Holmgren bemoans coach firings

Mike Holmgren sees this week's firings of Scott Linehan by the Rams and Lane Kiffin by the Raiders, and he sighs.

"It's tough. I hate to see anybody let go at this stage of the season. It is pretty early," he said.

The Seahawks coach, the NFL's leader among active coaches with 171 victories, is glad he's a 60-year-old in his final season, an exit he is controlling. It sure beats being a 30- or 40-something just starting out in these days of multimillion dollar contracts, instant news and expectations, rumors and pressure from all sides.

When Bill Walsh brought Holmgren from BYU into the NFL in 1986 to be his quarterbacks coach with the 49ers, there was no Internet - at least not as we know it today. And a million dollars? For players, not coaches.

"I think probably that part of it has changed. There's a little less patience for a coach. The money's bigger. The stadiums are bigger," said Holmgren, who is finishing the two-year extension he signed soon after the Seahawks lost in the 2006 Super Bowl to Pittsburgh.

That was at the end of a deal that was paying him about $7 million per season.

Holmgren thinks the coaching stakes got higher, and the life span of coaches began to shrink along with owners' patience, in 1996. Carolina went 12-4 in its second year of existence and made it to the NFC title game before losing to Holmgren's Green Bay Packers.

"I always said when Carolina came in and went to the championship game with us in their second year, and then when Tom Coughlin was coaching Jacksonville, they got in the playoffs right away, they kind of changed things," Holmgren said. "They were able to put a team together and challenge rather quickly. And it's not always that easy. Sometimes you have to come in and tear down and build up, and it takes some time.

"And unless you have an understanding with the front office and ownership, sometimes you don't get the chance."

As his orchestrated ending in Seattle shows, Holmgren has a deep understanding with Seahawks owner Paul Allen.

The last time a coach had been fired this early in the season was when Oakland's Al Davis dumped Mike Shanahan after four games in 1989.

"Everyone has to understand the ground rules before you sign the papers, I think," Holmgren said. "In Oakland, Mr. Davis has been the same way the whole time. If you were going in there to coach there, you certainly have to have a relationship with him because he is an active owner with how the team operates.

"You hate to see anything like that happen, what has happened the last couple days. But you got to go into this job with your eyes wide open. You can't be surprised by things."