Let’s start paying attention to the players

By John McMullen  |   Thursday, January 08, 2009  |  Comments( 1 )

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Anyone out there tired of the constant second-guessing of NFL coaches?

Anyone tired of the constant call for change at the top in nearly every NFL city when things derail just a little bit?

It's time to stop worrying about the coaches and start thinking about the players.

The simple fact is that the megalomaniac mentors in today's NFL rarely win games.

The most valuable commodity in this league is and always will be talent, not coaching. Look no further than a trio of Super Bowl-winning mentors -- Jon Gruden, Brain Billick and Barry Switzer -- to prove my thesis.

The same drive, ambition and obsession that garnered Gruden a ring in Tampa has been his downfall since. "Chucky" may have been the perfect one-year coach for a veteran team with enough talent to get to the Super Bowl, but long term has been a different story and Gruden's ego has been the deciding factor.

Known as an offensive "genius," Gruden's Super Bowl team won with anything but. The defense, fashioned by the departed Tony Dungy and coordinator Monte Kiffin, along with the virtually mistake-free play of quarterback Brad Johnson were the reasons Tampa was a champion.

Gruden's ego would not allow him to ride that out and his willingness to overhaul an average offense and let defensive leaders like Warren Sapp and John Lynch walk in turn was a miscalculation.

Gruden should have learned from another "genius" with a ring, Billick.

Billick led the Baltimore Ravens to a Super Bowl victory on the backs of one of the generation's best defenses and the mistake-free play of quarterback Trent Dilfer. Instead of riding that formula for another season, Billick, the architect of Minnesota’s record-setting 1998 offense, wanted a better pure passer and signed Elvis Grbac. While the Ravens' offense perked up, they weren't the same team. The quiet steadiness and reliability of Dilfer was missed greatly.

In both cases, well-regarded coaches were allowed to overhaul winning rosters and the results were problematic.

Now let's shift gears and talk about the vaunted work ethic of so many coaches whom the national media drools over.

Being based in Philadelphia, it was Andy Reid's return to work after his well-documented family problems a year ago that finally shined a spotlight on one of the NFL's more mundane but perplexing problems.

The fact that most of the league's coaches have 80-plus-hour work weeks and often sleep on office couches may be dull to most fans who care about little but winning. And I can understand why -- it's a silly problem that has its roots firmly planted in hubris.

To be fair, in the world of professional sports, football is calculus. Piloting a baseball team is about getting that killer tan, while coaching hoops is all about managing egos. I'll leave it to the puck heads to explain what hockey coaches do -- I'm still trying to figure that one out.

So, NFL coaches from this generation wear their work ethic like a badge of honor and look down at members of the fraternity who have the gall to feel a more well-rounded lifestyle might actually contribute to success and longevity. Owners have picked up on that disdain and have made it almost mandatory for coaches to be on call 24-7.

Of course, legendary mentors from the past snicker at it all. No matter how much you respect a guy like Reid, he’s never going to be compared with legends like Vince Lombardi, Don Shula and Chuck Noll.

That said, some believe you can't compare each era and that’s probably true, so let’s go back to the recent past and look at a coach who didn't believe in the hype -- Switzer.

It's doubtful anyone could muster up a strong case to compare Reid and Switzer as coaches, but Switzer and his questionable work ethic have the Super Bowl ring Reid is still chasing.

Talent trumps coaching and that’s tough for any megalomaniac to accept. If they spent more hours watching the game tape, surely they could expose a bozo like Switzer. Jerry Jones' caddy would probably be on his 10th gin and tonic when Reid or one of his brethren figured out that the left tackle was opening his stance and telegraphing each play during their 27th viewing.

Ecstatic and validated, the exhausted coach would gleefully tell his important defensive players about his find and then watch them "ignore his genius" on Sunday when the real bullets were flying against big-time players.

There are laws that limit the amount of time airline pilots, truck drivers and doctors work for good reason. Common sense should limit the time NFL coaches spend at the office.

None of this means you should ignore incompetence, however. While NFL coaches rarely win games, they can lose them.

But, it's rather easy to flush out the really bad coaches and Reid saw that firsthand last week when his former offensive coordinator, Brad Childress, gift-wrapped a playoff game for him by starting Tarvaris Jackson.

Only when a coach loses a game by the decisions he makes before his team ever hits the field should you be worried about the guy with the lamented play card. And it's almost always painfully obvious.

Like any other year, players like Brandon Jacobs, James Harrison and Ed Reed will have more to say about who wins the Super Bowl this season than any coach.
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About John McMullen

John is the managing editor of The Phanatic Magazine, the assistant managing editor of The Sports Network and the co-host of the highly rated 'Johns on Sports' radio show on WTBQ in New York. Every Saturday from 6:30-9 p.m. (et) you can hear John along with his co-host, John Gottlieb, talk to the ...
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