Brent Pry's Last Stand

Well...we're in the end game now, boys and girls.

In a move that can only be described as one last swing at getting things right before the keys get taken away, Brent Pry moved on from defensive coordinator Chris Marve, offensive line coach Ron Crook and strength coach Dwight Galt IV. And while it's certainly not surprising that Pry fired three members of his staff and promised a restructuring elsewhere — I think fans have been anticipating this news for the last six-to-eight weeks — it's who he decided to move on from and why that should raise a few eyebrows.

To understand what this says about Pry's thinking, you need to understand coaching as a profession. Imagine a world where you spend 80-120 hours a week with the same people for years. You become intertwined with their lives. Their families. You eat together, drink together, spend weekends together. They become some of your best friends. And when one of them gets a job, it often means you get a job too. Continuing the same incestuous destruction of work-life balance at another stop, then another. Before you know it, you've had relationships with these people for a decade or more.