When Coordinators get hired to be a Head Coach

[Magox]

When a Defensive or Offensive Coordinator gets hired to become a head coach of an organization, presumably its because that coordinator excelled in that role.   It never made sense to me that as soon as they are hired that they pretty much give up what they were good at, outsource it to a new coordinator who often times they don't have previous working relationships with.

 

I think if you see guys like McVay and Reid to name a couple, these guys still have very active roles in where they made their living and they've had good results doing so.

 

I think we are beginning to see that with McDermott, yes its early to make any final proclamations but McD was a hell of a Defensive coordinator and I think you are seeing his style of defense playout with how the Bills have played the past few weeks.

 

I think if I were the GM or owner of the organization and I were to make a new hire for head coach I'd want him to play a more involved role on what got him hired than what we traditionally see from head coaches.

 

Thoughts?

[balln]

Just now, Magox said:

When a Defensive or Offensive Coordinator gets hired to become a head coach of an organization, presumably its because that coordinator excelled in that role.   It never made sense to me that as soon as they are hired that they pretty much give up what they were good at, outsource it to a new coordinator who often times they don't have previous working relationships with.

 

I think if you see guys like McVay and Reid to name a couple, these guys still have very active roles in where they made their living and they've had good results doing so.

 

I think we are beginning to see that with McDermott, yes its early to make any final proclamations but McD was a hell of a Defensive coordinator and I think you are seeing his style of defense playout with how the Bills have played the past few weeks.

 

I think if I were the GM or owner of the organization and I were to make a new hire for head coach I'd want him to play a more involved role on what got him hired than what we traditionally see from head coaches.

 

Thoughts?

I’ll tell you after they play eagles , dolphins x2 , chiefs , and bengals.

 

 

[Heavy Kevi]

Core competency.

 

I talk about it with my staff all the time. It's great to excell and move into a new position, but we can't forget or leave behind our core competency.

 

I own 3 restaurants and am currently building out a 4th... And I still cook every day. As good as I like to think I am in business, my core competency is cooking and managing a kitchen and I'm the most value to my own business when I do that.

 

It also gets you respect from staff (or players in Sean's case) when they see you leading from the front. I have been very lucky to maintain an amazing staff but you can't hold on to people if they don't respect you or believe in your justification of authority.

 

Sean is doing what he's best at, which also makes him a better HC and I'm sure the players feel he is more "in it" with them as opposed to them being "in it" for him.

 

My $.02 anyway...

[FireChans]

12 minutes ago, Magox said:

When a Defensive or Offensive Coordinator gets hired to become a head coach of an organization, presumably its because that coordinator excelled in that role.   It never made sense to me that as soon as they are hired that they pretty much give up what they were good at, outsource it to a new coordinator who often times they don't have previous working relationships with.

 

I think if you see guys like McVay and Reid to name a couple, these guys still have very active roles in where they made their living and they've had good results doing so.

 

I think we are beginning to see that with McDermott, yes its early to make any final proclamations but McD was a hell of a Defensive coordinator and I think you are seeing his style of defense playout with how the Bills have played the past few weeks.

 

I think if I were the GM or owner of the organization and I were to make a new hire for head coach I'd want him to play a more involved role on what got him hired than what we traditionally see from head coaches.

 

Thoughts?

You're just describing the Peter principle, which has been around for about 50 years.

[Magox]

Just now, FireChans said:

You're just describing the Peter principle, which has been around for about 50 years.

 

I didn't say it was a new concept, what I said was that it's not practiced that often.

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

4 minutes ago, Heavy Kevi said:

Core competency.

 

I talk about it with my staff all the time. It's great to excell and move into a new position, but we can't forget or leave behind our core competency.

 

I own 3 restaurants and am currently building out a 4th... And I still cook every day. As good as I like to think I am in business, my core competency is cooking and managing a kitchen and I'm the most value to my own business when I do that.

 

It also gets you respect from staff (or players in Sean's case) when they see you leading from the front. I have been very lucky to maintain an amazing staff but you can't hold on to people if they don't respect you or believe in your justification of authority.

