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Dave Shula coaching again, 22 years after the Bengals fired him


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Posted by Michael David Smith on April 3, 2018, 8:26 AM EDT

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In four and a half seasons as head coach of the Bengals, Dave Shula went 19-52 and became known as a failure who managed to get a head-coaching job only because his father is Don Shula, the winningest coach in NFL history. After he was fired in 1996, Shula never coached again.

 

Until now: Shula has just started a new job as the wide receivers coach at Dartmouth.

 

Shula says he can now look back at his coaching career in Cincinnati and say he wasn’t so bad. After all, the Bengals had six straight losing seasons under Bruce Coslet and Dick LeBeau after firing Shula, and even though they’ve been better since hiring Marvin Lewis, they still haven’t won a playoff game since 1990.

 

“With 20 years perspective looking back, you realize that maybe it wasn’t all me,” Shula told theMiami Herald. “Certainly I had a role in it, but you can’t blame everything on me, either.”

 

Dave has spent the last two decades as president of the family’s Shula restaurant company, but now he wants to get into the other family business. Wide receivers coach at Dartmouth is a far cry from head coach in the NFL, but Shula is back doing what he loves.

 

 

 

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2018/04/03/dave-shula-coaching-again-22-years-after-the-bengals-fired-him/

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It's hard to believe he started his career 2-0 and would've been 3-0 with a win at Green Bay in Week 3 of the 1992 season.  The Bengals had that game won and things looked good, especially since GB starting QB Don Majkowski had been forced out early in the game and they were having to play their backup.  I wonder if that season, and Shula's career, would have been much different if they'd held on and won that game?  And what about the Packers' backup quarterback?  Without that win, does he have the confidence to do it in subsequent weeks?  Does his career go differently?  Does Majkowski get his job back once he's healthy, returning the backup to the bench?

 

GREEN BAY, Wis., Sept. 20 (AP) -- Brett Favre, forced into the game by a first-quarter injury to Don Majkowski, threw a 35-yard touchdown pass to Kitrick Taylor with 13 seconds left today, giving the Green Bay Packers a hard-to-believe 24-23 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals.  With no timeouts left, the Packers moved 92 yards in five plays during a game-winning drive that took just 54 seconds. Taylor's catch and Chris Jacke's point-after gave Green Bay's Mike Holmgren his first coaching victory in the N.F.L. and Cincinnati's Dave Shula his first defeat.

 

Green Bay (1-2) trailed, 17-3, after three quarters, but first-round pick Terrell Buckley, playing his first game, returned a punt 58 yards for one touchdown and Favre hit Sharpe for a 5-yard score. The Bengals (2-1) then made it 23-17 on a 41-yard field goal with 1:07 to play.  Majkowski exited in the first quarter when he suffered ligament damage to his left ankle. He may be out for up to a month. 

 

 

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8 hours ago, Bleeds Orange said:

gave Green Bay's Mike Holmgren his first coaching victory in the N.F.L. and Cincinnati's Dave Shula his first defeat.

That's just crazy to think about - considering the radically different direction this went.

 

8 hours ago, westside bengal said:

Maybe he is being Redeemed.

Maybe he'll be back on our staff here next year? :russian:

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I happen to think a lot of what happened was the result of bad (and at the time, new) ownership by Mike Brown, poor drafting, not paying attention to the offensive line and various other factors. I do think Dave Shula was in over his head, a situation where if we'd had elite talent it might have covered that up, but at the same time, I also believe that David Klingler would have been a good starting QB in the NFL had he been drafted and played for any other team that had a semblance of talent at the Oline and WR positions.

 

Klingler getting drafted by the Bengals was like Couch getting drafted by the Browns during their long and steady decline. We WERE the Browns during the 1990's. Now we're still struggling to be something other than a regular season team. Kinda like the Lions are right now.

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