Philbin's Poor Body Language and Communication: A Brief Analysis

It's someone posting a pseudo-psychological assessment of Philbin's personality based on what they see on a television show, and then trying to give it meaning. Taking it a step further into the ridiculous, tries to extrapolate that into Philbin's possible success or failures in the W/L column for the team.


Seriously. Count how many times he looks at his shoe laces, maybe you can figure out how many sacks we will have this season, because his defensive lineman may or may not respect him due to it.

Oh, and throw in a little "look at how Rex Ryan does it" (of all people..rex ryan?) for good measure, right? People have different ways of presenting their social skills.

Give me a break.

 

His question was his point. Jimmy was playing man but was to far off of the wr to make a play on the ball.

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Which is ironic to me because I can't stand players who are unprofessional working on their craft..maybe I should be a bigger fan at this point..

 

Where was that said?

 

Deej, I'm not sure which part you feel is ironic [so that I can better understand your post].

 

OP saying Philbin is poised to lose the locker room.

 

Can players do that? I thought when they were assigned to a team that's the team they were stuck with, I never thought scrub players would be given that right by the NFL.

 

Ahhh.... You know, it's pathetic how you twist the OP's following comment of

into Infiltrate suddenly "trying to extrapolate that into Philbin's possible success or failures in the W/L column for the team."

Do us all a favor and post something of substance rather than twisting words around to suit your argument.

 

Yeah, that part I didn't know, it makes sense when I think about it more.

 

When Philbin was hired, Aaron Rodgers said Joe was a large part of his success, that he has command of a room, and that he cares about relationships. This coach Rodgers speaks of sounds like a really good communicator. And this praise is coming from arguably the best player in the league.

My guess....Philbin will do what it takes to yield his team full of the right guys (100% professional, live for their craft) and he'll become a different communicator over time. I have this feeling he is looking for more cameron wakes and less karlos dansbys.

 

You mentioned that Philbin is intolerate of athletes who aren't serious about their profession.?.I want owners to assign and sign trainers and nutritionists into their contracts for their offseasons.

 

What does Philbins bubble tell you about him as a leader DJ?

 

Its obvious you have read stuff on interrogations but with all do respect, you are far frrom having a complete understanding of the subject.

Yes, his bod ylanguage is uncomfortable at times, mainly uncomfortable ones. Its obvious he doesnt like to disipline, he has said so himself. So he probably doesnt feel so comfortable doing so.

Understand that everybody is different in body gestures. While I agreehe appears to be more at ease with steinbech, whom he said he has watched grow up from a 18 yr old boy,THAT IS NATURAL. Lets not fault him for that.

If he acts this way with players that he has selected and coached, next year I say we have a problem. But for the most part everyone is trying to navigate through numerous NEW personalities in a new location. Its understandable that things gets a little ackward.

My advise: wait till its HIS team to judge his character

 

They can tell him whatever they want, but as long as it is within league rules they ain't got squat to say about it. There was speculation Philbin may offer the OC job to the Packers' TE coach and also the same about offering the DC job to their DBs coach. Unless either one was also asst head coach, they could not have stopped Philbin from offering those jobs, and if the position coaches want to become coordinators in Miami, Green Bay had to let them go. Also, if any position coach's contract was up at the end of 2011 season, Green Bay could not stop them from following Joe to Miami had he wanted them and offered them a job.

As for BJ, we do not know the reasons why he preferred the Eagles PS to ours. Maybe because he wanted to be closer to home for all we know. Maybe he likes the Eagles WR coach better. Who the heck knows. But I do not believe just because he preferred the Eagles, that it indicates the Dolphins organization is a cluster f**k.

 

I've seen every second of every episode at least once and never heard that line other than the original time he said it. If it was replayed repeatedly, I missed it. Also, none of know if he was serious or tongue in cheek with the comment. Of course some of the idiots on this forum twist the whole thing into called Steinbach a chain smoker, because of that one comment.

 

But I think you have to consider that they went from a guy who probably had a relatively short leash on his coaching tenure with the team (Singletary), to a guy who had a very long one (Harbaugh).

These players know how much support the head coach has from the upper brass on a team. Harbaugh was the most sought-after coach in the business. The owner and the GM are going to give him time to prove himself. That means the players either get on board or find themselves elsewhere.

Not so much the case with Singletary, who wasn't as sought-after and who many questioned was ready for a HC position.