 

Sean is doing what he's best at, which also makes him a better HC and I'm sure the players feel he is more "in it" with them as opposed to them being "in it" for him.

 

My $.02 anyway...

You talking McDermott or Payton? 🤔😉😁

[GunnerBill]

The most important skill for a Head Coach is leadership. 

[Ethan in Cleveland]

13 minutes ago, Heavy Kevi said:

Core competency.

 

I talk about it with my staff all the time. It's great to excell and move into a new position, but we can't forget or leave behind our core competency.

 

I own 3 restaurants and am currently building out a 4th... And I still cook every day. As good as I like to think I am in business, my core competency is cooking and managing a kitchen and I'm the most value to my own business when I do that.

 

It also gets you respect from staff (or players in Sean's case) when they see you leading from the front. I have been very lucky to maintain an amazing staff but you can't hold on to people if they don't respect you or believe in your justification of authority.

 

Sean is doing what he's best at, which also makes him a better HC and I'm sure the players feel he is more "in it" with them as opposed to them being "in it" for him.

 

My $.02 anyway...

Excellent post 

[Matt_In_NH]

Its called delegation.  Probably because its a new job, its a promotion and requires a lot of new focus in different areas.  Clearly, calling plays is something a HC can do, as several do that but you cannot have the same amount of focus as the HC to only offense or only defense as you do when you are a coordinator.  There are not enough hours in the day.

[MJS]

The owners shouldn't be hiring successful coordinators, they should be hiring successful leaders. Often, those will coordinators, but they don't have to be.

 

The skill set for a HC is very different from that of a coordinator. That is why most fail. I actually think McDermott does have the right skill set to be a HC. The fact that he is also a good coordinator is great. But you can't replace the role of a HC with that of a coordinator. Someone needs to fill that role. And being a HC and a coordinator is asking a lot. Some can pull it off, some can't.

[Just in Atlanta]

18 minutes ago, FireChans said:

You're just describing the Peter principle, which has been around for about 50 years.

A fantastic example of the Peter principle.

[Fleezoid]

A lot of times great coordinators can not transition successfully to a head coaching job. I just don't think some of them have what it takes. Their best destiny is to be a coordinator. I've thought, and said this many times over the past couple of decades. You see it rather frequently. A couple of names come to mind; Norv Turner, Jim Schwartz, Dan Quinn, Wade Phillips. A couple of those had marginal success as head coaches, but they're still better at the coordinator job. 

[nuiwek]

10 minutes ago, Just in Atlanta said:

A fantastic example of the Peter principle.

S#$@, ya got me

[Fleezoid]

13 minutes ago, Just in Atlanta said:

A fantastic example of the Peter principle.

 

How can you fail with that outfit?

 

[DrDawkinstein]

1 hour ago, Magox said:

When a Defensive or Offensive Coordinator gets hired to become a head coach of an organization, presumably its because that coordinator excelled in that role.   It never made sense to me that as soon as they are hired that they pretty much give up what they were good at, outsource it to a new coordinator who often times they don't have previous working relationships with.

 

I think if you see guys like McVay and Reid to name a couple, these guys still have very active roles in where they made their living and they've had good results doing so.

 

I think we are beginning to see that with McDermott, yes its early to make any final proclamations but McD was a hell of a Defensive coordinator and I think you are seeing his style of defense playout with how the Bills have played the past few weeks.

 

I think if I were the GM or owner of the organization and I were to make a new hire for head coach I'd want him to play a more involved role on what got him hired than what we traditionally see from head coaches.

 

Thoughts?

 

When I promote someone to manager/leader, I expect them to perform the duties of leading the team, making sure they have what they need to succeed, etc.

 

I do NOT want them actually doing their old job. If they are, they are failing in getting their team members coached up.

 

Most recently, I had to work for 6 months with a newly promoted Tech Support manager who couldn't help herself from going into her team's tickets and resolving them herself. Sure, she could knock out all the tickets in an hour, and it would take her 5 hours to show everyone how to do it themselves properly. But that is her job. Coaching, not doing.

