It’s not a conscious thing, in their heads they don’t feel like they’ve quit. But, when you see a guy who is universally respected come back after 2 back surgeries and missing nearly 2 full seasons, play his ass off while the coach burdens him with a much too heavy workload at the start of the season, and then, when the player inevitably breaks down, the coach treats him like crap and publicly disrespects him, players lose respect for the coach.
They start to think, hmm, this guy is full of shit with his accountability message and I guess if I get hurt, he’s not gonna have my back. You get frustrated and angry and it affects your play. The coach admits that he likes to challenge players and play mind games with them, those tactics grow old fast.
They aren’t quitting, that’s a bad choice of words, but they are tired of his methods and worn out from being pushed to give a game 7 effort night just to stay with most teams. Tortorella’s methods are unsustainable and he has publicly stated that things like offense, modern analytics and such are beyond him. He is an interim coach that that get a team to come together and play hard, but that’s all he’s got.
Torts has taken this team as far as it’s going to go with him behind the bench. He needs to go.
