I’m not in the position to have a strong opinion on whether Pat Fitzgerald should have been fired today. We know from Northwestern’s release about its own findings that hazing occurred, but it’s unclear which allegations from the anonymous former player are true. It’s unclear what Fitzgerald knew. It’s at least something of a judgment call as to what Fitzgerald should have known. There’s a big rush in our industry to say, “Hazing is bad,” and I understand the temptation, and I do agree that the hazing described in the Daily Northwestern is terrible. Oftentimes, though, in our efforts to establish that we’re on the right side of an issue, we media put ourselves in unnecessarily rigid positions before enough is known to justify those positions. This is especially concerning when those reporting on the issue participate in the hasty condemnation. Opinion and reporting are traditionally separated for a reason, that reason being the importance of keeping bias as much at bay as we can. We all want to be right. Once we stake a claim, we view things with that in mind. Additionally, we, societally, should trust each other to have opinions that aren’t inhumane. I’m as guilty of this as a lot of others, but using the opinions we see on semi-anonymous internet message boards (including social media) as a gauge of the zeitgeist is foolish. Reporters shouldn’t feel the need to say that they don’t think college freshmen should be dry-humped against their will by a brigade of 300-lb. masked men. We could have guessed that they think that.
As an analyst and opiner, then, my guesswork on the situation is this:
I don’t know that Fitzgerald being fired just now gives us any new hint of where the truth lies.
I think Fitzgerald was going to be fired so long as he’d done or failed to do at least one thing that was inexcusable.
I think Northwestern is very different from the rest of the Power Five.
I think Pat Fitzgerald was facing a much tougher set of standards than any other Power Five coach would have in this situation except for possibly Justin Wilcox, at Cal.
Whether Fitzgerald crossed that line by a lot or a little, I don’t think there was as much room for error as there would be in, say, Athens.
Here’s why I think all that:
While Pat Fitzgerald is the biggest figure in the history of Northwestern football and has traditionally been universally beloved by people who care about Northwestern football, Northwestern is not a school known for caring a whole lot about football. Those people who care about Northwestern football are outnumbered within the Northwestern community, and they’re likely fractured right now themselves in their opinions. I would guess that Northwestern’s powerful figures skew further away from the athletically interested than those of any other Power Five school save possibly UC-Berkeley. Northwestern is more similar to Harvard than it is to even Michigan, and Michigan cares more about academics and conscientious appearances than a lot of schools with prominent sports. This was always going to be approached by more people who think of the purpose of universities in the way Harvard and Yale do than those who think about them like Alabama.
For the sake of illustrating this, let’s say there are ten people—boosters, university president, athletic director, etc.—who decide on coaching changes at each Power Five school. There are definitely more than ten people; it isn’t this simple; work with me for just a minute. My guess is that at Northwestern, at least six of those ten people do not care about football, or don’t care enough to gain any utility from Pat Fitzgerald remaining the coach. My further guess is that in these situations, majority rules, or something similar enough to that takes place.
Pat Fitzgerald, then, was not going to be judged by his university through the median standards applied to this genre of situation at top athletic programs. He was not even going to be judged by the harshest tenth percentile of standards. Pat Fitzgerald, I’m guessing, was going to be judged in the following manner: Was there anything he did or failed to do that was completely inexcusable? That is where I’m guessing the line lies in Evanston. Because, of the people who make big decisions at Northwestern, I’m guessing most of them have a zero-tolerance policy built upon not only a desire to be socially conscientious, but an apathy towards wins and losses. With Chris Collins suddenly thriving again, as of this winter, there are no other buyout concerns, eliminating the financial angle. (I would imagine every Power Five school in the country has the boosters necessary to pay at least one big buyout a decade, especially a school as prestigious as Northwestern. Those specific Northwestern boosters might not normally open up their pockets for sports, but that’s the point.)
There were, up until news broke a couple hours ago, imaginable scenarios in which Fitzgerald would keep the job. The severe allegations are anonymous, and an anonymous current player has begun talking to reporters himself, counteralleging that this is part of a detailed plot by the anonymous former player to get Fitzgerald fired. It seems far-fetched, but to get back to our first point: We don’t know what is or isn’t true in this situation. What I’m trying to point out here is that as we do our guessing, we can’t apply the normal rules. Northwestern is not much like the rest of the Power Five. Maybe what Fitzgerald did or didn’t do was bad enough to be fired anywhere, but we don’t know that just yet. And no, I’m not trying to defend Pat Fitzgerald. I just had this written and ready to publish and then the news broke and I had to backtrack, so thanks a lot, Northwestern, you couldn’t have waited a few more hours?
It Wasn’t Joe Cronin’s Fault
The Blazers’ failure to contend for a title with Damian Lillard was not Joe Cronin’s fault. Joe Cronin has worked for the Blazers since 2006, but he wasn’t named full-time general manager until last May, and he wasn’t even an assistant GM until 2021. The man doesn’t have a Wikipedia page.