 

IMO, head coaches have plenty on their plate. They shouldn't be calling plays. However, I'd be willing to change that perspective on HCs who have been in place a long time and their culture and "process" should be running on its own.

[SoCal Deek]

1 hour ago, Heavy Kevi said:

Core competency.

 

I talk about it with my staff all the time. It's great to excell and move into a new position, but we can't forget or leave behind our core competency.

 

I own 3 restaurants and am currently building out a 4th... And I still cook every day. As good as I like to think I am in business, my core competency is cooking and managing a kitchen and I'm the most value to my own business when I do that.

 

It also gets you respect from staff (or players in Sean's case) when they see you leading from the front. I have been very lucky to maintain an amazing staff but you can't hold on to people if they don't respect you or believe in your justification of authority.

 

Sean is doing what he's best at, which also makes him a better HC and I'm sure the players feel he is more "in it" with them as opposed to them being "in it" for him.

 

My $.02 anyway...

Very well said. It’s exactly how I ran my business. But…there are others whose core competency is actually ‘management’ and not ‘doing’ the actual work as I did, and you apparently still do. It was my philosophy that I could sit in my office contributing nothing more than oversight all day, or I could do that AND pull on the proverbial wagon. Many in management think the promotion is a ‘get out of work for free’ card. I never chose that path. I never felt that I was too expensive to actually help get things done. I had many business partners who sadly never learned that lesson. 

[Virgil]

My only question is, if they act as a coordinator, then what things aren't they doing that a HC should be doing during the offseason, practices, and games?  

 

If it's negligible, then I don't know why I would care what they do.  But if they are clearly not involved in aspects of the team that affect performance and team atmosphere, then it would be a concern for me.

[Magox]

1 hour ago, Heavy Kevi said:

Core competency.

 

I talk about it with my staff all the time. It's great to excell and move into a new position, but we can't forget or leave behind our core competency.

 

I own 3 restaurants and am currently building out a 4th... And I still cook every day. As good as I like to think I am in business, my core competency is cooking and managing a kitchen and I'm the most value to my own business when I do that.

 

It also gets you respect from staff (or players in Sean's case) when they see you leading from the front. I have been very lucky to maintain an amazing staff but you can't hold on to people if they don't respect you or believe in your justification of authority.

 

Sean is doing what he's best at, which also makes him a better HC and I'm sure the players feel he is more "in it" with them as opposed to them being "in it" for him.

 

My $.02 anyway...

 

I agree with this.   Same here, I head the company that I work for sales operations and we have call centers that we have setup throughout the country and the guys that I've promoted to head the call centers all were star performers in sales, of course they needed to have other qualities and intangibles to get the position, but to this day I still have them heavily involved in the sales side of their call centers, specially on the sales training.   Even to this day, where I have nearly 500 employees who report to me, I still myself have a book of business of clients that I service.  I don't do that to make the extra money, I do that primarily so that I know of the challenges and trends in our industry that our sales agents have to face.  

 

Yes, being an overall leader of a team, you have to be more than what you were as a coordinator, I see a couple people commenting saying that they need other qualities as if this was an EITHER OR scenario.  Of course you need leadership, but it requires more than just leadership or you could hire someone from outside of Football to lead your team.  There has to be a strong understanding of the game and if you were someone who has proven to be a really good coordinator then it's absolutely mind numbingly stupid to not have the coach have an active hands on role on that side of the ball specially considering that they excelled at a high level.

[GunnerBill]

2 minutes ago, Magox said:

 

I agree with this.   Same here, I head the company that I work for sales operations and we have call centers that we have setup throughout the country and the guys that I've promoted to head the call centers all were star performers in sales, of course they needed to have other qualities and intangibles to get the position, but to this day I still have them heavily involved in the sales side of their call centers, specially on the sales training.   Even to this day, where I have nearly 500 employees who report to me, I still myself have a book of business of clients that I service.  I don't do that to make the extra money, I do that primarily so that I know of the challenges and trends in our industry that our sales agents have to face.  

