I called for Fisher's firing enough that I started posting a "Dead Horse Post of the Week".
Pretty sure everyone and plenty of their relatives knew where I stood (and those relatives probably resented knowing, to be quite honest).
That said, there's just no grace is celebrating his demise.
The world's already ugly enough. This doesn't have to be an ugly time.
It's a tough time...a time of transition. And while we know Fisher failed as a Head Coach, we know because we know football is a team and organizational sport that this failure wasn't solely on Fisher any more than it was solely on Keenum or Quinn or Snead or Demoff or Kroenke or some scout or quality control coach know one knows, but the other coaches, the players and their families.
It's not like Demoff could fire half the team mid season and for logistical and somewhat gamesmanship reasons due to likely other HC opportunities likely to open in the coming days, Fisher was fired.
I think we all get that this is ultimately a good thing for the organization. Very few believe he should have been retained. It's pretty much a consensus.
But... it's beyond bad form... it's bad karma to urinate on a man's freshly dug grave. The firing should be the end of it. Ya finish walking the Green Mile, the debt is paid....
Few differed on Fisher as much as I did. Even still, I NEVER doubted that he gave his all...every minute to trying to make this team better... that he totally cared for all of his players, coaches, staff, and organizational staff... that he worked tirelessly... personally... in a heartfelt and real way... to better this franchise. Some things worked. Some things didn't.
And some things... as much as I differed with him... he was just snake bit on. And while I totally hold him responsible (the house still takes your money, even if you're unlucky in a really unlucky way), that's what being an HC is all about.
Plenty of HCs got to the pinnacle being SUPER lucky. You think Dick Vermeil planned that alchemy of the GSOT? You think he planned to be the among the healthiest teams in the league in 1999? You think he planned to have so many balls bounce his way?
I don't mean to absolve Fisher of ANY responsibility. Far from it. One could write a book on what went wrong.
But winning in circumstances that rely on both execution and the alchemy of serendipity, one can get a caricature of the true nature of what winning actually is made of if one ignores the random elements, for one, or ignores the interconnected nature of the team over 60 or 80 iterations over a game and then multiply those over the course of a season. The "Game of Inches" speech from "Any Given Sunday" comes to mind...
Bottom line: He tried. He got some things right. He got some things wrong. Some things went his way. More things didn't go his way. He planned for the future and through his own failures, his coaches' and his player's failures, that won't happen.
I look forward to our future. Unlike Coach Callahan who quit on the Raiders, I NEVER felt Fisher quit on us. I just felt like his time had run its course and it was time to move on. I have nothing, but respect for his tenure AND, he did make the transition very easy on the organization. I think people really underestimate how difficult such a transition is.
At this point, I'm all about looking forward. Fisher is now a former Rams HC. I'm thankful that he helped greatly improve our roster. That's a bonus.
Hey look... maybe there's some pollyanna left in me, yet...
Excelsior ad Astra! (Ever Upward to the Stars!)