2022 coaching carousel
- Thread starter nattysez
- Start date
It's interesting how BB's lieutenants aren't able to replicate his success - JJ, Flores, Patricia
I'm not at all convinced Flores was the problem in Miami, but I'm not a Chris Grier fan, so I could be biased. I do recall Grier's father, Bobby, had a disastrous run as GM of the Patriots.
Patricia and Judge seem to have rookie head coach syndrome. Maybe they try too hard to replicate what Bill did, which is really not possible. Bill's tenure was rocky with the Browns. Saban has found success, though.
Bears want to interview Eliot Wolf
View: https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1481293064828243976
View: https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1481293064828243976
I have a theory that because BB runs a fantastic operation and is also kind of a dick, his assistants think that being a dick is part of running a fantastic operation rather than just a coincidence. Then they go to their new home and torch all the relationships they need to survive.
In a perverse way, it actually adds to BB's brilliance. Rather than just survive assistant turnover, he's weaponized it.
Sometimes, you just have to laugh
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-12/joe-judge-s-firing-puts-another-stain-on-bill-belichick-s-record
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-12/joe-judge-s-firing-puts-another-stain-on-bill-belichick-s-record
View: https://twitter.com/jeffphowe/status/1481049242001100802?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
View: https://twitter.com/jeffphowe/status/1481005909220409352?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
View: https://twitter.com/jeffphowe/status/1480964834984398848?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
View: https://twitter.com/jeffphowe/status/1481005909220409352?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
View: https://twitter.com/jeffphowe/status/1480964834984398848?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
I have come to conclude that there's a small and a large issue his assistants have.
The 'small' one is that all of the post-Weis/Crennel ones experienced Belichick as proven master - with a multi-Super Bowl credibility (with ownership, players, agents, and media) that cannot be questioned. So things he does and can get away with work given that, but do not necessarily work for a 40 year old former BB assistant likely viewed by some as "BB helper". BB can quiz players on obscure rules and it feels like "preparation" but when Joe Judge does it I suspect it sounds like "know it all stupid baloney". BB can stand at a press conference and say "on to Cincinnati" because (save Ron Borges) there isn't a single person in the media who doubts that he knows what he is doing. The assistants almost come in with the opposite assumption in place---this is some junior person who BB carried/enabled until they prove otherwise.
The large one is more simple: there is a lot of reason to beleive Bill Belichick is better at analyzing, strategizing, and teaching football than anyone who has ever lived and no matter how perfectly the assistants replicate his processes, his mindset, his approach, and his tactics they still have the problem that BB has his own mind preparing and teaching the players the next game plan and they never will. Put a different way, I can go to all the TB12 classes and eat avocado ice cream but that doesn't make me Tom Brady.
What is funny is we heard a bunch of “Flores is his own man. He doesn’t try to be Bill Belichick” out of the media.
And then he gets fired for being a little too much like Bill. I don’t know if it’s specifically because he worked under Bill or because Flores has always been a hardass his whole life (maybe a little of both. I don’t doubt that Flores is an intense guy in his own right. He had a tough upbringing in NY and played LB at a high level).
It felt like guys like McDaniels, Judge, and especially Matt Patricia gave off a sense of “unearned entitlement” when it came to how they interacted with players and staff. Matty P having the Lions practicing outside when they play in a dome is 100% fake tough guy energy.
Flores didn’t seem to have that issue, but he clearly had issues connecting with his players, certainly with his franchise QB, and his boss.
The Lions play road games in Green Bay, Chicago etc. outdoors---those games count in the standings too, so I don't see what is "fake tough guy" about that. Though I agree Patricia came off as someone with "unearned entitlement" and was a total failure both interpersonally and as a coach...so I'm not a defender of him overall.
Patricia sucked for many reasons, but a team that plays multiple key games a year in bad weather should absolutely practice in the cold at times.
Well... he had that one 6th round QB pick in 2000 that turned out okay...
