Brian Mitchell has been there, done that, played for coaches that were hard but respected them nonetheless, as he expounded upon during Tuesday’s BMitch & Finlay Show:
Well, after hearing Ron Rivera once again have to address the Eric Bieniemy intensity situation in Wednesday’s press conference, Brian opened Wednesday’s show by going HAM, taking everyone except for Bieniemy to task for how this situation unfolded…and as he even said on the show, yes, Brian, here it is in print for those players to read:
“I don’t know if he was speaking as if he knew he messed up…but as soon as he spoke, I knew it was going to become a story,” BMitch said. “This is the question I’d ask those players he claimed were concerned: what the hell did you expect at training camp? You go to camp to get all the kinks out and get prepared to play the season – and it SHOULD be tougher than a regular season practice, so what did they expect? And, since they all say they’re grown men, why did they run to the principal to tell on the teacher, instead of asking the teacher directly? That’s the way grown men do it, right?”
And that’s when BMitch took Rivers specifically to task, for not standing up for his new assistant.
“Ron, think of this: your players came to you because someone is making them do something a little harder. Look back at the last three years: you’re 22-27-1, and that’s not great,” BMitch said. “If a player came to me, and I had sat with the coach and come up with a plan to put players through stuff a little more rigorous to get us better…I’d tell them this is what we think is going to get us to where we need to be. Because what I heard from Eric yesterday is the team has gotten better since he got here, and the coaches al communicate, so everything is already known.”
BMitch harkened back to Pat Riley chastising LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh for criticizing Erik Spoelstra instead of kowtowing to the Big 3 or sending them to Spoelstra, and lo and behold, the Heat have rings to show for it.
The Commanders have none of that, and only one season with even a .500 record…so sorry, Brian is going to say it: if you’re one of the players who went to Rivera, you’re the problem.
“Whoever the hell went to the coach, you’re soft, because what the hell do you expect in camp? I went to 14 of them, and none were easy, but I never went to Coach Gibbs or Norv (Turner) and said a coach was working us too hard,” Brian said. “You think when I was in Philly, I went to Andy Reid and told him what the hell Ted Williams was doing? Ted probably would’ve hit me in my chest and said ‘what the hell you wanna do?’ We have to get to the point where you can’t have it both ways.”
And then, Mitchell took Rivera to task again for his initial answer to the questions causing all this.
“I think if the question stopped at ‘some players came in, I told them to go talk to Eric, and it’s over,’ it’s not a national story. But what happened after that was Ron said, ‘he’s not a head coach yet, so he doesn’t understand certain things,’’ Mitchell said. “He played for Mike Ditka, who never changed as a player, assistant, or head coach. Buddy Ryan, Bill Belichick, same way – just because you become a head coach, that doesn’t mean you change. Your view might change with more to worry about, but you’re still going to be the person you are. When you say go talk to him and get to know him, a lot of times you don’t need that.”
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Brian isn’t a coach, but as a father, he approaches life the same way: if his kids come to him for guidance, he tells them what they need to hear, not what they want to hear, because “I know what the game plan is” – and the buck stops there, as it should with Ron in DC.
“Whoever went to him and complained, they did a disservice to themselves and their teammates,” Mitchell said. “You stop it at the question of players coming to you – you don’t need to talk about how good you are compared to what someone else is doing, and that’s where I saw the problem.”
JP Finlay agreed, saying Tuesday was handled poorly, and even if the entire team complained, it should have all been kept in-house – but then, looking back at how he didn’t know the Commanders could be eliminated, it seems Ron’s lack of filter works against him in a lot of ways.
Oh, and then the prepared (or so it seemed) statement this morning?
“The easiest way to control the headlins is to not say it!” JP screamed.
“He’s now emphasizing the last two practices were great…how long has Eric been here? All offseason, right?” BMitch replied. “This is where people have to understand that when you’re in a town where the media is very astute, you don’t give things that are not closed off. When you say that, people assume someone came in the last two days, so they start asking those questions. Stop giving open-ended answers, because all you do is make astute people ask more questions."
And then, one last scathing rant from Brian, a former NFLPA player rep, when JP asked if maybe some of this was PA related with a new CBA negotiation coming up:
Listen to the whole segment above!
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