Why are so many head coaches so awful at their jobs?

[Bolts223]

Between Jeff Fisher, John Fox and Ben McAdoo, it's truly unbelievable to me how bad they all were/are at their jobs. These are just the 3 most recent examples I can think of, but there have definitely been more inept head coaches throughout the years.

 John Fox justified his decision yesterday to not let the 49ers score by saying he thought they had a good chance at blocking the FG. The Rams go from a historically bad offense with Jeff Fisher (Worst in terms of scoring since the 2006 Raiders), to an offense putting up over 30 points a game under McVay within one season with many of the same players. Both QB's who were coached by Fisher last year (And played like complete garbage) are playing like legit pro-bowlers this season. And then Ben McAdoo.... Takes an offense with all sorts of weapons and talent (Bad o-line for sure) and makes it one of the most anemic in the league. He then goes on to bench Eli Manning for GENO SMITH. I'm not really going to weigh in on the benching of Eli Manning, but if you are going to bench him, why not at least be playing Davis Web? At least then you can say you are investing in the future of the franchise.

This was somewhat of a rant, but I do pose a legitimate question. Why are so many NFL head coaches so awful or mediocre at their jobs? I feel as if there are far more awful head coaches as there are good ones.

[alfalcone]

There is far too much nepotism in the hiring process for coaches.  Friends and family are hired at the expense of well qualified individuals.  Additionally, I think owners are far too risk adverse, which results in retread hires rather than innovators.

[kyle21121]

Being a head coach is super hard and at any given time there may not be 32 people capable of doing the job. It's not just about the X's and O's it's about being the CEO of the team and being able to manage all aspects. Like If you hire an OC that's young and innovative that lead his former team in scoring and say that's what we need a different offense so we hire him and all of a sudden maybe through no fault of his own perhaps he brings in the wrong group of coaches on his staff expecting them to handle everything else while he runs the offense and brings in new personal trying to fit his ideal offense and neglects everything else around him and not having an overall awareness of what's going on during the game and is in over his head things could go real bad real fast. Wasting TO's, going for it or not in bad situations, wasting challenges, not adjusting when figured out, etc. I mean some guys can't be like that and are better suited to just being coordinators. 

[DontTazeMeBro]

I was watching a lot of the Rams game Sunday. A couple things the announcers mentioned. He’s not an up tempo guy. But Goff succeeded in college doing it. So he does some of it. He doesn’t like jet sweeps. But he has Tavon Austin so he runs them. I think too many coaches are obsessed with their way of doing things

Its also a ton of responsibilities and a lot of people to manage and some guys just can’t handle it 

[biletnikoff]

Whats awful about making millions doing something as dumb as being a ball coach? Win or lose they get paid more money then you'll ever see.

Sign me up for that job.

 

 

 

[Kiwibrown]

the diference between winning and losing is often very fine. 

also football is a hell of a sport. 

you have to be tactically excellent while convincing people to put their bodies on the line play after play., 

[Dome]

3 minutes ago, biletnikoff said:

Whats awful about making millions doing something as dumb as being a ball coach? Win or lose they get paid more money then you'll ever see.

Sign me up for that job.

Huh? Not sure how this addresses the OP at all. 

[TecmoSuperJoe]

11 minutes ago, kyle21121 said:

Being a head coach is super hard and at any given time there may not be 32 people capable of doing the job. It's not just about the X's and O's it's about being the CEO of the team and being able to manage all aspects. Like If you hire an OC that's young and innovative that lead his former team in scoring and say that's what we need a different offense so we hire him and all of a sudden maybe through no fault of his own perhaps he brings in the wrong group of coaches on his staff expecting them to handle everything else while he runs the offense and brings in new personal trying to fit his ideal offense and neglects everything else around him and not having an overall awareness of what's going on during the game and is in over his head things could go real bad real fast. Wasting TO's, going for it or not in bad situations, wasting challenges, not adjusting when figured out, etc. I mean some guys can't be like that and are better suited to just being coordinators. 

Also, there are some things that coaches get blamed for that may be out of their control. I remember Jeff Fisher and Norm Chow wanted to draft Matt Leinart in the 2006 draft. They didn't want to draft Vince Young. Too bad though, because owner Bud Adams wanted Vince Young for the franchise. Like Bill Parcells once said, if they want you to cook the dinner at least let you pick out some of the groceries. That goes for general managers and team presidents too. Sometimes they don't mesh well together. Then there are player contracts and other business aspects. Also injuries. All of this gets in the way of trying to assemble a team and just do X's and O's. Personally I think head coaches overall get a lot of flak that they don't always deserve. It's a results-based business though and someone has to take the fall. 

[Dome]

25 minutes ago, alfalcone said:

There is far too much nepotism in the hiring process for coaches.  Friends and family are hired at the expense of well qualified individuals.  Additionally, I think owners are far too risk adverse, which results in retread hires rather than innovators.

I think this is really accurate. Pretty much sums up my thoughts. 

[Xmad]

Being a HC is probably the hardest job in sports (GMs usually have the HC fall on the sword before they do) especially football since 2 or 3 injuries and your team is toast for the year. 

I'd imagine it's a variety of factors like it always is, some owners prefer hiring people they're familiar with and don't want to change that up (See Marvin Lewis) for others some get screwed by injuries (Mike McCoy?) , incompetence (Jeff Fisher is the definition of incompetent) or straight up getting thrown under the bus by their GM.

 

[biletnikoff]

16 minutes ago, domepatrol91 said:

Huh? Not sure how this addresses the OP at all. 

In other words, it makes no difference  whether you think they are bad or not.

Apparently you can suck and make millions. It addresses it just fine. 

[Carmen Cygni]

Nepotism, and fear of evolution and adaption.

[celestial]

What head coach would have done better with what McAdoo was given? Name those coaches and explain how. 

[Carmen Cygni]

3 minutes ago, celestial said:

What head coach would have done better with what McAdoo was given? Name those coaches and explain how. 

That list is longer than McAdoo's cheesecake factory menu . . . er, I mean playcall sheet.

[celestial]

4 minutes ago, Carmen Cygni said:

That list is longer than McAdoo's cheesecake factory menu . . . er, I mean playcall sheet.

Name the coaches who would have done better in McAdoo's position and explain how. Explain how he's going to stop Eli, when the offensive line played well in Philly and LA for example, from staring down receivers and throwing INTs, or throwing behind receivers, and still win games.