What makes a great NFL coach ... and who's getting fired this year?
Wherein we debate who we'd like to play for, and who's absolutely the worst.
I hesitate to drop another Ted Lasso reference in this newsletter. Although I’m a big fan of the show and consider it to be the most communal viewing experience we have right now outside of sports, I recognize that 1) not everyone subscribes to Apple TV+ and 2) Ted Lasso stans can be reallllllly grating (Joey Votto is the exception to this rule).
That said, please indulge me one more for the time being (don’t worry, I’ll keep this vague to avoid any specific spoilers). One question the show has asked since the beginning is this: Is Ted Lasso a good coach?
Undoubtedly, he’s a great guy whose upbeat attitude and joie de vivre help bring out the best in other people. He cares deeply about their well-being and about building them up, in a way that’s admirable but also a little pathological (my speculation is that his need to make everyone happy stems from a dark place, and I will not go into further detail in case this theory unfolds on the show).
But even if the team is well adjusted and harmonious in the locker room, if it isn’t winning games, is Coach Ted Lasso doing his job?
I’m guessing it’ll all sort itself out on the show, but the truth is that in real life, there isn’t really a precise definition of what makes a good coach. There are many different factors, many of them subjective. It also varies based on the sport and the ages of the players.
For as homogeneous as the NFL can be in some ways (including its hiring practices), one thing it has given us this offseason is a wide range of coaching personalities. Mike Zimmer and Ron Rivera are the exasperated vets who will give it to you straight. Robert Saleh and Joe Judge are the younger coaches who take completely different approaches to their locker room (positive and punitive, respectively). Dan Campbell blesses us with his own aphorisms almost daily.
Though they’ve kept us entertained while we’re waiting for the season to arrive, once real games are being played, it’s a whole new ballgame. NFL coaches need to deliver more than just lively press conferences and quirky sayings.
On that note, let’s turn our attention to the season ahead and to the 32 men who wear the headsets. Or, as Ted Lasso would put it: what would you say if you had to have a serious conversation with Craig T. Nelson while he was holding a luxury-brand bag?
Let’s talk coaches.
What traits do you think a good NFL coach needs to have?
Sarah Hardy: While I won’t advocate for a coach to have an uncompromising "winning isn’t everything; it's the only thing" view of the NFL, it’d be naive to think winning doesn’t matter. This is a professional league composed of grown men who make their living playing this sport. Of course winning matters, but with apologies to Red Sanders and Vince Lombardi, winning isn’t the only thing that matters.
In that sense, a good coach needs to have a smart, creative football mind and also be willing to adapt. The game moves fast, and if you don’t change with it, you’ll be left behind. This also means surrounding yourself with the right hires, especially the ones who can fill your blind spots.
That ability to be flexible should extend to how coaches treat their players. Not everyone responds to the same kind of feedback, and having the emotional intelligence to understand how to reach people, sometimes in different ways, is part of what makes any successful leader.
Coaches should show curiosity; not just in the game and how it evolves, but in everything — the world around them and what causes their players care about and what interests them. Coaches should listen to their players, sometimes learn from them, and always be ready to teach. The best kind of coaches are always teachers, above all else.
Christian D’Andrea: Adaptability. Even if you’re at the forefront of a new movement in the NFL, you’ve only got two to three seasons before opponents catch up and either create a way to stop you or take your gameplan and improve on it. Unless you’ve got a franchise quarterback already entrenched, you’re going to have to play to the strengths of a few different flawed passers who will impact your playcalling on both sides of the ball significantly. And as much as you can set a free agency and draft wish list, you’re going to have to settle with what you get — particularly if you’re stuck with a bad general manager or franchise that refuses to stop shooting itself in the foot.
On top of that, you’ve got to be lucky as hell. Every week is a gamble. Sometimes you lose those bets through no fault of your own. Sometimes you win them because you’re playing the Jets.
Which NFL coach would you most like to play for?
SH: I think my preferred coach would be someone like Andy Reid or Bruce Arians: they’ve proven they can win, but they also can let loose, connect with their players, and have been in the game long enough to have experienced all its highs and lows. The wisdom and stories from that would be a gold mine ...
… Not that I’m being an ageist here. I would be open to Kevin Stefanski or Robert Saleh, but I need to see a little more than one season’s (or in Saleh’s case, an offseason’s) worth of coaching from them before I give them my full endorsement.
If I had to choose just one coach, I’d give Arians the nod. I mean, there’s a reason Tom Brady wanted to play for him, and if he’s good enough for Brady, he’s good enough for me. Or the alternate universe version of me who would be playing in the NFL.
It’s more than that, though. Five years ago, the Cardinals were featured on the inaugural season of All or Nothing, and I found Arians and his sagacious potty mouth to be the most delightful part of the series. He’s a teacher but not a control freak. He’s not an a-hole who will scream at you for the littlest mistake, but he doesn’t put up with BS either, so if he gets angry at you, there’s probably a reason for it.
I also appreciate that Arians has shown a commitment to inclusion — he hired the first female NFL coach in Arizona, and last season, all of his coordinators were Black and he had two full-time assistant coaches who were women. As one of only 32 head coaches in the most prominent professional sports league in the US, Arians recognizes his responsibility to build a diverse coaching staff.
CD: With the exception of Le’Veon Bell, everyone seems to love Andy Reid. He’s both respected as a winner and a player’s coach. He’s got to be the most popular answer here.
But let me pivot to Mike Tomlin instead, a man with a .650 regular season win percentage (and .500 mark in the playoffs) who isn’t afraid to point out bullshit when bags of manure are dropped at his feet.
