Yahoo!: Spears: For Coaches Like Woodson, Waiting Is Hardest Part

Marc J. Spears spoke to the head coach on the phone about not receiving an extension: "Am I a little disappointed that none of my staff and I were extended contracts this year? You’re damn right I am because we deserve it. We deserve it with what we’ve done this past year. Any other coach probably would have been extended without a doubt. For us not to be extended is not right. But it is what it is. … I still have a job to do."I don't begrudge the coach his frustration. If his body of work over the course of his first four seasons deserved a second contract then it's hard to make the case that his far more successful 2008-09 campaign, the only truly successful season of his five in Atlanta, doesn't deserve something more than being brought back as a lame duck for 2009-10.Spears goes on to place Woodson's lame duck status in the context of league-wide reductions in the budgets for head coaches, assistant coaches, and scouting staffs. He also, and presumably ...