Probably better saved for another thread, but I'll derail the thread to defend Bobby Grier's honor briefly. Obviously it's hard to identify exactly which decisions were Grier's vs. Parcells/Carroll/Belichick, but that era was far from "disastrous" -- Pats made the Super Bowl in '96, made the playoffs in '97 & '98, and as Director of Player Personnel Grier definitely had some significant whiffs but also drafted some Hall of Famers and/or crucial players in the first dynasty (in addition to the GOAT himself): starting with Ty Law, Ted Johnson, and Curtis Martin in '95 (hell of a first three picks) , Terry Glenn/Milloy/Bruschi in '96, and Woody/Kevin Faulk in '99 capping it off with a '00 draft that began with borderline HOFer Richard Seymour and Hall of Very Gooder Matt Light... and, of course, included arguably the greatest draft pick in professional sports history.
Of course there were a lot of terrible/regrettable draft picks mixed in (Chris Canty in the 1st round in '97 was a disaster... in fact the entire '97 draft and most of the '98 draft was basically a disaster) but I just wanted to push back on the (commonly held) notion that Grier's tenure was uniformly bad.
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I agree. But they were playing indoor games for 4 straight weeks. Maybe practice outside for Green Bay when you’re going to play them.
You don’t need a ton of extra evidence that the decision was fueled by machismo other than Matty P was out there in the snow in shorts to radiate his alpha energy across the practice.
You can say it’s sound practice strategy, but it seems like the players certainly didn’t respond to it.
Bill also has a great working relationship with his GM who he sees eye to eye with unlike his lieutenants
It makes you wonder if the guy who comes closest to duplicating Belichick is...Brady
Vrabel a bit as well
I think the best thing that ever happened to Bill was winning the Super Bowl early on. The Pats had to get super lucky to win in 2001. If that doesn't happen, and they take that step back the next year, does Bill get the rope to keep going? Does he survive having benched Bledsoe? Once he won the Super Bowl, he earned a lot of leeway. It was also easier to get players to buy into his system. If the Pats lose to the Raiders, there's an alternate universe where Bill goes 5-11, 11-5, 9-7, fired. So I guess all a Belichick disciple needs to do is win the Super Bowl.
It's Saban, right?
Belichick disciples are universally failures as long as we ignore the best college coach of his generation and the best GM of his generation.
I’ve never understood why people routinely skip Saban and Ozzie Newsome when discussing BB. Or like how his scouting system is used by (last I heard) around 10 organizations some of which no longer have any ties to him. No. Let’s not focus on that. Let’s focus on how some of his coordinators flamed out as head coaches.
From TMZ:
Forget ice cream and movies ... Joe Judge is getting over his New York Giants breakup with beer and pizza -- and a whole hell of a lot of it!!!
The former G-Men head coach -- who was canned on Tuesday following two abysmal seasons with the team -- ordered a boatload of 'za and suds to his New Jersey home on Wednesday, presumably to help drown out his newfound sorrows.
Pictures, obtained by TMZ Sports, show the newly unemployed 40-year-old had nine boxes of pizza as well as several cases of Michelob Ultra and Coors Light delivered to his place. We're also told Judge had flowers arrive on his doorstep as well.
https://www.tmz.com/2022/01/12/joe-judge-drowns-giants-firing-sorrows-with-massive-order-of-beer-and-pizza/
Forget ice cream and movies ... Joe Judge is getting over his New York Giants breakup with beer and pizza -- and a whole hell of a lot of it!!!
The former G-Men head coach -- who was canned on Tuesday following two abysmal seasons with the team -- ordered a boatload of 'za and suds to his New Jersey home on Wednesday, presumably to help drown out his newfound sorrows.
Pictures, obtained by TMZ Sports, show the newly unemployed 40-year-old had nine boxes of pizza as well as several cases of Michelob Ultra and Coors Light delivered to his place. We're also told Judge had flowers arrive on his doorstep as well.
https://www.tmz.com/2022/01/12/joe-judge-drowns-giants-firing-sorrows-with-massive-order-of-beer-and-pizza/
Well... he had that one 6th round QB pick in 2000 that turned out okay...