Still, there was Joe Cronin today, saying, “I don’t feel that I did everything I could because I didn’t get done what I needed to get done. In that sense, I do feel like I failed Dame,” as though this is all his fault.
Did Cronin play a role in the series of decisions that didn’t work out? Surely. But either the guy has a really hearty sense of accountability or he gave a smart soundbite today.
It’s worth remembering, with the Lillard situation in Portland, that it is very hard to win in the NBA. A lot of teams are trying to do it. Very few are succeeding. No, it didn’t work out for the Blazers; yes, there were some clearly boneheaded decisions here and there. But one of the things about competing against the best in the world is that it is very hard to beat them. The Blazers never got over the hump, but they at least got to a place where the hump was within reach. A lot of franchises rarely even sniff the hump.
I understand the reputation for blowing talent, I understand the injury curse, I’m not trying to heap praise on the Portland Trail Blazers right now. But given they’re in Portland, one of the least attractive cities for free agents, and given they’ve been playing in a conference with the Steph Curry Warriors and the LeBron Lakers and the Kevin Durant Thunder and now the Nikola Jokić Nuggets, the playoff streak shouldn’t be sneezed at. I’m guessing that’s part of why Lillard has, through his demand to go to the Heat and only the Heat, implied Portland is still his second choice in the NBA. This has been a pretty good era for the Blazers. Frustrating, yes, but pretty good.
The Cubs Drafted…Well?
I have no idea if the Cubs have drafted poorly or drafted well or somewhere in between so far, and it’s not going to change with the final ten rounds tomorrow. The MLB Draft is a mystery like no other draft in the Big Four, especially if you aren’t picking in the top ten. More than anything, I’m excited to see post-draft Farm System rankings, both collectively and in terms of individual prospects. That’s one of my favorite parts of July these rebuilding years.
Speaking of the rebuild: The Cubs kept their mouth somewhere near the top of the water in the Bronx, and while I can’t tell if they’re drowning or not, it’s possible they aren’t, which is better than the alternative. Jameson Taillon was incredible on Friday, the bats came through yesterday (with help from The Little Things™), even on Saturday the team took a game that looked like it was going to get out of hand and kept it competitive. I don’t know if Michael King would have been used or useful yesterday or not, but forcing him to pitch was not unhelpful. Regardless, the Cubs won a big series.
The Reds, notably, lost a big series, and while this meant the Brewers won one, the Cubs are nevertheless a game closer to the front of the NL Central than they were. They’ve got, per FanGraphs, a 1-in-10 chance of making the playoffs, and that isn’t good, but again: It’s better than it would have been.
It’d be nice if there was a magic record we knew the Cubs needed to reach in order to not sell at the deadline. In reality, though, it probably has a lot to do with the Reds and Brewers. The Cubs need to win, and they nearly equally need both those two teams to lose. It’s tempting to speculate that public reaction could inform the Cubs’ approach—that they could hold Marcus Stroman or Cody Bellinger and sacrifice additional prospect depth for the sake of encouraging their fanbase—and to indulge that temptation for a moment, I do think this might play something of a role. But really, it’s probably a question of where the percentage probability lies. 10%? Probably not enough. 20%, though? That’s in between where the Mets and Mariners currently stand, and neither is in any way a slam dunk to sell.
Complicating things is that the Cubs have one very good trade chip in Marcus Stroman. Probably smartly, they reportedly aren’t keen on extending him. He’s a good pitcher, but he’s never finished in the top twenty in fWAR, and his price right now is likely the highest it will ever be. He’s 32 years old and, probably smartly, he and his agents are expecting someone to pay him stupid money this offseason. It’s a bad look, but it’s probably the right move by the Cubs to not try to extend.
The reason this complicates things is that Stroman has been the Cubs’ third-most important player this season, trailing only fellow all-stars Dansby Swanson and Justin Steele. He’s one of the faces of the team to fans right now, which means trading him would come across as yet another huge white flag, no matter how obvious a strategic move it is if the playoffs do appear mostly out of reach. It would be different if the Cubs didn’t have good trade chips, but they have a great one. It’s a tough situation that way.
Further complicating things is that there aren’t very many clear sellers right now. Last year on July 10th, FanGraphs had twelve teams at or below 5.0% in playoff likelihood. Right now, there are only seven of those. Last year wasn’t an anomaly, either. In 2021 and 2018, the number was thirteen. In 2019, the number was eleven. The expanded playoffs and the woefulness of both Central Divisions have combined to make it very hard to be out of the playoff race already, which in turn is currently making this a seller’s market in a big, huge way. Marcus Stroman’s price is thereby even higher.
We’ll assuredly be talking a lot more about this over the next three weeks. Hopefully, the Cubs at least make the decision difficult, if not easy in the preferred direction. Ideally, the Reds and Brewers help that cause.
