He definitely is a mediocre HC who prefers dinosaur football and shrivels up in the big spots. All that said, he was in the playoffs for 4 straight years- yes with a talented team and a HoF QB, but still. This move reeks of dysfunction.
Gotta stick up for Fox. Fox won a playoff game with Tim Tebow, and redesigned his offense mid season to suit such a limited QB. He took Jake Delhomme to the playoffs multiple times and 1 Superbowl. Him and his coaching staff were the ones making
the gutsy call in OT that allowed Tebow, a quarterback who couldn't throw, to make that clutch pass to beat the Steelers. Him and his coaching staff also made the gutsy call called Clown X on 3rd and long in
double OT that allowed Steve Smith to score his game winning touchdown from Jake Delhomme against the Rams en route to the Superbowl. Just like with Tebow, most of their wins were in OT, which included blocked FG and even PATs on the D side of the ball, clutch kicking situations, or in the last seconds and minutes of the game throughout the season.
I wouldn't call that shriveling in big spots. His 2003 Panthers were nicknamed the Cardiac Cats for a reason. They set record for their amount of OT wins on the road, and the way they won close games, and his Tebows were really the only ones in recent history that I can remember to repeat that type of season since then. John Fox's teams may have been a bore to watch, especially for the first 3 quarters of the game, and certainly conservative, but didn't shrivel, and certainly had his share of very dramatic, high pressure, clutch wins. He was of no stranger to close games, with having Jake Delhomme leading the league at one point, with 34 comebacks and game winning comebacks. Most of the time, because of his conservative nature, he was in very tight, nail biting games.
Unfortunately his HOF QB is the one who shrivels up in the playoffs.