Probably better saved for another thread, but I'll derail the thread to defend Bobby Grier's honor briefly. Obviously it's hard to identify exactly which decisions were Grier's vs. Parcells/Carroll/Belichick, but that era was far from "disastrous" -- Pats made the Super Bowl in '96, made the playoffs in '97 & '98, and as Director of Player Personnel Grier definitely had some significant whiffs but also drafted some Hall of Famers and/or crucial players in the first dynasty (in addition to the GOAT himself): starting with Ty Law, Ted Johnson, and Curtis Martin in '95 (hell of a first three picks) , Terry Glenn/Milloy/Bruschi in '96, and Woody/Kevin Faulk in '99 capping it off with a '00 draft that began with borderline HOFer Richard Seymour and Hall of Very Gooder Matt Light... and, of course, included arguably the greatest draft pick in professional sports history.
Of course there were a lot of terrible/regrettable draft picks mixed in (Chris Canty in the 1st round in '97 was a disaster... in fact the entire '97 draft and most of the '98 draft was basically a disaster) but I just wanted to push back on the (commonly held) notion that Grier's tenure was uniformly bad.
Good overall post but Grier was gone before the 2001 draft when they picked Seymour and Light (and Kenyatta Jones, Arther Love, and Jabari Holloway (the poor man's Arther Love)).
Tangential to your point: is it even arguable about Brady being the greatest draft pick in professional sports history? Who are the other candidates with any sort of case? Probably a different thread, but crosses sports.Well... he had that one 6th round QB pick in 2000 that turned out okay...
Probably better saved for another thread, but I'll derail the thread to defend Bobby Grier's honor briefly. Obviously it's hard to identify exactly which decisions were Grier's vs. Parcells/Carroll/Belichick, but that era was far from "disastrous" -- Pats made the Super Bowl in '96, made the playoffs in '97 & '98, and as Director of Player Personnel Grier definitely had some significant whiffs but also drafted some Hall of Famers and/or crucial players in the first dynasty (in addition to the GOAT himself): starting with Ty Law, Ted Johnson, and Curtis Martin in '95 (hell of a first three picks) , Terry Glenn/Milloy/Bruschi in '96, and Woody/Kevin Faulk in '99 capping it off with a '00 draft that began with borderline HOFer Richard Seymour and Hall of Very Gooder Matt Light... and, of course, included arguably the greatest draft pick in professional sports history.
Of course there were a lot of terrible/regrettable draft picks mixed in (Chris Canty in the 1st round in '97 was a disaster... in fact the entire '97 draft and most of the '98 draft was basically a disaster) but I just wanted to push back on the (commonly held) notion that Grier's tenure was uniformly bad.
He's likely the greatest player in NFL history, and he was pick 199. The set of players you could make some sort of case for being equal or better than him and when they were drafted:
Michael Jordan, 3rd overall
LeBron James, 1st overall
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 1st overall
Bill Russell, 2nd overall
Peyton Manning (ha!) 1st overall
Jerry Rice 16th overall
Lawrence Taylor 2nd overall
Jim Brown, 6th overall
Barry Bonds, 6th overall
Mario Lemieux, 1st overall
A couple guys (Wilt Chamberlain, Wayne Gretzky) were never in the draft.
Amazingly, they all went in the top 6 other than Rice, who went 16th. And Brady went 180 odd picks later than even Rice. Is there any case whatsoever for anyone else? The best I can come up with is Johnny Unitas, 102nd overall. And he's not that close.
To be clear it obviously Brady. But in a draft that’s only 2 rounds, manu ginobili went 57th. He’s going to get into the hall this year. That’s probably the best NBA one.
I’ve never understood how the lack of success by BB’s understudies somehow translates into a slight or “stain” on BB. If anything, it shows you that he is the genius in the operation and everyone else is filler. Unlike with Bill Walsh where many of his folks turned out to be brilliant coaches — which makes you question, was it really him or was he surrounded by so much talent?
I get the idea that a lot of Belichick’s guys have not had a ton of success- but how unique is that? It’s not aa if the Broncos have nailed their coaching hires after McDaniels, or the Texans after O’Brien, or even the Browns after Crennel. A lot of these organizations seem to be pretty poorly run. The best organizations rarely have head coaching openings. But ultimately, most coaches fail…how many NFL head coaching gigs last more than a few years?
Mike Piazza was drafted in the 62nd round. 1,390th pick. So low that teams would routinely be forfeiting their picks because they didn't need or know any additional players. So late that the round no longer exists in the draft.
It’s partly because Bill is so successful that his coaches and assistants get more looks than other coaching staffs.
