Can a player actually be a "coach killer"? (1 Viewer)

[Loose Cannon]

Well in that case the owner is the coach killer

Yes, you're right. Sometimes coaches don't have the latitude nessecary. But players never have any control over the situation other then what is ceded to them. Coaches, GMs, and Owners control who gets pay checks, for how long, and whether they play or not. Any player who can "kill" a coaches career requires the complacency of one or all of those named (ie coaches, GMs, owners).

Right.

Two of the situations are TO/Parcells/Jones and Vick/Blank/Mora

Do you expect the player to say "hey, bench me"? Players play. If the owner is handicapping a guy with a player, then it's the owner that's killing the coach.

While I don't personally think the Boys or Falcons have a better option than TO/Vick, it's clearly not the players that are causing the problems in that sense.

 

[LSSpam]

This by the way is the key difference between Basketball and Football. Because Basketball contracts are fully guranteed and your top end contracts take up a MUCH higher percentage of the cap space then in football, a single max-contract player is quite capable of killing a coaches career because he has considerable personnal leverage, whether the coach likes it or not.

Not the case in the NFL. Short of a few precious mega-contracts (Peyton and Vick's), all players can be digestably cut if nessecary. And even Peyton or Vick, from a percentage aspect, will never remotely come close to having the leverage of a Kobe Bryant.

Fact is, it's cheaper to keep firing coaches until you get one who gets along with Kobe then it is to get rid of Kobe himself.

 

[mean machine]

I remember one time somebody - I think it was Jaworski - made a big case that Jeff George was a coach killer. It was basically due to poor practice habits, poor fundamentals, and a lack of attention to detail.

 

[keepoursaints]

It's really just in the way you look at it. Everyone of the post in here has a valid point.

Sure the players aren't going to say "bench me" because they shouldn't and all that would do is label them as quitters. But at the same time these "super-star" players show just enough flashes of brilliance to pressure the coaches and owners into playing them because they will put butts in the seats and make people tune in to watch and it really is all about the money. At the end of the day, the blame goes to the coaches most of the time because

A) they are the ones not "maximizing" the abilities of the players

B) they are the face of the team and teams it's happened many times in the past where a new coach with the same players comes in and games can be won and

C) We all know no matter how much fans may want it, the owner isn't going to get fired, so that puts the Coach as the one getting the axe.

 

[LSSpam]

Right.

Two of the situations are TO/Parcells/Jones and Vick/Blank/Mora

Do you expect the player to say "hey, bench me"? Players play. If the owner is handicapping a guy with a player, then it's the owner that's killing the coach.

While I don't personally think the Boys or Falcons have a better option than TO/Vick, it's clearly not the players that are causing the problems in that sense.

The problem with Vick is, as we discussed in another thread, he really needs his fundamentals broken down and rebuilt to fufill his potential. And expectations/contract size will never allow this (until they hit rock bottom at least).

But even that wouldn't kill a coaches career. I mean Haslett hung around for 5 years throwing up nothing but underachieving .500 seasons. Vick is better then Brooks, the Falcons could be a 9-7/sometimes playoff team and Mora could probably keep his job for sometime with fans making excuses for him, IF it didn't appear he was losing control of his team and, more importantly, of Vick.

The REAL problem in the Vick/Blank/Mora triangle is Blank undercutting his coach with the one player the coach needs the MOST support with, Vick. Because Blank deals directly with Vick and coddles him, Mora can't exercise any control whatsoever on Vick (even if he wanted too). Really, when Mora gets fired, it's way more Blanks fault then Vicks.

As for TO. TO is being similiar coddled/delt directly with by Jerry Jones. Which could cause similiar problems. But there are 2 mitigating factors
1) TO is a WR, so Parcells can avoid directly dealing with him easier then Mora can avoid dealing with Vick
2) Right now at least, Jones feels he needs Parcells more then TO, and Parcells doesn't give a damn about just walking away. Which is not true of Vick/Blank/Mora

 

[saintfan-n-alex]

a player cant kill a coach, a coach sticking with the wrong player can "kill himself"

also mis-using a player, hiring the wrong assistants can kill a coach

basically loosing for whatever the reason can kill a coach

as far as Haz, there were too many issues, bad defense, poor play calling, bad QB, questionable receivers, and the fact he and loomis were said to be on a "different page" didnt help matters either - i read earlier today Haz lost it during a rams pc because the media was asking him about the rushing yds the rams gave up. compare that to other coaches who remain calm when the ship begins to rock. IMO Haz didnt do anything to help his case, i dont think he wanted to be coaching the saints towards the end (not the last year but 2 yrs before that) and i dont think he liked the city of new orleans and only took the job because it was a Head Coachin position and wanted it to lead to another HC job with another team, but he proved he wasnt a good HC.

