It had to be another internet hoax, more of that “fake news” that’s been going around. Someone spread a nasty rumor about Jeff Fisher not knowing the players on the next team he plays. Those quotes about “Danny” and “Brandon” were made up. Satire. Parody. The Onion bamboozling a nation of partisan suckers full of confirmation bias.
Right?
Wrong. That actually happened on Fisher’s conference call to New England reporters leading up to Sunday’s Rams-Patriots game. And it happened days after Fisher got into the most pointless feud a coach of a 4-7 team could possible engage in, the Eric Dickerson flap.
Nothing around Fisher and the Rams is real anymore, and anything is possible. Of course, the nation has known that for a while — Fisher is the greatest coaching mediocrity in major American sports, yet he has better job security than all but a handful of NFL coaches.
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So let’s take that the next logical step and ask the question Fisher’s raising this week.
Is he trying to get fired?
If picking a fight with a Hall of Famer and a franchise icon — literally, the living face of the Los Angeles era of the Rams — doesn’t push his bosses to the edge, wouldn’t a humiliating gaffe involving a marquee team do it?
And if those don’t do it, would Fisher reach for the George Costanza playbook?
This all comes up because these aren’t the things a winning organization trying to sell itself to a new/old market and fan base does — and because Fisher keeps being at the center of it, for all the wrong reasons.
One would think that the Rams’ brass kept him when they moved to town because he would be a bridge of familiarity and positivity, and because the team was poised to move to the next level very soon.
One would also think that they’re re-thinking that now. Bear with us here: Fisher saw the end coming and was ready for the sweet relief of imminent termination and the end of being bugged about “7-and-9 BS” and of closing in on the all-time coaching losses record.
Yet the Rams keep standing behind him, to the point that early-season speculation about a contract extension hasn’t even been extinguished.
Drastic times call for drastic measures.
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So why not stir up a controversy involving Dickerson, about something as trivial and petty as sideline passes and public critiques of a losing team? That would send one of two messages: that Fisher lets minor distractions take his attention away from coaching his lousy team, or that Fisher is willing to use anybody to draw attention away from the team’s ineptitude.
But you need a backup plan, just in case that doesn’t work. And a pretty strong fallback is to sound like a dope while talking about the Patriots to a bunch of Patriots reporters.
After all, you don’t coach in the NFL for 20 years, keep gigs despite being just average year after year, and in the middle of a trying week in a trying season start rambling about players you’re not going to face in four days — unless you’re doing it on purpose.
You just don’t. Do you?
But the jig is up, Jeff Fisher. You don’t get out of this that easy. So leave the Rams’ Lombardi Trophy in its case, don’t tie it to your bumper, and don't get the bullhorn.
If nothing else, get caught up on Dion Lewis and the rest, tune out Eric Dickerson as best you can, and just move on with the season.