Re: "Time to blow whistle on pro coaches"

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for posting this Tammo. I thought it was great and accurate.

He focused on the NFL, which probably is the biggest culprit. Coaches like Belichick (please don't hate me - he's the best in the business right now) overshadow the players. Part of it is the media's fault. When they write/talk about the Patriots, it's always about Belichick. They never ask "Can Ty Law, Mike Vrabel and the Pats shut down Peyton Manning?" It's always "Can Belichick shut down Manning?" 

The worst thing that ever happened was the coining of the phrase "defense wins championships." Suddenly every coach feels like they have to be a defensive genius to be respected. Offensive coaches - like Don Nelson or Rick Adelman - aren't considered "serious" coaches because they don't preach defense first. Now every coach talks about defense and you have guys like Obie who are willing to sacrifice everything else - scoring, rebounding, whatever - to get the best defensive team on the floor. 

I blame it on Chuck Daly and Bill Pacells. In the 1980s you had wonderful teams across sports that were champions built on offense - the Celtics and Lakers of the NBA, the 49ers and Redskins of the NFL. Then Daly and the Pistons turned the NBA into hand-to-hand combat, Parcells turned the NFL into a punting contest and we still haven't recovered. 

NFL coaches now value mistake-free football above all else. Just don't turn it over. A punt isn't a bad result. Punt and play defense. Punt and play defense. Punt and play defense, then take advantage of field position (by the way, Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel is the flagbearer for this kind of football, and he won a national title in his second season at a place that was titleless for the previous 34 years). 

I don't think there's any going back. Defense is easier to coach, and a great crutch for bad coaches. They can't get their teams to (in basketball) pass the ball, run the floor, set good screens, find the open man, make open shots... but if they make the other team look just as bad, they can win. And if they don't win, they can blame it on the players' defense, not on an ineffective offense.

This is all over the place, but I told a buddy of mine several years ago that if I could change one thing about sports it would be the influence of the coaches. I'd relegate them to practice and allow no in-game coaching. No more baseball managers calling every pitch. No more basketball coaches calling every play. And no more mass substitutions after every play in football as the coaches work to get just the right personnel on the field against their opponent. Let the players play.

Mark