I somewhat disagree. Baseball managers take a lot of heat and lose their jobs sometimes when they're the skipper of a slumping or underachieving club. You see a lot of turnover, including in season, just like with the NFL. And I think a baseball manager has a lot less to do with a team's success than an NFL head coach.

 

Totally disagree...you put Peyton Manning in Dan Henning's offense without his freedom to change plays at the line he's just an average QB. What makes Peyton Manning is the system that he runs, same goes with Brady.

I'll agree the head coach and some positition coach's may not be that big of a deal, but anybody thats calling plays is huge in the game. Just look at our defense, basically same players, but a total different result. Hopefully we see the same change with the offense.

 

Bruce Arians

 

you put peyton manning in a dan henning offense and he's still a pro bowl qb who probably has more rings because he would actually have a running game to lean on. brady would flourish as well. aaron rodgers too. their gaudy stats might go down but they would be ten times more lethal with power running games to support them

can you imagine being forced to stack the box against peyton or brady because you have to stop the run game

 

personally i think you have to break down coaches into three categories since they all have different responsibilities

head coach - he is really more about organizational structure then in game influence. he may override a call here or there during a game but primarily he's putting together the structure, building a culture and evaluating and improving upon it when necessary

coordinators - for the most part 80% -90% of their jobs is devising weekly gameplans and then calling the plays on gameday. the top 5 and bottom 5 can be worth an extra TD in a given game but really no more.

positional coaches - these are the guys that take the talent and coach them up. the truly great ones like Callahan on the Jets are valuable but for the most part they are very interchangeable and their success or failure usually depends on what they're given to work with

generally for a team i feel 90% of the success or failure of a team will ride on the personnel while about 10% will be dependent on coaching. A great coaching staff might be worth an extra two wins over the course of a season but thats really about it. Bill Belichik isnt taking the Bills to the playoffs and Cam Cameron could have probably gotten the Steelers into the playoffs

 

I think you made a good point there regarding personnel. I believe we need to make sure that we have great coaches under the head coach to make us successful. Good post.

 

10% sounds pretty reasonable. but in a league with this much parity, 10% goes a long way.

 

I believe some like to think that the Lions and the Steelers, for instance, are miles apart in terms of player talent. But they aren't. Not really. To me the primary difference maker(s) are player development and game planning. Which of course points to coaching.
Using the same tired comparison of Sanchez and Henne....
Sanchez left college early after just a handful of starts.
Henne was a 4 year starter.
Yet at this point, Sanchez plays with so much more confidence and bravado, I think you have to say the difference is player development and coaching, don't you?
One can say that Brady and even Marino were just overlooked and were actually hidden gems. On the other hand, Shula took the Colts to the SB and he took the Dolphins to SB, first with a dominant running game an then with a powerful passing game.
Likewise Belichick was able to coax, what 11 wins out of a team with Matt Cassell as a starter.

 

true. i think that 10% becomes pretty valuable in the playoffs too although usually most of the coaches are pretty good when you get there. once in a while you get a bad coach like marvin lewis IMO and that could cost you big time but usually it comes down to players making plays

 

Payton Manning would have told them to shove it, and started running plays. He would not be waiting for the stooges to decide on what to do.

 

i think there are big differences between the Steelers and Lions personnel wise. big ben and mendenhall are much better than stafford or hill and a turf toe jahvid best, kevin smith and maurice morris

and the front seven of the steelers on defense is much better than the front seven of the lions

 

Best thing to do is look at coaching changes where they kept the same roster and compare how the same players did under two different coaching staffs.


Even that's not fair though, because a coach who inherits a roster is stuck with players who may not reflect the vision THEY would build. they may want different types of players for a different system. Plus they are stuck getting players to 'unlearn' the previous system. So maybe that's actually a bad example.

 

i dont think this is an all or nothing argument. Ive seen good players fail with ba dcoaches and bad players thrive with good ones.

Alex Smith, former niners QB. He was looking fairly decent with some good potential under OC Norv Turner. Once Turner went to the Chargers, Alex Smith's career ended. Or how about Deion Branch? Super bowl MVP with pats, signs with seahawks, 3 years of nothing, back to Pats and hes good again? Wtf.

But the GREAT ones? They're always gong to be great. Randy Moss is a perfect example. When he WANTED to, he was unstoppable. He was a monster in Minnesota for years, made some great plays for Oakland when he felt like it, Monster again for the Patriots, even had a little success for the Vikes again this year before he completely gave up. Corey Dillon was a tank for the Bengals, and they were quite awful, until he ended up on the patriots.

...you know, why is it all these players end up on the patriots...

 

Just my own opinion..but I'm speaking more towards innate talent. The primary things that separate the two teams are NFL experience and development. Again just my opinion. The Lions are a younger, less developed group than the Steelers. How much better can the Lions get is anyone's guess. But they do a fair amount of high draft picks.

 

I love how you forget who put the ****ty players together in the first place and called them a team.

 

yeah i mean a huge mismatch IMO of coordinators happened this past sunday where dick lebeau's steelers played shottenheimer's jets. to me lebeau is one of the best and shotty is one of the worst and shotty's offense still put up 19 or 17 with a second year QB. Its tough to quantify. how many points do the jets score if they have peyton or how many do they score if the steelers have a better secondary? or how many do the jets score if they have sean payton or the steelers have paul pasqualoni

 

experience counts for a lot. how many games do we win if our defense is starting players with five years of experience instead of one, two and three? we probably have several more victories early in the season and then the momentum would have been completely different at the end of the season

 

the GM? Who to me is the single most important person on a team

 

The coach has a lot to do with personnel.