 

Yes, being an overall leader of a team, you have to be more than what you were as a coordinator, I see a couple people commenting saying that they need other qualities as if this was an EITHER OR scenario.  Of course you need leadership, but it requires more than just leadership or you could hire someone from outside of Football to lead your team.  There has to be a strong understanding of the game and if you were someone who has proven to be a really good coordinator then it's absolutely mind numbingly stupid to not have the coach have an active hands on role on that side of the ball specially considering that they excelled at a high level.

 

It is not an either or but Leadership > Xs and Os for a Head Coach hire IMO. 

[Magox]

1 minute ago, GunnerBill said:

 

It is not an either or but Leadership > Xs and Os for a Head Coach hire IMO. 

 

That's fine, I'm not saying what is more important than the other just that if I were to make a hire as a GM, I would want the coach that I hired to not just oversee the side of the ball where he was a coordinator but to have a very active role in implementing the system.

 

 

[Utah John]

Speaking of delegation:  McDermott has figured out how to be a good HC, and I think he's probably delegated some of THOSE duties to others so he could do a good job as DC as well as HC.  It seems to be working.  It could turn out that if the Bills lose a few more games they should have won (e.g., the Jets) the team will start to question the current arrangement, and McD might not be in a strong position to address the situation, not with his DC duties eating up time.  But for now, I'm happy.

[SoCal Deek]

One of the advantages of being in a leadership position in a business like professional football is that it works to a REALLY strict annual calendar. So while during your first year I’m guessing everything is coming at you pretty fast, by the time you get a few seasons under your belt you get very accustomed to the rhythm of it all. (Not all that different from being a rookie QB where the game slows down.) So I’m pretty sure McD is now more than ready to take on the added responsibilities of DC. He probably couldn’t have done it a few years ago. My management journey was exactly the same even though my annual calendar wasn’t quite as stable. 

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

6 hours ago, Just in Atlanta said:

A fantastic example of the Peter principle.

 

[Augie]

3 hours ago, SoCal Deek said:

One of the advantages of being in a leadership position in a business like professional football is that it works to a REALLY strict annual calendar. So while during your first year I’m guessing everything is coming at you pretty fast, by the time you get a few seasons under your belt you get very accustomed to the rhythm of it all. (Not all that different from being a rookie QB where the game slows down.) So I’m pretty sure McD is now more than ready to take on the added responsibilities of DC. He probably couldn’t have done it a few years ago. My management journey was exactly the same even though my annual calendar wasn’t quite as stable. 

 

A few years ago McD had a former HC and a future HC working for him. Wise move to surround yourself with minds like that, especially in his early years as HC. Now, could he use some more brain talent around? Of course. I love what the D has looked like, but I worry about him being stretched too thin.  🤞 

 

 

.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Augie

[Don Otreply]

8 hours ago, Magox said:

When a Defensive or Offensive Coordinator gets hired to become a head coach of an organization, presumably its because that coordinator excelled in that role.   It never made sense to me that as soon as they are hired that they pretty much give up what they were good at, outsource it to a new coordinator who often times they don't have previous working relationships with.

 

I think if you see guys like McVay and Reid to name a couple, these guys still have very active roles in where they made their living and they've had good results doing so.

 

I think we are beginning to see that with McDermott, yes its early to make any final proclamations but McD was a hell of a Defensive coordinator and I think you are seeing his style of defense playout with how the Bills have played the past few weeks.

 

I think if I were the GM or owner of the organization and I were to make a new hire for head coach I'd want him to play a more involved role on what got him hired than what we traditionally see from head coaches.

 

Thoughts?

In my work life I have seen organizations promote there best sales people into management roles and then watch their sales drop,  the right talent in the right roles is very important. 

