Globex Corporation Newsletter

Forget the other thing, it's still Positive Monday.

First off, I really want to apologize for the timing of this whole thing. The Minnesota Vikings, left for dead with a 1-4 record a couple of weeks ago went on an amazing win streak, mired in scandal and minus one of the best QB's in the league. They're still in the playoff hunt, even after a loss to a superior Pittsburgh Steelers team this past week. Why is this team even in the position to contend for post-season play? Two words: Mike Tice.

I have been tough on Mike Tice for a couple of years now, questioning how he continues to have a job, comparing him to former FEMA director Mike Brown (particularly nasty). Do I think Mike Tice should lose his job at the end of this season? Yeah, he probably should, but that doesn't discount the amazing job he's done turning around a team that so easily could have faded into oblivion.

What did Tice do? He focused on football. He's a football coach, after all, that would seem like a no brainer. But he was constantly asked about the team's scandal, something that could have distracted a different coach. Tice made it all about football. He kept his players thinking about football.

I don't want to discount what happened on Lake Minnetonka, but Mike Tice is a football coach. His job is to manage players on the field, to come up with a plan for play and to get his players to buy into it, to carry it out. Since the scandal, he has been masterful at this.

If he had managed his players the same way at the beginning of this season, well, we'd probably be seeing a team coasting into the playoffs. He didn't, and that was his mistake. It would have been easy to give up, though, to step down or to write the season off. He didn't, and it is 100% to Mike Tice's credit. Yes, it has a lot to do with the players. It has a lot to do with a backup quarterback with loads of experience (a Super Bowl champion, even), playing within himself, making the other players believe he could get it done. It has a lot to do with a bunch of players, knowing their reputations are tarnished, playing anyway, playing to win.

And they're playing to win because Mike Tice motivated them to play to win. I don't like Mike Tice as a coach, never have. He as much as anything is the reason Randy Moss turned out the way he did. Randy Moss is an asshole who was allowed to behave any way he wanted by coach Tice because Moss produced on the field. Tice came up with the "Randy Ratio," allowing a player to dictate to a coach how much a part of the offense he would be. That's not the way it's supposed to work. The coach is supposed to make those decisions. It was a failure. A talent like Randy Moss comes along maybe once in a coach's career, and Mike Tice screwed it up, only backing into the playoffs once with one of the greatest receivers to ever play the game.

I don't like Mike Tice, most likely never will. I can see when a man does a great job, though, and that's what Tice has done this year. Maybe he's turning his career around, maybe he's just trying to save his own skin. Whatever the case, Mike Tice has done a masterful coaching job under the worst of circumstances.

BOJ