By: Jacob Christner
Here is a history lesson for the uninitiated, especially in this attention span of a fish world.
Tom Landry was an engineer who invented both the most innovative offense of the 20th century, and the most innovative defense of the 20th century. When you see the 4-3 defense with a middle linebacker free to roam most of the field like a knight on a chess board, that’s Tom Landry. Going outside the sport for talent? That was Landry. He picked up Bob Hayes from track and field. and Rafael Septien and Efren Herrera from soccer. Multiple formation offense? Landry. He knew other coaches would take his 4-3 and use it, so he created an offense with the ability to score.
That same man, who had a lot of humility and grace, could have an ego also, and it could hold his team back. Landry had to simplify his offensive system to start having winning seasons, then let Roger Staubach call plays to win Super Bowls. Despite all that, he took back the play calling, had a partial season where he switched out Staubach and Craig Morton every other play, accelerated Staubach and Don Meredith’s retirements because both felt they were cogs in a machine, and stubbornly refused to change up his game plans when younger and forward thinking coaches were crushing the Cowboys on the field every week. In Landry’s last four years of coaching, his teams got beat by fourteen or more points sixteen times. Add three more to that if you add in 1985 when the Bears won 44-0 in Texas Stadium.
There really isn’t anything wrong with having an ego. Every single athlete and coach has one, and they wouldn’t be successful without one. I always say it’s great to have a lot of confidence with a twinge of charming cockiness. Arrogance is where one loses the plot. Arrogance refuses to build a system around the specific strengths of a player, and arrogance refuses to see when it’s a new era and you need to learn what is new and adapt.
I brought up Tom Landry not out of disrespect, but to show that stubborn ego can happen to anyone. To his credit, at least Landry had earned his ego. As was mentioned, Landry invented most of what we see on Sundays now, and take for granted.
What are the other coaches’ excuse?
When a Matt Nagy or Matt Canada lose their minds when a quarterback changes a play that is clearly not working, and stays angry when that choice worked, that is out of control arrogance. When a Sean Payton or Mike McCarthy have the same tired, boring, outdated game plan week after week, that is a different level of arrogance. That is the arrogance of the old head who can’t leave the past.
Mike Tomlin gets criticized for being “less an Xs and Os guy, and more motivator”. This is where so many people get coaching wrong…including the coaches themselves. The idea of coaching should absolutely be teaching young men and women, depending on who you coach, to think for themselves. To trust their own judgments whether they make a mistake or not. The true leader tries to build other leaders.
Because we get this wrong, you get a lot of coaches, past, present, and no doubt future, that feel the need to show off that big brain. 3rd and inches? Must do a jet sweep three yards behind the line of scrimmage. 2nd and 24? RPO.
Let’s ask this question though. Is the arrogance simply to show off the big brain, or do these coaches want to be TV stars?
I’ll explain.
Media has always wanted to create the star. That is a tale that is as old as time. These days, it’s not even as simple as ignoring the player or personality that doesn’t have the proper Q rating. These days, media is flat out nasty to the unchosen. Notice Jimmy Garoppolo gets acknowledgments that he is the leader in INTs, but that’s about it? Notice Joe Burrow is given a LOT of leeway for starting slow the last two years? Notice Justin Herbert gets shielded behind the world blasting on Brandon Staley. Mind you, each guy has credentials backing them up, but they also have the Hollywood Q rating.
You know who doesn’t? Brock Purdy. Go on ESPN and all you hear is that he is a product of the system, especially Shannon Sharpe. Justin Fields absolutely gets a criminal amount of leeway for being 6-24 and having a couple good games once in a while, and Mitch Trubisky starting career is over for having a winning record and making quite a few good plays in his time in Chicago. It doesn’t hurt that JF has an insufferable fanbase that could care less about winning if he tickles their fancy with highlights. I call them JF Swifties for a reason.
Media wants you to give Anthony Richardson so much time to develop despite the fact he doesn’t belong in the NFL yet. Q rating brought him in way too early. If that didn’t matter, Tim Tebow would still be in the league. He really couldn’t throw well in the NFL, but his 4th quarters were ratings juggernauts.
Didn’t matter, he was a dork or something. Stephen A Smith despised that Tebow won those games. Stephen A Smith, the holder of the most artificial swag and cool level since George Jefferson, is telling us what is considered cool. He painfully attempts to be Stuart Scott, who actually WAS cool.
Back to the original point.
Know what else the NFL is trying to destroy that good coaches use? The tush push. It works, but it’s not flashy. It’s something Mike Ditka probably wishes he invented. TV doesn’t want that era anymore. They want casual eyes on the product. That’s why you have Taylor Swift and football games from English soccer stadiums simulcast from Andy’s room from Toy Story.
It makes winning only a bonus to the bottom line, but that’s the way it is now.
