Is Mike Vrabel part of the Belichick coaching tree?

[SalvadorsDeli]

39 minutes ago, BayRaider said:

Cleary replicates Bills style. The technical answer is no, but the argument can be made that he learned a lot of Bill’s style, philosophy, technique, and system and adopted most of it. 

Does he? Vrabel seems very different from Belicheck to be honest. He's not really an X's and O's guy/schemer like Belichek is and projects as a player's coach with a really strong personality, which feels pretty far from Belichek's style. Not that Belicheck isn't a leader but he seems to have a more understated personal style whereas Vrabel is basically a best case scenario 'leader of men' kind of organizer. 

Belicheck's style is hard to replicate because you basically have to be a genius to make it work. In a weird.way the guys I'd say strike me as being the most 'like' Belichek are McDaniels and Gase, and both have been trainwrecks as head coaches for that exact reason. 

Edited October 16, 2020 by SalvadorsDeli

[SkippyX]

Any claims that only the 1st coach you work for has dibs is asinine.

I you go to MIT it does not count because you went to High School first?  👀

If you go to Delaware as an undergraduate and Duke Law can you make no claims to be influenced by the teachers at Duke?

[Malik]

6 minutes ago, SkippyX said:

Any claims that only the 1st coach you work for has dibs is asinine.

I you go to MIT it does not count because you went to High School first?  👀

If you go to Delaware as an undergraduate and Duke Law can you make no claims to be influenced by the teachers at Duke?

I mean he didn't work under Bill as a coach at all.

[lancerman]

2 hours ago, ET80 said:

Would you agree that Kingsbury is part of the Belicheck tree then? That's really the crux of my question that has yet to be answered.

I'm OK if that's the direction we're going on this one.

I've said it before, I personally think Vrabel is part of the Urban Meyer tree - taking information as a player and as a coach are two completely different things; One is about execution of your assignment, one is about execution of all 11 players on the field - even if you're calling the play, you're not responsible on whether or not a DE takes inside or outside lanes when rushing the passer, you're not responsible for dictating off man or on man coverage in the secondary. You're relaying information, sure. Maybe you're making slight adjustments and repositioning guys around you, sure. But you're not truly calling and changing assignments like a coach is.

So, while Vrabel has the player level experience with Belly, it's not exactly transferrable in regards to a coaching job. It's a foundation that someone (Meyer) could work off of, sure.

It doesn’t really matter because he comes out of the O’Brien branch of Bills tree. He also takes on Bill’s philosophy’s which is the only reason people ever cared about coaching tree. A coaching tree doesn’t go one level. It’s like a family tree.

[lancerman]

1 hour ago, Malik said:

I mean he didn't work under Bill as a coach at all.

It doesn’t matter. Coaching trees have never went one level deep. Belichick to O’Brien to Vrabel. That’s part of a tree. People associate coaches today to being distant parts of the Walsh tree. Nobody says “oh grandchildren aren’t part of a family tree”. 
 

That’s the literal sense. So he clears that.

In the philosophical sense, he came up under O’Brien who is a a Belichick protege and was, more specifically, working with Crennel who is a Belichick guy. He was a team Captain that learned under Belichick. Then he takes on a lot of Bill’s traits. So even in the more purposeful sense, he is part of the tree. 
 

He only isn’t part of the tree if you randomly decide it only counts if they are one level in the tree below you, which has never been the case. It kinda feels like people are married to the “all Belichick tree coaches suck” narrative continuing. 
 

[-Hope-]

1 hour ago, SalvadorsDeli said:

Belicheck's style is hard to replicate because you basically have to be a genius to make it work. In a weird.way the guys I'd say strike me as being the most 'like' Belichek are McDaniels and Gase, and both have been trainwrecks as head coaches for that exact reason. 

tedy bruschi did an interview recently where he basically said exactly this re: vrabel vs. mcdaniels- mcdaniels tried way too hard to be a carbon copy of belichick whereas vrabel is more of his own guy.

[Malik]

26 minutes ago, lancerman said:

It doesn’t matter. Coaching trees have never went one level deep. Belichick to O’Brien to Vrabel. That’s part of a tree. People associate coaches today to being distant parts of the Walsh tree. Nobody says “oh grandchildren aren’t part of a family tree”. 
 

That’s the literal sense. So he clears that.

In the philosophical sense, he came up under O’Brien who is a a Belichick protege and was, more specifically, working with Crennel who is a Belichick guy. He was a team Captain that learned under Belichick. Then he takes on a lot of Bill’s traits. So even in the more purposeful sense, he is part of the tree. 
 

He only isn’t part of the tree if you randomly decide it only counts if they are one level in the tree below you, which has never been the case. It kinda feels like people are married to the “all Belichick tree coaches suck” narrative continuing. 
 

By this rational there are only 2 coaching trees in the NFL: Walsh and Parcells. 

[Joe_is_the_best]

It’s simple. If you coached under someone, you’re under their coaching tree. If you didn’t, you’re not.

Edited October 17, 2020 by Joe_is_the_best

[Malik]

2 minutes ago, Joe_is_the_best said:

It’s simple. If you coached under someone, you’re under their tree. If you didn’t, you’re not.

