definitely have some talented football players), not having to start anew.
Snyder should not, however, logically have an interest in Snyder. Whoever the Redskins bring in will probably be unable to attain coordinators Gregg Williams and Al Saunders without a great degree of strife (both want to be head coaches), so the most logical hire is one of those two, with Williams likely receiving the nod in that competition. Stability is the name of the game in the NFL nowadays and bringing in anyone from outside could knock the Redskins off of the delicate balance that they found in the second half of this past season.
In the end, Cowher and the Redskins are probably not a very good fit for each other. The question is still whether Daniel Snyder realizes this or not. And, if he does not, his degree of error (would he really offer Cowher that magic $10 million salary?).
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