Random thoughts while wondering what ever happend to Dennis DeJordy:

Floyd Reese resigned today as General Manager of the Tennesee Titans.  I first met Floyd on a hot, August night in 1997 at a Tennessee Oilers-New Orleans Saints pre-season game.  The teams were warming up on the field and I caught up with him right at the base of the stands.  There were no handlers around, just Floyd and he was gracious enough to spend ten minutes answering my questions.  Gracious describes someone who spent ten minutes with someone from a brand new sports station with no ratings and no signal.

Over the period of time I covered sports in Nashville (1997-2000), I always found Floyd Reese to be cooperative with the media.  You couldn't help but like him, he outgoing, affable and generally cordial to those he came in contact with including we media mopes.

Floyd build some great teams.  According to Jimmy Wyatt in The Tennessean, beginning in 1999, the Titans posted the best five year record in the NFL with 56 wins.  48% of his players stayed with the team, the third highest in the NFL.

Floyd was a master drafter and few questioned his pciks, many of them made mid-round because of the team's success.  Most of them worked out.  So why then did Floyd Reese walk away from an organization he spent 21 years building?

Both Reese and Fisher's contracts were up at the end of this season and for a while, it looked like Fisher was going to be the one walking the plank.  But an 8-8 season after an 0-5 start utilizing the Quarterback that Fisher didn't want in the draft (Vince Young) told Bud Adams that it would be a lot harder to replace his head coach than his GM.  Floyd Reese saw the handwriting on the wall and packed it in now rather than wait to be told he was no longer employed.  Even in resigning, Floyd Reese shows he is a good judge of character.

Fisher now will get what he's wanted for the last few years: ultimate power.  He will make the big personell decisions, he will decide who will socut players and every facet of Titan on the field life will have to cross his desk.  Fisher, who is also a decent guy, should be careful what he wishes for.  The same responsibilities took Mike Holgren from Green bay to Seattle where he had to be demoted to actually be successful at coaching football again.

As for Reese, he'll surface sooner rather than later.  I would encorage the Dolphins to call Floyd immediately as he would help them in their goal of buidling a winner now that Nick Saban has bolted for Tuscaloosa.  If not, give the guy a shot on TV because he would be terrific.

I'm going to miss Bill Cowher.  He's everything the NFL embodies.  He'll surface once John Fox's run is over with the Carolina Panthers.

I don't understand the Notre Dame ripfest going on right now.  The fact is they weren't good enough to be in a BCS bowl game in the first place.  Notre Dame's appeal is that they travel well and attract a huge, national TV audience making  both locals and networks happy.  I don't know how happy Fox is because I doubt there was anyone left at the end of that stinkfest.

We live in a subdivision where they are still building houses.  As a matter of fact, they are building a house right next to us (the blaring rock music and hammering are a dead giveaway.)  The thought of my well built 17 year-old step-daughter walking by construction workers every day makes me very nervious.  For the construction workers that is.