Aug 4, 2012; Canton, OH, USA; Chris Doleman poses with his bust at the 2012 Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement at Fawcett Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports
Chris Doleman is one of those old guys who thinks everyone of his generation was a tough-as-nails bad-ass and everyone of today’s generation is a soft-as-tissue wussy.
Doleman believes this softness, a hallmark of the generation labled “millenials” by smug intellectuals in the media, is ruining professional football and making life miserable for guys of his era as they attempt to make a living by coaching.
“There’s a lot of soft players out there. Soft, soft players,” Doleman said on Inside the NFL. “I watched a piece on 60 Minutes that talked about the millennials and really touched on the quarterbacks and the players out there today — this is a class of players that feel like they deserve so much more. I don’t know if the work ethic is still there.
“I think these guys want to win, I think they want to be good players, but are you willing to do the hard stuff? This ‘I’ll ease into the game’ type of attitude is just not good enough. You have to be able to step up there and make it happen.”
Doleman points to his pal Mike Singletary as a direct victim of millenial prickliness. “It’s just the way it is — it’s the generation,” Doleman said. “When I was playing . . . a coach didn’t mind getting into your face and really saying, ‘This is what you need to do.’ There was a certain kind of accountability. Singletary took that approach in San Francisco and it didn’t go very well.”
Or maybe Singletary was just a lousy coach? I don’t know. Only thing I know for sure is this: Old retired players always think they were tougher than the young guys. They always resent the attention/money/pampering the young guys receive.
I bet the guys of the ’60s and ’70s looked at the guys of Doleman’s generation and saw the same thing. A bunch of entitled weenies. Out there under their domes with their nice soft Astroturf. Making their hundreds-of-thousands of dollars.
And the guys of the ’40s probably thought the guys of the ’60s were a bunch of non-leather-helmet-wearing wimps.
Point being, old men are always bitter toward young men cause old men can’t do anymore what young men can do. It’s the Circle of Grouchiness and it goes on forever.
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