If you didn't already, you should check out Bill Simmons' rambling Friday column . . . it defies summary (ice boogers! lunch with porn stars!), but this was my favorite part:

[W]e might as well call it "Martzitis" because he's the most famous case. Certain coaches have a pathological need to win on their terms -- they call ridiculous naked bootlegs and wide receiver screens in big moments, instead of just keeping things simple and putting their best players in position to make plays. Martz does this more than anyone. How many times did we see things like "Marc Bulger rolling out on a naked bootleg on third down, then getting creamed" in big situations?

Take the Rams-Pats Super Bowl. From everything Belichick said in the weeks and months following that game, he planned his defensive strategy based on Martz's ego: Even though Faulk was Martz's meal ticket, Belichick banked on Martz overthinking things, dipping into his bag of crazy plays and trying to do too much to win the game. So Belichick dropped extra people in coverage, used various blitzes and dared the Rams to run the ball. He knew Martz wouldn't bite. It was too easy -- Martz couldn't win that way. And it wasn't until the Rams fell behind that they simplified things and made a late charge.

Well, the same thing happened against the Panthers. They spent three quarters running crazy plays and screwing around, and it wasn't until the fourth quarter -- down by 11, eight minutes to play -- that they started moving the ball with Faulk (mostly screens and straightforward runs, which set up the longer passes downfield). Needless to say, they ended up tying the game. And when they needed that two-point conversion, suddenly they weren't running naked bootlegs with Bulger anymore.

Here's my point: Good coaches don't care how they win. They don't care about scripting the first 20 plays or incorporating those four trick plays they whispered to Simms and Gumbel on Friday. Guys like Fisher, Reid, Belichick and Gruden keep sticking around in January because they don't mess around.

This, of course, is a common affliction outside of football as well; Tony LaRussa is perhaps baseball's most notorious example, although I can think of examples of managers like Bobby Valentine, Bobby Cox and Roger Craig managing themselves out of some games by insisting on doing it their way and imposing their own personal touches on what ought to be the players' game.