The good thing we have going here, despite Philbin's resembling Singletary more than Harbaugh in terms of the length of the leash he probably has, is that the HC and GM appear to be working cooperatively to assemble the HC's vision of the team. That will get the attention of the players and help them view Philbin more like the 49ers' players viewed Harbaugh IMO, regardless of the differences in the way they communicate.

Sometimes it's these behind-the-scenes things that have all the power and influence. I think there's a tendency to overestimate the effects of the things you can see, such as body language, simply because you can see them and it's all you have to go on.

 

BTW IB, I experienced a lot of what you're experiencing in this thread by posting my discontent with Nick Saban fairly early in his coaching tenure, at a time when he was still very much adored by the fans and thought to be our major hope for success.

The difference for me is that I had problems with Nick Saban's underlying character, not his mannerisms and communication style.

I get none of the qualms I did with Saban when I see Joe Philbin. I see a guy with very good underlying character, and a guy who I think will create the kind of team culture he wants based in large part on that alone.

Either way, my hat's off to you for having the guts to post your negative perceptions of Philbin, and to do so eloquently, at a time when most of the fans are holding out hope in him and want to hear none of it.

Now if we can get the forum to respond the way Paul suggested, we might have more of an environment in which people could feel comfortable doing what you did.

 

BTW, muscle979, I'd be interested to hear if you know of any instances in the military in which lower-ranking enlisted guys knew that their higher-ranking enlisted superiors were on thin ice with the officers, and how that affected the respect those higher-ranking enlisted guys got from the lower-ranking ones.

 

Totally agree with this point of view and also believe that once Philbin knows his authority is unquestioned he will show a somewhat warmer demeanor.

Given the fact that he has just gone thru a personal loss I can see why he would want to come off as intimidating to those employees he doesn't know and would want to make sure it is ALL business with him.

 

Without demeaning what you've concluded here about Philbin, could much of this be the combination of a first year head coach (ever, remember he's not held that position even in college) and the Hard Knocks factor (being 'exploited' for lack of a better term by the HC producers)....I understand what you're driving at here, but how much of this could be directed at those factors I mentioned here ??

 

I am not bashing anyone. I am noyt trying to start anything. I just want some to take a step back and calm down. Many seem to have Cam Cameron syndrome right now. To expand on a previous comment I made, when someone say I am in this field and so I can tell you based on this that Philbin is a poor communicator thats bunk IMO.

I can say to you that I am a Senior auditor that has done fraud audits and medicaid audits and have done interviews that lead to people going to jail (based on interview we expanded testing and did some outside the box reviews that lead to evidence of theft) and that doesnt mean I am an expert in reading a football coach body language to tell whether he will be good or not. Sorry but that is just nonsense, you arent in that arena. Mannerisms of an Nfl coach vs that of a CEO or a blue collar steel mill worker are diff. backgrounds are diff, language is diff. Unless you work in that industry, you dont know what the audience perception will be (audience being players) you dont know the day to day 1 on1 interaction. You dont know that the mannerisms are not that way because he doesnt liek having teh conversation on camera, that he is doing it because it is good PR for the team but feels the discussions are private in nature.

I am not, again, trying to call anyone out, I am just trying to give my point of view. I certainly am not saying anyone should care what I say LOL

 

Of course the other similarity is that these players are "going to war" together by fighting another team on the field.

I put "going to war" in quotes because it in no way resembles the real life-or-death nature of war, but it does have certain similar characteristics.

Interestingly, Joe Philbin just spent a good bit of time instructing his team to look out for each other in the last episode of Hard Knocks, using Reggie Bush's being piled on by the other team as an example. That tells me something about his character and the kind of team culture he's trying to create here.

And if you noticed, he had the attention of his team during that. You could've heard a pin drop in that room. That was a powerful message that rises above anything he could do with his palms or his feet.

 

You must have hated those Frosted Flakes commericals.

 

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned but, people tend to act different in front of a camera then off one. Not saying that's the case here, just something to consider. Another thing that comes to mind is a lot of these guys haven't earned the right or trust of this coach and that will come with time and performance.

 

Nice post, well thought out and informative.

But I'm not buying any of it.

 

While this is an excellent well thought out and written thread it is largely based on what we have seen on Hard Knocks .Phibin may feel uncomfortable in front of a camera and much of his body language may be due to stage fright and a reaction to the directors instructions such as camera angles, lighting and such .Perhaps he doesnt look into a players eyes because only the back of his head would show etc.

Also I would like to relate a story about someone who worked for me.He was an excellent employee but he would never look in your eyes and he would turn his head away from you when he talked which was not very often .

