Football coach's specialty has no bearing on success of hire

Sometimes you have to make people think about blanket statements.

As the 2017 NFL regular season prepares to draw the curtain, there will be 12
teams preparing for the playoffs. There will be some teams that make news with
coaching changes, otherwise known as Black Monday. The term refers to Oct.
19, 1987, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost almost 22% in a single
day. That event marked the beginning of a global stock market decline, making
Black Monday one of the most notorious days in financial history. By the end of
the month, most of the major exchanges had dropped more than 20%.

As of this writing, Ben McAdoo (New York Giants), Chuck Pagano (Indianapolis)
and Jack Del Rio (Oakland) have been relieved of their head coaching duties.
Jim Caldwell (Detroit), John Fox (Chicago), Marvin Lewis (Cincinnati), Bruce
Arians (Arizona), Hue Jackson (Cleveland), and Bill O’Brien (Houston)
are deemed most likely to get fired.

If there is one pattern that I cannot help but notice is that teams often hire a coach
that is the opposite of the one they fire as it pertains to sideline demeanor or which
side of the ball he specializes. Fire an outwardly emotional coach, hire an outwardly
stoic one. The same can be true in reverse. Fire an offensive coach because the
defense sucks, then hire a defensive minded coach. The same can be true in reverse
as well.

The common narrative I hear uttered is that it is better to hire an offensive-minded
coach as opposed to a defensive-oriented one. The reason behind that line of thinking
is that with an offensive-minded coach, the team is likely to be more aesthetically
pleasing to watch. It is generally believed that a team that scores points is going to
be more exciting to watch. Such a coach is also believed to be more of a risk-taker.

The belief behind a defensive-minded coach is that he will prefer to rely on his defense
and an offense that is ground game dominated, which leads to low scoring games.
Such a coach is also believed to take a more conservative approach.

Are there offensive coaches that are more likely to be risk-takers and defensive
coaches that are conservative? Of course there are. However, I have seen plenty
of defensive coaches be risk-takers.

In theory, I can understand why an offensive-minded coach is an easier sell to a fan
base but it does not make a such a coach an automatic success and conversely, does
not mean a defensive-minded coach is destined to fail.

History is full of examples how either specialty can and will work. Since people like
to judge a coach by how many championships are won, Paul Brown, George Halas,
Curly Lambeau, Bill Belichick, Vince Lombardi, Chuck Noll, Bill Walsh and Joe Gibbs
are among the all-time leaders in coaches that have led their teams to NFL titles
and/or Super Bowls. I cannot readily ascertain where Brown, Halas and Lambeau
specialized because in that era coaches were not coordinators before becoming head
coaches.

Lombardi, Gibbs and Walsh had offensive backgrounds before becoming head
coaches while Belichick and Noll had defensive backgrounds.

It is also generally assumed that because the rules of the game have changed to
benefit offenses, the emphasis for strong defenses is less important.

Since 2000, twelve different head coaches have led their teams to a Super Bowl
title. Belichick, Mike Tomlin, Bill Cowher, Pete Carroll, Tony Dungy, and John Harbaugh
have defensive backgrounds. Cowher and Harbaugh have a mixture of defensive and
special teams backgrounds. Conversely, Mike McCarthy, Gary Kubiak, Tom Coughlin,
Brian Billick, Sean Payton and Jon Gruden have offensive backgrounds.

Whether it’s better to have an offensive or defensive-minded coach is a matter of
preference and opinion. The fact is, no approach is any better or worse than the other.

Before you fixate on which path is better, it is important to remember that the head
coach is in charge of the entire team, not just the offense or defense like when he
was a coordinator. The reason why coaching hires fail have zero to do with specialty.
It has more to do with short-changing the non-specialty side of the ball. For example,
if you are an offensive-minded coach, that’s all well and good but if you fail to bring
in a quality defensive coordinator and fail to bring in enough talent via the draft, free
agency or recruiting, you are destined to fail. The same can equally be said for a
defensive-minded coach that similarly short-changes the offensive side of the ball.