in MV's case - IMO he should have been coached to be a pocket passer, allowing his natural running ability to be used when needed, instead the falcons tried to make his running ability too much of the game plan, despite all of the consistant qb's being able to pass from the pocket - now after a couple of different systems, different receivers and 6 yrs later the same questions about his play are being asked as when he was a rookie - granted his WR drop alot of passes, that could be partially his fault and partially the FO's fault for brining in players who were 1 st round picks and not proven Wide outs. - the colts just brought in ricky prohel, how much would a ricky prohel type reciever have helped MV (had he ahd those type of players his whole career) - in vicks case, IMO the coaches hurt him, no its comming back on the coaches.

 

[Farb]

Brooks................................

 

[superchuck500]

Brooks................................

I'm still not buying that.

Brooks didn't kill Haslett. Haslett's stubborness killed Haslett. Yes, he stayed with Brooks, but he also stayed with Venturi and a whole bunch of other less than impressive facets of his organization. And when Brooks was playing poorly, Haslett should have benched him. That's what good coaches do- as we see this week with Shanahan's benching of Plummer (even with a winning record).

To me, saying "Brooks" in this context is actually the perfect illustration that players don't kill coaches. Coaches do it themselves, often by sticking with bad players.

 

[efil4stnias]

I'm still not buying that.

Brooks didn't kill Haslett. Haslett's stubborness killed Haslett. Yes, he stayed with Brooks, but he also stayed with Venturi and a whole bunch of other less than impressive facets of his organization. And when Brooks was playing poorly, Haslett should have benched him. That's what good coaches do- as we see this week with Shanahan's benching of Plummer (even with a winning record).

To me, saying "Brooks" in this context is actually the perfect illustration that players don't kill coaches. Coaches do it themselves, often by sticking with bad players.

Plummer isnt being paid $100,000,000. He isnt the Poster Boy for the NFL "new breed". He isnt the ENTIRE offense for the Broncos. Thats why Shanahan was able to do that.

 

[BoNcHiE]

Vick may not be a coach killer, but the Vick situation as a whole pretty much has Mora dead. Since Mora can't bench him his hands are tied and hes at the mercy of Vick.

Not really Vicks fault I guess, but Vick will kill Mora one way or another unless he starts to play better.

 

[Loose Cannon]

I'm still not buying that.

Brooks didn't kill Haslett. Haslett's stubborness killed Haslett. Yes, he stayed with Brooks, but he also stayed with Venturi and a whole bunch of other less than impressive facets of his organization. And when Brooks was playing poorly, Haslett should have benched him. That's what good coaches do- as we see this week with Shanahan's benching of Plummer (even with a winning record).

To me, saying "Brooks" in this context is actually the perfect illustration that players don't kill coaches. Coaches do it themselves, often by sticking with bad players.

But,

Like I said earlier, Brooks' inability to get the team behind him probably led partially to the mutiny that happened. I doubt the same thing would happen if you replace Brooks with Brees. So you can fault the player for it, somewhat, in this case.

BTW, this is why you should read an entire thread before you respond to it. This has already been addressed multiple times.

 

[superchuck500]

BTW, this is why you should read an entire thread before you respond to it. This has already been addressed multiple times.

I was merely continuing that conversation, of which I was well aware- as the original poster.

 

[Loose Cannon]

I was merely continuing that conversation, of which I was well aware- as the original poster.

Right on. Just saying...

 

[saintfan-n-alex]

i think this is why some ciaches want full control, to be able to pick their players as well as coach them - a bad GM can hurt a good coach, - i was told by some one "in the know" of the saints this was an issue with Haz and Loomis - they didnt care for each other and there was disagreement regarding players

 

[superchuck500]

Right on. Just saying...

Haha, I hear ya. And agree- yes, people should read entire threads before jumping on. But I was responding specifically to someone who at the end simply said "Brooks" and said that I'm "still" not buying that, and actually think Brooks was a good illustration of my point that players don't kill coaches (which hadn't actually quite been said yet).

But anyway, no biggie. I still think that your point about "Brooks inability to get the team behind him" reflects poorly on Haslett's job as a coach, in and of itself. If the coach continues to play a quarterback that the other players don't believe in, that's still the coach's fault, in my opinion. Sure, the player should play better. And yes, that's a problem for the player. But if the coach doesn't do anything about it, and gets fired- he needs only to look in the mirror to see who "killed" him, IMO.