[eball]

This is a great discussion.  I think that for first-time HC hires in the NFL, the coach often thinks he has to step back from his coordinator role so that he can “oversee” the entire operation he is now responsible for.  That’s why many coaches fail…they lose sight of what got them there in the quest to become master of everything.  The best ones are great delegators and surround themselves with people who want them to succeed.

 

One thing is certain, however — you are either a leader or you aren’t.  Leadership skills can be strengthened but you just “know” if someone can inspire others to follow.  McD has that.

 

I think the change this year has rejuvenated McD.  I think he’s having more fun, and from some of the comments I’ve read from players on the defensive side of the ball they respect him even more now that they feel like he is “one of them.”

 

If this season goes the way I hope it does, I don’t think we’ll see McD step away from leading the defense again for the rest of his tenure.

 

[SoCal Deek]

1 hour ago, Augie said:

 

A few years ago McD had a former HC and a future HC working for him. Wise move to surround yourself with minds like that, especially in his early years as HC. Now, could he use some more brain talent around? Of course. I love what the D has looked like, but I worry about him being stretched too thin.  🤞 

 

 

.

It’s a balancing act for sure and different for every ‘boss’ in every industry. I always felt like I was wasting my time just walking around checking on other middle managers all day. Once you have the Process set, there’s more than enough time in your day to jump in and actually get things done. As far as I can tell McD is ready to take the next natural step. 

[LABILLBACKER]

7 hours ago, Virgil said:

My only question is, if they act as a coordinator, then what things aren't they doing that a HC should be doing during the offseason, practices, and games?  

 

If it's negligible, then I don't know why I would care what they do.  But if they are clearly not involved in aspects of the team that affect performance and team atmosphere, then it would be a concern for me.

I don't care if some of their HC duties fall off a little.  It doesn't seem to effect Reid or McVay during their championship seasons. So far Sean has this D flying around and Von's not even back yet. I'll trust him to call a more aggressive version of Leslie's gameplan and not lose sleep if a couple negligible HCing details get missed.  Too bad he didn't make this change in 21.

[ChronicAndKnuckles]

9 hours ago, Heavy Kevi said:

Core competency.

 

I talk about it with my staff all the time. It's great to excell and move into a new position, but we can't forget or leave behind our core competency.

 

I own 3 restaurants and am currently building out a 4th... And I still cook every day. As good as I like to think I am in business, my core competency is cooking and managing a kitchen and I'm the most value to my own business when I do that.

 

It also gets you respect from staff (or players in Sean's case) when they see you leading from the front. I have been very lucky to maintain an amazing staff but you can't hold on to people if they don't respect you or believe in your justification of authority.

 

Sean is doing what he's best at, which also makes him a better HC and I'm sure the players feel he is more "in it" with them as opposed to them being "in it" for him.

 

My $.02 anyway...

Sheesh. I wish my boss had this same philosophy

[LeGOATski]

Hey guys. Is this the thread where I can not-so-subtly indicate to you all that I'm a super successful manager of a business?

 

Cuz I am.

 

So I get it. I get ALL of what this is.

[SoCal Deek]

3 minutes ago, LeGOATski said:

Hey guys. Is this the thread where I can not-so-subtly indicate to you all that I'm a super successful manager of a business?

 

Cuz I am.

 

So I get it. I get ALL of what this is.

I’m guessing you’re more comfortable with people giving opinions with absolutely no personal experience whatsoever. You do you! 😉

[LeGOATski]

2 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

I’m guessing you’re more comfortable with people giving opinions with absolutely no personal experience whatsoever. You do you! 😉

Maybe some people are just meant to post emojis or gifs.

 

When they get promoted to opinion-giving, they become incompetent.

 

IDK, just my .02 from my vast experience in high level posting.

[SoCal Deek]

52 minutes ago, LeGOATski said:

Maybe some people are just meant to post emojis or gifs.

 

When they get promoted to opinion-giving, they become incompetent.

 

IDK, just my .02 from my vast experience in high level posting.

As I said…you do you. I’m going to read and listen to those on here who are sharing something constructive from their professional experience on the topic. 

Edited September 27, 2023 by SoCal Deek