You contrast that with the Shanahan coaching tree where you have guys like Kyle, Matt LaFleur, Gary Kubiak. If you lump McVay in there (he’s kind of both a Gruden and Shanahan guy) that tree explodes with successful coaches and coordinators.
Right or wrong, history seems to indicate that you’re frequently getting the negatives of Bill without the payoffs of winning with Bill when you hire one of his guys.
That’s a good point about Pats assistants greeting a lot of looks. Judge is an example of a guy who didn’t seem to be in anyone’s radar, suddenly gets a job in a big market with high expectations, and is in over his head. Then again, there are guys with similar experience and pedigree who have succeeded. It just seems largely impossible to predict; for a coach to succeed you need the right situation, expectations, fit with GM, players, etc…and even then, things can go bad pretty quickly.
This is a great point. I studied this a few years ago and found only 34% of hires since 2000 had winning records and a bit more than half had never made the playoffs. By an objective standard, Bill O'Brien's tenure (52-48 record, four playoff appearances in seven seasons) was a solid success.
Look at Judge. 10-23 isn’t good, but Shurmur before him was 9-23, and McAdoo 13-15 before that. Josh McDaniels was 11-17, similar to the last two Broncos coaches (Joseph 11-21, Fangio 19-30). Patricia was 13-28, since then the Lions have gone 3-16-1. Flores went 24-25. The guys who preceded him were 23-25 (Gase), 24-28 (Philbin), 29-32 (Sparano), and 15-17 (Saban). O’Brien is the best coach the Texans have ever had, they’ve gone 8-21 since they canned him.
The younger coaches who have succeeded seem to be in much more stable organizations. How can any organization be successful when they are changing leadership, and all that comes with it every few years?
The younger coaches who have succeeded seem to be in much more stable organizations. How can any organization be successful when they are changing leadership, and all that comes with it every few years?
A great study/discussion idea for some of you who do amazing work
1) what constitutes a “successful” NFL coach?
2) what % of new hires “succeed”?
maybe looking at the last 20 to 25 years
my thought is that it’s a pretty small %
Not just looking for big successes starting with Bill but adding Reid, both Harbaughs, Tomlin - see after that who are the big successes? Very few / not that many who even have a good 4-6 year run.
great point that it could be tied to a great extent to the in place organization
1) what constitutes a “successful” NFL coach?
2) what % of new hires “succeed”?
maybe looking at the last 20 to 25 years
my thought is that it’s a pretty small %
Not just looking for big successes starting with Bill but adding Reid, both Harbaughs, Tomlin - see after that who are the big successes? Very few / not that many who even have a good 4-6 year run.
great point that it could be tied to a great extent to the in place organization
The NE guys hired post 2008 all essentially only worked for Belichick. That’s great for the Pats as they clearly understand the big picture and know what they need to do to be successful. But the Pats have had that system in place for 20 years. The recent hires are trying to overhaul a losing culture and only know one way to do that. That’s a real challenge and with owners and fans wanting to see success right away that’s makes it extra hard especially since Belichick’s assistants are put under more scrutiny due to the media’s obsession with pinning negative things on Belichick.
Look at the number of coaches Belichick worked for during his formative years. In coaching I think it’s good to bounce around if you want to make it to the top
Look at the number of coaches Belichick worked for during his formative years. In coaching I think it’s good to bounce around if you want to make it to the top
Sustaining success for a decade or more is difficult. It always has been. But a lot of head coaches have had short-term success of the sort you describe. Doug Pederson did a great job in Philly. So did Dan Quinn in Atlanta. Zimmer was 72-56-1 in Minnesota. And you’ve got guys like Shanahan, McDermott, Klingsbury, and Taylor who appear to be in the midst of such runs now, to say nothing of McVay, who appears to be on his way to one of those rare decade-plus runs. And a lot of those organizations (SF, CIN, BUF, ARI, LAR) were tire fires when those coaches arrived.
One of the few ways an NFL owner can spend marginal dollars to improve the team is by paying to move on quickly from a head coach who isn’t the solution. That’s why so many teams do it. On the evidence, I think it’s the right move, so long as you’re right about the incumbent coach not being the solution.
Therein lies the rub. They're terrible at it. There was a Ringer article posted upthread that got into this, I think.
