Jim E. Mora

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Earnest Mora (born May 24, 1935 in Glendale, California) is the former head coach of the USFL's Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars and the NFL's New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts. He played football at Occidental College where he was also a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. His son Jim L. Mora is the former head coach of the Atlanta Falcons. The Seattle Seahawks have revealed that Jim L. Mora will replace Mike Holmgren as head coach in 2009.

As an NFL coach, Mora is best known for three things: turning two of the NFL's losingest franchises into perennial post-season contenders, his lack of success once he got his teams to the playoffs, and his often impassioned post-game tirades and press conferences, including his oft-quoted "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda," "Diddley Poo," and "Playoffs?" tirades.

[edit] Early career

Mora was a tight end at Occidental College, graduating in 1957. His college roommate was Jack Kemp, an all star quarterback with the Buffalo Bills, U.S congressman for 18 years and presidential candidate in 1988. After playing three years of service football in the U.S. Marines Mora became an assistant coach at his alma mater in 1960. He moved up to head coach of Occidental a few years later and led the team for three seasons (1964-66) compiling an 18-9 record.

Mora received a master's degree in education in 1967 and left Occidental to serve as an assistant coach at Stanford for the 1967 season. He then spent five seasons at Colorado, one at UCLA and three at Washington. In 1978 he moved to the professional ranks as the defensive line coach for the NFL's Seattle Seahawks under head coach Jack Patera.

[edit] USFL

In 1983 the United States Football League came into existence and Mora became head coach of the Philadelphia Stars (who moved to Baltimore in 1985). During his tenure the team compiled a 48-13-1 (.782) record while winning two USFL championships. Mora was named Coach of the Year in 1984 and is considered by many observers to be the best coach in the short history of the USFL. After the USFL folded in 1985 Mora took over as head coach of the NFL's New Orleans Saints.

[edit] New Orleans Saints

After a 7-9 record his first season, Mora led the Saints to a 12-3 record in 1987. That was the Saints' first season over .500 and its first playoff appearance. In week 6 of the 1987 season the Saints lost a 24-22 game to the San Francisco 49ers, missing a last-second field goal. After the game Mora launched what became known as his "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda" speech. In his postgame press conference, Mora angrily said the following:

The Saints responded by winning their last 9 games. The team's 12-3 record in the 1987 season was the second-best in the NFL that year. Unfortunately for them, the 49ers had the league's best record (13-2) and played in the same division. Therefore, the Saints were a wild-card team (since 1987 was a strike-shortened season with replacement games, it should be noted that the Saints and 49ers had identical 10-2 records in regular season non-replacement games). The Saints lost their first playoff game 44-10 to the Minnesota Vikings. Nevertheless Mora received the NFL Coach of the Year Award.

Mora's Saints finished 10-6 in 1988, and were part of a three-way tie for first in the NFC West with the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams. However, the 49ers won the division on tie-breakers, and the Saints lost the wild-card tiebreaker with the Rams and missed the playoffs. In 1989, the Saints again had a winning record (9-7) but finished 3rd in the NFC West and missed the playoffs.

Thereafter his Saints teams made the playoffs three more times. In 1990, the Saints only finished 8-8, but managed to make the playoffs as a wild card. They lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Chicago Bears, 16-6.

In 1991, Mora's Saints finished 11-5 and won the NFC West for the first time in team history. In fact, it was the team's first division title ever. However, the Saints lost again in the first round of the playoffs. They lost at home to the Atlanta Falcons 27-20, in spite of finishing one game ahead of the Falcons in the NFC West during the regular season.

In 1992, Mora led the Saints to its second 12-win season in 6 years, finishing 12-4. They were a wild card again, however, as the San Francisco 49ers finished 14-2. But for the second time in two years, the Saints were upset at home in the first round the playoffs, as the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Saints, 36-20. This would be the Saints' last playoff game during Mora's tenure, leaving Mora with an 0-4 playoff record in New Orleans.

1993 marked the beginning of the decline of Mora's Saints. The team started the season 5-0 and appeared to be headed to the postseason again; however, after the Saints' bye week, the team went into a tailspin and went only 3-8 in the final 11 games, including losing 4 out of their last 5 games. 1993 was Mora's last season of .500 or better in New Orleans.

After two 7-9 seasons in 1994 and 1995, Mora appeared increasingly frustrated with his team's situation in New Orleans. After the Saints were beaten 19-7 by the Carolina Panthers, a loss which put them at 2-6 midway through the 1996 season, Mora walked out of the postgame press conference in disgust after a profanity-laced tirade. His outburst became famous on sports highlight reels for years to follow, largely because of Mora's use of the phrase "Diddley Poo." On the Saints' performance, Mora said the following:

Shortly afterward, Mora unexpectedly resigned his position as head coach and was replaced by interim coach Rick Venturi. The Saints finished the season at 3-13, their worst season since going 1-15 in 1980. Venturi was replaced by veteran Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka.

