How Much Does the Head Coach Matter?
The Ultimate Head Coach Test

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The last few years, we have been seeing more and more “inside the locker room” videos of NFL head coaches going “rah, rah, rah” to either get their players fired up for the game or congratulate everyone that helped in their victory that day, water boy included. The most recent one I saw was Steve Mariucci giving out game balls to, of all people, the owner of the Lions. Then I thought, well yes, he did pay Mooch five million a year to come to Detroit. I guess he better give him a game ball.

So I started wondering. Does the head coach really matter to a team’s success? If you take Jon Gruden coming over to the Bucs and winning the title as an example, then it probably means a lot. But does Gruden truly deserve the credit? If he had gone to Arizona, Detroit or Cincinnati and won it all, then I would say he should be given almost all of the credit, and I am sure fans in those cities would bow and pay homage. But let’s face it: the Bucs already had a great defense thanks to Tony Dungy (and others), and defenses are what wins championships. Dungy just could not figure out how to get the offense to score enough to win. I am sure Gruden did not have to think as long about going to Tampa Bay as Mariucci did about going to Detroit. Do you think Mariucci will have the same success that he enjoyed in San Francisco or that Gruden will have in Tampa? I say NO.

Living in the San Francisco Bay area all my life has allowed me to watch two entirely different teams close up. The Niners and the Raiders are like oil and water. Until Bill Walsh came along the Niners stunk, to put it bluntly. Now all these years and San Francisco championships later he is regarded as a professor or guru of coaches. After all, he initiated the West Coast offense that is still used today by many teams. The year after Walsh left, George Seifert took over and won the Super Bowl. Was it because of the new coach? Or was it still the leftover system that Walsh had installed? Well, we all know out here that Seifert was a great defensive mind but not much on offense. He did win the Super Bowl five years later and should be given credit for doing so, but I have to say that San Francisco had one heck of a defense that year, not to mention Steve Young and Jerry Rice. I doubt those two needed much coaching at that point in their careers. When Seifert finally left, he went to Carolina and never amounted to much. That makes the case for Walsh mattering a lot to the history of the team and its success, even years after he left. San Francisco has not been back to the Super Bowl since the year they last won under Seifert.

How about Jimmy Johnson? He had tremendous success at Dallas and left when Jerry Jones did not like him getting too much credit for the team’s winning ways. Barry Switzer took over, and although he won a Super Bowl a couple years later, he did not come close to Johnson’s record. Jimmy later went to Miami and never came close to his own success at Dallas. Did he ever make a difference at another team? I say NO.

Now take the Raiders. Gruden left after last season and the Raiders then went to the Super Bowl under Bill Callahan. It could be said that Gruden got them close and Callahan got them to the big show. But the real fact is that Gruden basically knew everything the Raiders were planning to do (remember Bucs safety John Lynch saying “it’s like we knew what they were going to do before they did it”?). That makes a case that Gruden made the ultimate addition to the Bucs and was the factor most responsible for their success. He definitely should be credited with winning that game. But does he get the credit for every game and the whole season? I say NO.

Some people say that it’s not the coaches but the players that win games. Some say: plug in any coach in a great team and then watch them win anyway. Well I could make a very long list of examples that proves that wrong. Take the Redskins and all that Daniel Snyder paid to bring them a championship. Have they come close? I say NO.

Bill Parcells, Dick Vermeil, Mike Shanahan, Marty Shotttenheimer, Dan Reeves, and Mike Holmgren are very good examples of coaches who have had success at almost every stop they have made. But most of them only won the Super Bowl with one team, at best. Oh, they won a lot of games for the Giants, Patriots, JETS, JETS, JETS, Rams, Chiefs, Browns, Chargers, Broncos, Falcons, Packers and Seahawks, respectively. But they never won it all for more than one team. Parcells and Reeves came close by losing the Super Bowl with their second teams, though. Only a few coaches are fortunate to win back to back titles. But have they (or anyone else) passed “the ultimate best coach test”? Has anyone ever won the Super Bowl with two different teams, proving that they are the main (and possibly only) person responsible for their teams’ success? I say NO.

I look back on my Pop Warner and high school football days with a lot of great memories. I now know that those were the only times that a coach really made the difference. We would hear them give us the pep talk before a game and at halftime. And we would listen. Many of those sessions would make a difference. We had no owner, front office, trainer, or scouts. It was just him and a few assistants. He was very responsible for us being motivated to win. He also was very responsible for us having the entire (offense and defense) game plan to win. I do not believe that the pep talk NFL players get today makes as much a difference as it does to younger players. Those same videos of locker rooms seem to show players with a kind of bewildered look on their faces. They look like they think they are supposed to get all excited like I did when I was kid, but because they are much older and professionals, they just stand there listening (or not, as the case may be).

I strongly believe that in the NFL, there is so much more than the coach that makes for a winning team. There are the owners, front office staff, scouts, and other coaches (as well as the players) that matter. They make up a complete team that ultimately makes the difference between losing year after year, as teams like Cincinnati or Arizona do, and consistently winning like San Francisco, Oakland, Dallas and the New York Giants. But without that great group of people the team will never amount to much. All the rah, rah, rah-ing in the locker room will never make the team win it all. Do I think that it’s all the people in the group that matter to the team’s success? I say YES.

 
Steve Jackson lives in overpriced San Jose, California, with his wife and eleven-year.old twins, and is one of the few people to love both the Niners and the Raiders, as well as both the Giants and the A’s. Unfortunately, he’s also stuck with the Warriors…