He decides what type of players he needs to run his system and the GM does their best to provide those types.

He decides whom to cut and whom to keep.

He picks the positional coaches an allots practice reps which affects improvement or lack or improvement.

If the GM is the grocery shopper, the Head Coach is the chef. He chooses what dishes are on the menu that the GM needs to provide ingredients for, and it is the chef's skill or lack of skill that goes a long way towards how the meal will taste.

Of course, the GM usually picks the coach, so in that sense it's the GM's fault if the coach sucks.

 

I say all of this because I think coaching impacts performance more than just 10%.

But I do agree that GM is the most important piece, since he chooses the coach and thereby indirectly chooses the philosophy of the franchise.

 

i like that "if the gm is the grocery shopper, the head coach is the chef" lol. but if the meat is tough and the vegetables are rotten its going to take a helluva chef or a lotta wine to make that a good meal

 

well the 10% is subjective but i just think football is a game of matchups and even the worst coordinators know to exploit a good matchup. getting back to the steelers jets game the major weakness the steelers have on defense is their cornerbacks IMO. You want to stay away from their safeties but go after their CBs. Now Schottenheimer who I feel is a bad coordinator was able to exploit that throughout the game by attacking Ike Taylor repeatedly even though he was going against arguably the best defensive coordinator in the game. Even LeBeau couldnt prevent that. The best he could do is try to minimize it. Generally every coach is taught the same things so it usually just comes down to matchups and who wins those matchups which comes down to personnel. Anyway, thats just my subjective view of it

 

personally i believe each and every instance is a unique situation (which is why it's so hard to replicate -- you can't) .... and a portion of the overall success is just plain luck, and much of the overall success of a coach and a particular team is the presence of a 'special' player, supported by a handful of very good players.

GM vs Coach .... coaching matters - it's proved every year, BUT the best teams have a special player or a handful of very good players -- and that is the GM.

as much as i like Long and Wake .... 2 examples of very good players -- not special, special players can carry a team.

 

You are so right in that serendipity is a pretty significant factor in a team's success. But, you absolutely missed the mark when you stated that Long and Wake are not special players. One can argue that the Pro Bowl is a popularity contest, I suppose. But Long was voted All Pro First Team, and Wake was voted All Pro Second Team. IMO that speaks volumes.

 

it does say much about them .... but to me special players are solely QBs, LBs, and Ss who can single-handedly carry a team .... Long no matter how good he is -- and he obviously is .... can not win games for us. Wake is not LT .... he is our Terrell Suggs .... and that is great. Urlacher/Lewis are special LBs ... as Polamalu/Reed are Ss .... those players change games with leadership and playmaking. There are only a few special players in this league -- and its usually why most teams that have them remain in the playoff hunt every year.

 

While I can appreciate what you say; I think it's worth noting that the voters agree that ILBs Ray Lewis and Brian Urlacher are special players, in that they also voted them to the All Pro Second Team this year. However, they seem to hold Cameron Wake in just as high esteem. Interestingly enough, Sporting News cast their vote for Wake as First Team All Pro. But the majority rules so he ended up as Second Team.

 

While it is the players who perform it is the coaches responsibility to create and environment, prepare players, and devise schemes that maximize the players strengths and talents.

The documentary "Lombardi" on HBO this month is an excellent example of how a great coach gets the most out of his players. A bad coach can certainly keep a team from reaching their potential and succeeding.

Then there are coaches who can succeed in certain contexts and not others. Saban is an outstanding college coach in which he can recruit and his micro-managing works with a bunch a kids out of high school and the first time away from home. In the NFL where players are millionaires and are grown men micro-managing may work for a year, but will result in team burnout.

May be what is happening to the Dolphins with Sparano?

 

More disregard for the impact of coaching, preperation, game planning, etc.
Dissapointing mind set.

First lets realize that out of all the big time sports football is the most intricate when it comes to strategy.
Basketball or baseball don't rely as much on systems or strategy.
Football comes down to the performance of an entire unit and singular player performances don't have as much impact as in the aforementioned sports if the rest of the unit is not producing.

Schemes and strategies are highly important in football.
Football coaches live in film rooms reviewing formations, tendencies, game planning etc.
Do you really think this amount of time would be put into such an effort if it was as simple as "go line up and make a play?"
This mentality is unreal.

The bottom line is that any special talent elevates a team whether it be on the coaching side or player side.
A great coach can elevate the talent of a unit by protecting weak areas of a squad and maximizing it's strengths through scheme and game planning.
A great player can make plays even within a poor system elevating the perceived talent of the coaching staff.

It can work both ways.

The obvious answer is that a great team will have talent in both areas.
When you combine the two you have something special.
When you are lacking in one or both you have issues.

This whole "coaching has no effect" some people have gotten in their head is assinine.

 

Agree completely.

10% success attributed to coaching is horribly undervaluing the impact.
It's a different ratio for any team in actuality as well. You can't just put a percentage to which side is more responsible for wins and losses when it's a fact that roster talent and coaching staff talent for any team are different. The impact of a teams roster or their coaches will vary for each team based on the differing talent levels of each. Silly to even put a Standard % of impact for a teams roster vs coaching staff considering that fact.

I"ve said for years now that the GM is the most important piece to a team.
The main reason this franchise has suffered as badly as it has, why it bottomed out with a roster devoid of any talent and why it completely wasted a HOF QB is because we did not have a GM in place to at the least help a coach make draft decisions and stick to the system in place.

I would never support any coach getting full control ever again.
I don't care who the hell it is.

 

This.


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