[edit] Indianapolis Colts

In 1998 Jim Mora replaced Lindy Infante as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. The team struggled to a 3-13 mark in his first year with a rookie Peyton Manning learning the ropes at quarterback, but had an amazing turnaround to 13-3 in 1999, thanks in large part to the addition of rookie running back Edgerrin James. The Colts lost their first playoff game in the AFC Divisional Playoffs (the team received a first-round bye to advance to the Divisional Playoffs) to the Tennessee Titans, which dropped Mora's all-time NFL postseason record to 0-5.

The Colts finished 10-6 in 2000 and made the playoffs once again, but the team lost a wild-card round playoff game to the Miami Dolphins by a score of 23-17 in overtime. This defeat dropped Mora's overall postseason record to 0-6. Coincidentally, just hours after Mora lost what would be the sixth and final playoff game of his career, his former team, the New Orleans Saints, won their first-ever playoff game.

On November 25, 2001 after a loss to the San Francisco 49ers which dropped the Colts to 4-6 Mora, made his famous "Playoffs?" tirade. Of the Colts' performance Mora said:

Later in the press conference, in response to a reporter's question about the Colts' chances for making the playoffs, Mora said in a high-pitched, incredulous sounding voice:

His "Playoffs" sound byte is regularly played back as a joke on a number of sports radio talk shows when discussing mediocre NFL teams or playoffs of other sports. The tirade has mostly been played on The Jim Rome Show whenever a new sports figure goes on a tirade, which then Rome references other tirades &/or rant soundbytes such as Mora's tirade. The tirade would go on to be featured in a Coors Light commercial in 2006 as part of an ad campaign that recreated NFL coaches' infamous press conferences with twenty-something male actors asking the coaches inane and unrelated non-football questions about the beer. In an appearance on the Best Damn Sports Show in 2003, Mora talked about going to autograph signings and having a kid come up to him and ask him to say "playoffs" in lieu of an autograph. He's also had some fun with the remark, saying the Playoffs? line during a media session to the New York Giants in the days leading up to Super Bowl XLII in Arizona. More fun was had during 2007 training camp when he talked to his son Jim L. Mora, then an assistant with the Seattle Seahawks, via satellite feed on the NFL Network and Marcus Pollard, a former member of Mora's Colts, spoofed Mora Sr's "Playoffs?" rant.

Hampered by a season-ending knee injury to James, Indianapolis only won two more games that year. Some sources believed that Mora could have saved his job if he fired one (or more) of his coordinators (especially defensive coordinator Vic Fangio) but he refused to do so. Mora was fired after the season and replaced by Tony Dungy who has since led the Colts to win the Super Bowl in 2007.

[edit] Coaching philosophy

Mora favored a conservative approach to the game, relying on a strong running game and solid defensive play. Perhaps more than any other teams, the Saints teams of the late 1980s embodied his coaching style. Those teams were led by the "Dome Patrol" linebacking corps. This unit consisting of Rickey Jackson, Sam Mills, Vaughan Johnson, and Pat Swilling became known as one of the best four-man linebacking corps in NFL history. Those same Saints teams also had a strong running game, mostly led by Rueben Mayes and Dalton Hilliard, as well as a conservative but efficient passing game led by quarterback Bobby Hebert and wide receiver Eric Martin.

Despite his solid regular season record (125-106), the biggest criticism of Mora has been his NFL teams' inability to win any playoff games in six appearances. His critics, both among regular fans and media reporters, often blamed his lack of success in the postseason to his conservative approach. Outwardly, Mora did not appear to take the criticisms seriously, as evidenced in another famous Mora quote from a press conference during his years in New Orleans.

Nevertheless, critics continued to argue that this conservative approach prevented his teams from closing out big games against good teams, not unlike the Marty Ball approach Marty Schottenheimer used during his coaching career. The most frequent complaint was that his teams' offenses would no longer be aggressive late in these football games. They accused him of trying the run out the clock and not make mistakes, and over-relying on his defense to hold the lead (instead of trying to build on the lead and score more points). More often than not, critics argued that this aspect of his conservative strategy backfired on him. For example, they point to the fact that his teams had second-half leads in four of his six playoff games, but won none of them. In three of those games, Mora's teams also had leads in the fourth quarter.

[edit] Life after coaching

Mora was a sports radio commentator for Fox Sports's GameTime Saturday and GameTime Sunday with Dan Moriarty. On Thanksgiving Thursday, November 23, 2006, Mora made some critical comments about the Atlanta Falcons' quarterback Michael Vick which became controversial because the Falcons were coached at the time by Mora's son, Jim L. Mora. Craig Shemon of Fox Sports Radio called Vick a "coach killer" and Mora quickly agreed with that assessment, saying that Vick was not a good passer and expressing concerning for his son's prospects of keeping his head coaching job while the popular Vick was the team's quarterback.^[1]

On Wednesday, December 6, 2006, according to ESPN and confirmed by FOX, Mora quit his radio show on FOX because of the controversy he caused with his comments about Vick.

He is currently a sports analyst on the NFL Network, primarily on the show Point After. This is a popular show that tells all about the different scores and stuff around the world.

[edit] External links

• Playoffs? on YouTube
• Diddley Poo on YouTube
• Top 10 Most Embarrassing TV/Radio Interview moments by SI.com.
• Jim Mora Post Game Rants on Postgamerants.com

[edit] See also

United States Marine Corps Portal

[edit] References