It turns out he had a gap in his teeth and he didnt want to spit on you when he talked so he looked away.He eventually got that fixed .

My point is that there could be other reasons for unusual body language.The reading of body language is not an exact science .

 

Senior personnel try very hard to hide these things from junior enlisted because of the affect it can have. As quickly as rumors can fly around I don't recall hearing that often how a particular officer regarded any particular NCO. Soldiers will notice an incompetent NCO way before an officer does to be honest. I didn't see many NCOs get replaced but one I did see was not because the officers had a gripe about his work but because they saw that he had lost the trust and loyalty of his troops. So I guess to answer your question, in the military to me it generally seemed to happen in the opposite order. The leader loses the respect of his subordinates and then he is on thin ice with his leadership.

 

Doesn't sound to me that he had any communicating issues in GB...

There's more:
http://thefinsiders.com/blog/2012/joe-philbin-what-the-packers-are-saying

 

I agree with much of what the OP said. I have my concerns about Philbin. I also had problems with Saban from early on and felt Cameron was a poor choice. From a demeanor and style standpoint, I thought Sparano was fine and I think he generally communicated and related well to the players and they generally played hard for him. I think Sparano's problems were in decision-making etc. and not demeanor or personality.

That I, or some others, don't like Philbin's personality and demeanor certainly doesn't mean that he will be a bad coach. But if there is a significant number of us out here who feel see him that way and who would not want to work for him there is a pretty good chance that there is a significant number of players on the team that feel the same way. To dismiss that possibility or likelihood is unreasonable IMO. To rationalize it and say that the only players that don't/won't like him and his style are the divas and ones we should get rid of anyhow is nonsense. This is just my personal read of body language, etc., but if I had to guess I'd say guys like Reggie Bush and Jake Long are not big fans of his demeanor and personal style and I think they are very much the kinds of players we should want to keep. I could be wrong about how they feel about him, of course. If, as Shou suggests, Philbin is being purposely aloof in order to create an air of authority, etc., I think he is making a big mistake. I think that is a terrible idea, especially with the players who have either taken it upon themselves to be the "leadership council" or who may have been informally "appointed" by their peers for that role. I think a head coach needs and should want to have a group of allies and confidants among the leaders of the team as that can help the other players get on board. Philbin seems to either not realize that, consciously reject it or simply be unable to do it. whichever it is, I think it is a bad sign. I hope the players (especially the most important ones) don't view Philbin the way I or IB or some others here do.

 

Drove me nuts

 

I think right now there is probably a difference in his demeanor with players like those versus the team in general, with whom he wants to create that slightly detached, intimidating air IMO. The fact that he used Reggie Bush to teach loyalty to each other in that team meeting I don't think was any coincidence.

I think the extent to which a head coach should take on the demeanor I'm suggesting Philbin is purposefully taking on varies as a function of how good the team was before he came aboard, as well as how much of an "inmates are running the asylum" dynamic is involved.

If a coach took over for Bill Belichick right now, the best thing he could do is sit back and be friendly and let the established winning culture and the team leaders do their thing. On a 6-10 team with what I suspect to be no solid leadership among the players, however, I think Philbin's approach is the correct one, until he can get the players and establish the culture he wants, asssuming he has the support of the GM in making those personnel moves, which he appears to IMO.

All of this stuff we're talking about varies according to the context IMO. You have to appraise what he's doing in the context of the larger situation and its particular dynamics.

 

I totally agree with the OP. None of us can argue the fact Philbins demeanor is a bit awkward to say the least.I can only hope its because he feels very uncomfortable interacting with his players in front of cameras that he didnt want there in the first place. This is his first job as a HC so its a learning experience for him on all levels. I choose to cut him some slack and wait to see what hes made of in the long run. He hasnt even coached his first real NFL game yet so we cant really judge his HC skills,or lack thereof, on his mannerisms alone.

 

It's a fair point, but then again, Philbin only exhibits these "tells" when communicating with players. Watch him talk to his staff and you'll see a different body language alltogether; he's clearly more comfortable, open and attentive when he's having a talk with an assistant coach. If it was stage fright, then it wouldn't matter who exactly he was talking to; but obviously it does.

 

I'm not on either side of the coin BUT: He could know that his actions with players will be more deeply scrutinized than coaches, leading him to be more jittery.

 

more of the same? preparing to end the coach? how about we give him a season, he might just pleasantly surprise you? personally, I don't care how he dresses, crosses his legs, whatever... what I care about is that he builds a competitive team that can consistently win.