Now that was one hell of a call. Cadillac Williams over Aaron Rodgers. Of course, I have the advantage of hindsight.



I don't. I like the work he puts in. He's there at 6 am and goes home at 9 pm. If necessary, he'll join in on the practice field to make his point. He's just so passionate about the game. And lastly, he's just a football mastermind, if you ask me.

He's like a fiery McCarthy, if you ask me. And even more of a hard worker, as well.

The only problem, like Foster's article showed, as well, is that he seems to lie and sweet talk a lot when he thinks it serves him right. That's quite an annoying habbit.

The fact that a coach puts in 15 hour days is NOT a positive in my opinion. It shocks me when I read stories of coaches coming in at 4:00 a.m. and not leaving till midnight -- or worse, sleeping over at the office. If a coach can't get his work done in 12 hours or less, he clearly needs to either a) hire quality help or b) learn how to delegate. The NFL is just a game; it doesn't merit putting in such long hours. Most of these men are married and have children. They should be home showing at least as much dedication to their families as they do to their teams.

When I was in the army, it frustrated the hell out of me that commanders and senior NCOs took an irrational pride in putting in more hours than the soldiers under them (coming before us, staying later), because it usually had the unintended consequence that we worked longer hours, since none of the mid-level leaders had balls enough to let us go before the highers were ready to go, even if all the work had been completed for hours. Yet after a few months of closely watching what the officers and senior NCOs actually did during the day, I came to the realization that they easily could have had their work done by 1700 (5:00 p.m.) if they had just settled down to do it before, oh, 1600. But they never did. They artificially prolonged their workdays, inflated their hours on the job, with endless jabbering or "supervising," before realizing, oops, it might be time to do some of that paperwork on their desk. The result was that work orders were rarely issued at the beginning of the day, because the NCOs were afraid if we completed the work by noon, we'd expect to go home for the day (which was true). So we'd sit around literally all day until around 1630, at which point we were told what had to get done, since the NCOs knew we'd work our asses off to be done by 1700 release formation. It was endlessly frustrating.

Of all the commanders I knew in the army, the one I respected the most was the company commander who, upon assuming command, turned to his First Sergeant and said, "Look, Top, I will be going home by 1700 everyday, which means that you and your soldiers damn well better be home before then." He settled down to business the moment he got to work, finished his tasks in a timely fashion, and demanded that everyone else do the same.

He had some happy soldiers.

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Actually, there's pretty close to conclusive evidence that marginal productivity starts to significantly decline after just six hours of work. (And, no, I have no cite; they are papers I read between 15 and 20 years ago.)

I wouldn't presume to speak to the constraints of life in combat situations, since the only time I've had to worry about being shot was a few minutes around sunrise on the opening day of deer season. But I can say that an awful lot of jobs that people use to justify their workaholism and arrogance about their own indispensability are anything but.

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People in the Middle East have an intuitive understanding of this concept. The average businessman is in the office from around 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. -- and then he hurries home with his wife and children. After things cool off in the evening, they might be open for a couple extra hours -- or not, as they please. Iraqi men feel that life is too short to be spent away from their families.

When I worked at a prison in southern Iraq, the army hired a bunch of Iraqis to work as correctional officers and guards. When we informed them that they'd be working 12 hours a day, six days a week (only fair, right? that's what the soldiers were working -- if they were lucky), they revolted. Their response was essentially, "Uh, not just no . . . hell no! You do realize we have wives and children, right?" They threatened to go on strike if we insisted on what they perceived to be ridiculously long hours, and when we played hardball, they acted on the threat. They ended up negotiating a sweet deal: They agreed to work 12-hour days, all right (with 2-hour lunch breaks, frequent smoke breaks, not to mention prayer breaks) . . . five days on, 10 days off, for a cool 60 hours every two weeks.

The average American takes a whopping 6 days of vacation a year, compared to European countries where every employee by law receives three to four weeks of vacation a year. Americans work more hours per week than any other nationality, including the Japanese (oh, and incidentally, we have the least sex of any nation on earth, too), and what do we have to show for it? Untold trillions in consumer debt, broken marriages, millions on antidepressants, and some of the highest rates of preventable degenerative health conditions in the industrialized world. Not to mention countless people who are so broke, they can't even retire when they're too old to work.

We as a country need to learn how to slow the fuck down and maybe drink coffee and smoke for a few hours a day at the local coffee shop, like my European friends do. Life isn't that long, and it's passing most of us by. And for what? We don't live any longer than they do, and we definitely don't live any better.

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P.S. I really love being American. I just think our debt-driven, consumerist frenzy has lead us to neglect the little joys of life.

Like the three hours I spent downtown over a pot of tea this afternoon.

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i strongly disagree, get mike holmgren back in here, and hell be pleased to hear an offer for gm which is good, and have him do whatever he wants to do
i still have faith in holmgren and i know not alot do but hes been waiting for a team to takeover

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