Edit found it
https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/1/6/22869889/nfl-coaching-carousel-avoid-mistakes?utm_campaign=theringer&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
If my quick tally is correct, it looks like 10 of this years 14 playoff teams have coaches that were hired by that team as 1st year coaches.
It’s an argument I’ve been getting into over on Dolphins Reddit, where it seems a majority thinks a big name or retread is needed. Where as I greatly prefer the 1st time coach options.
Just because the Dolphins have made awful hires, doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea to hire rookie head coaches…and considering their track record, had they hired veteran coaches in any of those instances, they probably just would have made an awful hire of a veteran coach.
The importance of organizational stability and continuity is another thing I’ve tried to hammer home.
The primary complaints of Dolphins fans tends to be drafting and development. Well, it is infinitely more difficult to do those things when you have schemes and philosophies changing on a sometimes yearly basis.
For instance, the Defensive players they’ve acquired were selected to fit a specific scheme that Flores runs…there’s no guarantee now that any of the roster has the same value moving forward. And I think having an established scheme these past three years is why they actually did well on that side of the ball, as opposed to the revolving door on the other side of the ball. Again, how do you draft and develop when the needs are constantly shifting.
I’ll keep from going on any longer of a rant. Using the Dolphins as an example, simply because it’s the one I’m (unfortunately) familiar with, but I think that applies to any struggling franchise.
You guys that are Patriots fans are lucky you don’t have to deal with any of this nonsense.
It’s an argument I’ve been getting into over on Dolphins Reddit, where it seems a majority thinks a big name or retread is needed. Where as I greatly prefer the 1st time coach options.
Just because the Dolphins have made awful hires, doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea to hire rookie head coaches…and considering their track record, had they hired veteran coaches in any of those instances, they probably just would have made an awful hire of a veteran coach.
The importance of organizational stability and continuity is another thing I’ve tried to hammer home.
The primary complaints of Dolphins fans tends to be drafting and development. Well, it is infinitely more difficult to do those things when you have schemes and philosophies changing on a sometimes yearly basis.
For instance, the Defensive players they’ve acquired were selected to fit a specific scheme that Flores runs…there’s no guarantee now that any of the roster has the same value moving forward. And I think having an established scheme these past three years is why they actually did well on that side of the ball, as opposed to the revolving door on the other side of the ball. Again, how do you draft and develop when the needs are constantly shifting.
I’ll keep from going on any longer of a rant. Using the Dolphins as an example, simply because it’s the one I’m (unfortunately) familiar with, but I think that applies to any struggling franchise.
You guys that are Patriots fans are lucky you don’t have to deal with any of this nonsense.
^^^ This, exactly. The BB "method" of coaching doesn't appear to work unless you're...BB. Which means that at the end of the day, the "BB method" is really Belichick himself, which cannot be duplicated anywhere, anytime, period.
You've got 4 retread HCs in the playoffs out of, from what I can tell, 6 total retread coaches (Rivera and Carroll didn't make it; Belichick, Reid, McCarthy, and Arians did). So the success rate is a lot higher with retreads than with first-year hires.
Absolutely, to all of this.
One thing re: the BB tree. I realize that this is a bit of a slippery slope, but both Vrabel and Kingsbury played for BB. Vrabel spent the entirety of his peak playing for BB. And then he went to Houston and coached under BOB, who of course had coached under BB.
I mean....
Some of this is interesting in who you picked to say before vs. After
Patricia was 13-28, after taking over a playoff team that went 38-26 under Caldwell, and had made the playoffs the previous year
McDaniels went 11-17, the coach before him went 138-86 winning 2 SBs.... that coach's last 3 years were 24-24, the coach that followed McDaniels went 46-18 never missed the playoffs and went to a Superbowl
That's Wickersham's take as well. He thinks BB's personality is such a big part of him, his coaches try to be him when they leave, and it isn't natural for them.
's corpse
Edit- in less of a joke... John Fox made and won a playoff game with Tim Tebow one year after McDaniels was fired.
Josh was not good at being a HC, neither was Patricia.
O'Brien was a good coach who got into personnel and sucked at it and helped ruin a promising franchise.
Flores was good and lost a power struggle.