For example, if someone who worked under Jim Harbaugh became an NFL head coach they'd technically be under the Walsh coaching tree but they'd be 4 coaches removed. I think it speaks more to how homogenized the NFL currently is and how much nepotism is involved with hired. Bill Walsh last coached 32 years ago and people involved with him are still half the league.

[lancerman]

1 hour ago, Malik said:

By this rational there are only 2 coaching trees in the NFL: Walsh and Parcells. 

Well every coach has a coaching tree. And yeah actually Walsh has gotten credit for having a successful coaching tree that extends to modern coaches. It’s always been this way. The Vrabel situation is the only time I heard people say “oh it has to be first degree”. 

[Kael]

This thread make me want to channel my inner Mel Brooks from Dracula Dead and Loving It. The theory.. The theory of yes, or... no. 

It has also taught me that if NFL coaching trees were like actual family trees these coaching trees would have gone the way of the Habsburg's long ago.

[ronjon1990]

Naw. 

He probably picked up a thing or two as a player, sure. But by that metric, things get too sloppy. If you picked up a tip or two playing against someone, does that make you part of their tree? Certainly not. 

To be part of the tree, I understand that as having coached under them and using similar rationale to run their team. 

[ET80]

6 hours ago, pwny said:

But having the type of influence and understanding that Vrabel did, and then clearly taking many of those principles into his own coaching gig lends to the idea that his time under BB; time spent being a captain, being an on-field play caller, and being such a huge influence on the things that happened on those defenses, all of that together lends to the idea that he learned a good part of his coaching style while in that captain role.

Others sort of echo what my thoughts are on this - is Vrabel anything like Belicheck? 

Belicheck is a football savant, going back to his days as a DC for Bill Parcells - his claim to fame as a tactician is removing your best asset on both sides of the ball while exploiting your weaknesses the entire time. He never befriended anyone, was all about business - didn't matter if your name was Brady, Vrabel, Bruschi, Gronk, Sony Michel, Aaron Dobson, etc - he served humble pie to everyone, and his only mantra was "Do Your Job". 

Vrabel is the quintessential players' coach - he's joking with guys, he lets his players have a personality, he's a guy who can fit in with a locker room. His first gig in Houston was as a LB coach, but he was really brought in to mentor Jadevion Clowney; It's those interpersonal skills that make him stand out, he's widely considered a "leader of men" type coach. Tactically, he's actually not that good; the one time he was in charge of a group at a tactical level was as the DC of the Texans, and that unit went from 11th to 32nd. (Watt was injured both seasons, so that's not the reason). To bring it full circle - he's a great leader of men, so he empowers his coordinators to handle the tactical while he keeps the vision going. The results are pretty self explanatory, as he's already promoted an OC to HC in Matt LaFluer, and has another on his way in Arthur Smith.

So - both tactically and "big picture" planning - they're nothing alike. Vrabel actually looks and feels like a college coach; His previous bosses were BoB (who got his start at Penn State) and Urban Meyer (Ohio State) so this tracks a bit more...

[pwny]

38 minutes ago, ET80 said:

It's those interpersonal skills that make him stand out, he's widely considered a "leader of men" type coach.

You’re not wrong on a lot of what you said. His interpersonal skills and straight knowledge of the game is different, but he handles a lot of things with a similar tact.

And the above quote is kinda the thing. He didn’t just become the leader of men as a coach, he was that under BB. It led him to being a leader in the locker room, and his presence allowed him to be a leader in the film room. He was behaving essentially as a coach; leading meetings, working closely with BB on setting the defensive scheme, being trusted to set the defense every play and being allowed to change play calls on the fly.

And one can really say that he developed those leader of men skills under BB more so than anywhere else. 

Edited October 17, 2020 by pwny

[-Hope-]

1 hour ago, ET80 said:

Others sort of echo what my thoughts are on this - is Vrabel anything like Belicheck? 

Belicheck is a football savant, going back to his days as a DC for Bill Parcells - his claim to fame as a tactician is removing your best asset on both sides of the ball while exploiting your weaknesses the entire time. He never befriended anyone, was all about business - didn't matter if your name was Brady, Vrabel, Bruschi, Gronk, Sony Michel, Aaron Dobson, etc - he served humble pie to everyone, and his only mantra was "Do Your Job". 

Vrabel is the quintessential players' coach - he's joking with guys, he lets his players have a personality, he's a guy who can fit in with a locker room. His first gig in Houston was as a LB coach, but he was really brought in to mentor Jadevion Clowney; It's those interpersonal skills that make him stand out, he's widely considered a "leader of men" type coach. Tactically, he's actually not that good; the one time he was in charge of a group at a tactical level was as the DC of the Texans, and that unit went from 11th to 32nd. (Watt was injured both seasons, so that's not the reason). To bring it full circle - he's a great leader of men, so he empowers his coordinators to handle the tactical while he keeps the vision going. The results are pretty self explanatory, as he's already promoted an OC to HC in Matt LaFluer, and has another on his way in Arthur Smith.

So - both tactically and "big picture" planning - they're nothing alike. Vrabel actually looks and feels like a college coach; His previous bosses were BoB (who got his start at Penn State) and Urban Meyer (Ohio State) so this tracks a bit more...

what, you're saying you don't think BB would go on his offensive tackle's podcast and tell him he'd cut his **** off for a super bowl?

Edited October 17, 2020 by -Hope-