Tomlin isn’t perfect, but he feels like the kind of coach who is smart enough to play to his strengths, is respected in his locker room, and is willing to put up with some level of shenanigans, even if that means renting key guys a backhoe to bury themselves. More importantly, he develops young players at a ridiculous rate, allowing the Steelers to maintain the homegrown identity and “f—- you, we’re not guaranteeing you anything more than two years out” mentality of Pittsburgh’s front office. The Steelers continue to thrive despite being tremendously old fashioned, which is a credit to Tomlin’s management.
Which NFL coach would you least like to play for?
SH: I don’t care if the Giants defend Joe Judge and his puerile methods of discipline. He comes across as a stubborn, toxic tyrant who treats the players like children, and he hasn’t won anything without standing beside Bill Belichick.
Growing up, I got along with almost every teacher I ever had, but the outliers all had one thing in common: They were on power trips. I have zero patience or respect for anyone who gets off on making others feel small. That, to me, is Judge. Get him and his banal coachspeak out of my face.
CD: I’m sad we didn’t dive into this last year so I could have said Bill O’Brien, Adam Gase, or Matt Patricia. I’m gonna go with Dan Campbell instead, because I feel like he’s the kind of guy who wouldn’t be satisfied with my effort if I were able to leave the field after four quarters without a hernia.
Whose seat is the hottest heading into the season?
SH: I’ll side with Vegas here and say it’s Vic Fangio. The Broncos, who haven’t had a playoff appearance or winning season under Fangio, are just 12-20 so far in his tenure. That needs to change in a hurry, or the new general manager and incoming owner who didn’t hire Fangio won’t have much reason to keep him around.
The Broncos have all the tools to compete this season, even if playing in the AFC West makes their task more complicated. Their defense, Fangio’s specialty, is loaded and finally healthy. The quarterback situation is unsettled but should be better (and if it’s not, that ultimately falls on Fangio). Their non-divisional schedule is more than manageable: they face each NFC East team, plus the Bengals, Lions, Jets, and Jaguars.
If the Broncos don’t finish above .500 under those circumstances, then Fangio will likely be headed back to his defensive coordinator roots.
CD: Fangio is in trouble. Zac Taylor has done nothing to prove he’s capable of being an NFL coach in two seasons with the Bengals. Matt Nagy has survived the double-doink and the Mitch Trubisky era but may not get through Justin Fields’ rookie year.
But the guy I’m most interested in is the guy who got fired from the Big 12’s ninth-most prestigious job. Kliff Kingsbury is 13-18-1 in two years as an NFL head coach, but his inability to adjust in-season has left him at 5-11 over the last half of the year, squandering 3-3-1 and 6-3 starts along the way.
Another collapse would likely leave Kyler Murray to blossom under a different head coach. Kingsbury, for all his Air Raid wizardry, has yet to field a top 12 offense in either points scored or DVOA. Arizona has the pieces in place to thrive this fall; the roster is more talented top to bottom than it’s been at any point since Carson Palmer was playing quarterback. Anything less than a Wild Card spot feels like the last chunk of data the Cards need to declare this experiment — the one where they hired a guy who went 35-40 at Texas Tech, got fired, and then settled for a coordinator job at USC before a lost franchise came calling — a failure.
Which coach is going to “break out” in 2021?
SH: I don’t know why I’m tempting the spiteful football gods here, but I’ll go with the new Chargers head coach. I admired what Brandon Staley did last season as the Rams defensive coordinator, and even without the built-in advantage of having Jalen Ramsey and Aaron Donald to play in your scheme, I think he can find success with the Chargers too.
I’m also impressed with Staley’s approach to developing relationships with his players. He puts in the time and effort to get to know the players and then works with them in a collaborative manner. As he told The Athletic: “I use that word — ‘express themselves’ — because I mean it. It’s a partnership. That’s why I love the NFL.“
I think the Chargers will enjoy playing for him, and if they can avoid their usual rotten luck, then Staley can be LA’s new hottest wunderkind coach.
CD: Brian Flores already has the Dolphins’ rebuild way ahead of schedule, but if he can get Miami to the postseason — all while making Tua Tagovailoa look like the 2018 version of himself — he’s gonna emerge as the strongest branch of Bill Belichick’s coaching tree. It’ll be tough to match last year’s 10-win mark with a tougher schedule and some losses on the defensive side of the ball, but if Flores can do it his future’s gonna be bright as hell.
And if he doesn’t, maybe he’s just Eric Mangini, only smart enough to know not to call the cops on Bill Belichick.
What’s your favorite coach quote so far this preseason?
SH: If you had asked me earlier in the week, I probably would have picked Dan Campbell’s line about there being “no turds” on the Lions. Turd is an inherently funny, underrated word — and one that is a daily part of my vocabulary, often directed at one of my dogs.
Then Ron Rivera dropped this truth bomb, and sorry, turd-less Lions locker room, but calling out conservative media and their bad-faith, fear-mongering, fake-culture-war agenda is going to win me over every time:
CD: Not quite preseason, but …
“So this team is going to be built on, we're going to kick you in the teeth, right? And when you punch us back, we're going to smile at you. And when you knock us down, we're going to get up and on the way up, we're going to bite a kneecap off. All right? And we're going to stand up and it's going to take two more shots to knock us down. And on the way up, we're going to take your other kneecap and we're going to get up and it's going to take three shots to get us down. And when we do, we're going to take another hunk out of you.”
— Dan Campbell, human lunatic/video game end boss