Peyton didn't fully become a corpse until 2015, after Fox was fired. I guess it started down the stretch in 2014 - his last six games including the playoff game were pretty bad. He was vintage Peyton the first 2.5 years and broke a bunch of records in 2013. Fox did win a playoff game his first year with Tebow, although they were pretty terrible (outscored by 81 points).
A good organization with good players might hire a single decent coach who stays 12 years and wins 60% of the games. A bad organization might hire five coaches, some decent, over 12 years who win 40% of their games. Doesn't necessarily mean most Head Coaches suck.
Totally fair, I did cherry pick the comparisons. I would guess that Patricia wasn’t a great coach in his stint in Detroit, but could anyone have been? Has that organization just hired exclusively terrible coaches or is there more to it than that?
The previous guy went 36-28 with two playoff appearances in four years. The guy before him still had a better winning percentage than Patricia despite taking over an 0-16 team.
RE: BB and his coaching tree, I think a fundamental thing that he does well is delegate. Notice him on the sidelines when the offense is on the field - he'll be working on the defense with his assistants while Josh runs the show.
Schemes/strategies, etc. - all that stuff is fun, but it doesn't necessarily make a good head coach, particularly over the long haul. I think that's a grave misconception. Being a good head coach is about being a good manager, hiring the right the people, and creating an environment to do their jobs well. I'm under the impression that BB disciples - as with a lot of first time coaches - don't know much about managing people and so they micromanage players and coaches and create a shitty working environment. It seems like this was the case with McD in Denver, Mangini, Patricia, BoB (at least from a talent acquisition perspective), Joe Judge, etc. Chewing tape is easy, being a good manager - and being humble - is hard.
From my POV, this is where teams get hiring wrong. Like, it's great to be the OC who designs a great offense or defense, but that is a small fraction of what makes a successful head coach. See Mike Martz. But a person who is willing to hire people as smart or smarter than himself and then delegate to them because it will make the team stronger - I think this is McVay's fundamental strength as a coach - that's who I'd want to be in charge of my organization. Say what you want about Bill's prickly personality, he seems to really hunt for different perspectives and intelligence in his staff.
Edit: Wanted to add I think Tomlin is a great example of this. He's not a football savant - I don't think Mike Tomlin has changed the way football is played with his schemes - but he's got incredible management traits.
Schemes/strategies, etc. - all that stuff is fun, but it doesn't necessarily make a good head coach, particularly over the long haul. I think that's a grave misconception. Being a good head coach is about being a good manager, hiring the right the people, and creating an environment to do their jobs well. I'm under the impression that BB disciples - as with a lot of first time coaches - don't know much about managing people and so they micromanage players and coaches and create a shitty working environment. It seems like this was the case with McD in Denver, Mangini, Patricia, BoB (at least from a talent acquisition perspective), Joe Judge, etc. Chewing tape is easy, being a good manager - and being humble - is hard.
From my POV, this is where teams get hiring wrong. Like, it's great to be the OC who designs a great offense or defense, but that is a small fraction of what makes a successful head coach. See Mike Martz. But a person who is willing to hire people as smart or smarter than himself and then delegate to them because it will make the team stronger - I think this is McVay's fundamental strength as a coach - that's who I'd want to be in charge of my organization. Say what you want about Bill's prickly personality, he seems to really hunt for different perspectives and intelligence in his staff.
Edit: Wanted to add I think Tomlin is a great example of this. He's not a football savant - I don't think Mike Tomlin has changed the way football is played with his schemes - but he's got incredible management traits.
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Re. Vrabel, I wonder whether playing under Belichick, rather than coaching under him, is an advantage as a first time coach insofar as you don’t have the Matty P/“Carry this tree up a mountain” stuff that seems to alienate players.
Every player out there says being a player out there wins you a ton of credibility, and while we maybe take it for granted here sometimes Vrabel's career is incredibly impressive (14 years, 140 games started, 20 postseason games most as a starter, 3 superbowls (hell he even caught touchdowns in two separate superbowls--there can't be a ton of players who have done that!). There have been better players who became head coaches but not a ton of them. Every situation is different of course but I've got to assume that rookie head coach Mike Vrabel had a lot more room to be a hardass with, say, Jurrell Casey than a Mangine or Patricia had with their players.