Tweet
Forget Vick, it's coaching staff that needs help
Sunday, July 26, 2009
By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
[url="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09207/986494-150.stm"]http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09207/986494-150.stm[/url]
Today's singularly edgy opinion is that, with training camps opening this week, there simply are not enough assistant coaches in the National Football League, but first, still another news update in the news cycle that never, ever, ever goes to sleep.
The reporting on the immediate future of former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick this week was spotty at best, with even the most accomplished football journalists unable to find out the time and date of his pivotal meeting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell until it had apparently already happened.
Well sure, Goodell could have met with Vick "today or tomorrow," but he also could have done it yesterday. Oops.
Additionally, the results of that meeting remained purely speculative, although this column was able to dig up a partial transcript of the conversation.
GOODELL: "Michael, what up dog!"
VICK: "Aw, come on!"
GOODELL: "Sorry, but I was wondering, as the operator of Bad Newz Kennels, can you tell me why the 'z' is substituted for the 's' in news but not for the 's' in kennels?"
VICK: "Yeah, I'll have marketing get back to you."
That's all I've got so far, but the import of it all will become evident in the next few days, and then perhaps you can judge for yourself who is more likely to play in Goodell's league this season, Vick or Brett Favre.
There's a working assumption on these issues that they have to be resolved quickly as training camps are imminent, but I'm not sure that's right. The part about training camps opening this week, I'm sure that's right.
Maybe you read in these pages this week that Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, in preparation of Friday's arrival of the defending Super Bowl champions, has purchased 5,400 chicken breasts, 200 pounds o' beef, 900 pounds of haddock, 520 pounds of cod and 2,200 turkey burgers.
And that's just for the coaches.
The Steelers list 16 assistants to Mike Tomlin, which is slightly less than the average league roster of coaches. Once upon a time, the roster and the coaches were two different things, and I guess they still are, but now there is a roster of coaches. The Minnesota Vikings have 22 assistant coaches, including a strength and conditioning coach, an assistant strength and conditioning coach and an assistant to the assistant strength and conditioning coach. The Steelers list but a single conditioning coordinator, which you're hoping is not a detriment on the afternoon of Oct. 25, when the Fighting Favres or Favreless visit Heinz Field.
With 22 coaches, the Vikings have one coach for every player on both sides of the football, and the fact that a football doesn't have sides (the actual topic of a previous column), shan't compromise our working premise.
Twenty-two assistant coaches is not enough.
How come, for example, most teams have a quarterbacks coach, but nobody has a guards coach, even though there are two guards and only one quarterback on the field at the same time?
There's an ancient photograph on the Cleveland Browns Web site this week showing Paul Brown and his original staff for the inaugural 1946 season. What do Paul Brown and his original staff have in common with the Dave Clark Five? Right, their publicity shots contain the same number of humans.
Sixty-three years later, the size of an NFL coaching staff is in some cases barely four times as large?
A typical post-modern staff includes an assistant head coach, an offensive coordinator, a defensive coordinator, a running backs coach, a defensive line coach, an offensive line coach, a tight ends coach, a defensive backs coach, a linebackers coach, a quarterbacks coach, a wide receivers coach, a special teams coach, an assistant special teams coach, a strength and conditioning coach, a quality control coach on offense and a quality control coach on defense.
The head coach loves this, for obvious reasons, and for one reason that is not always so obvious: It's a veritable herd of scapegoats. Averaging less than 200 yards a game total? Gotta get a new offensive coordinator in here.
But even this roster of every conceivable discipline does not serve the head coach as well as an expanded staff might. Every NFL head coach should consider these additions, most of them self-explanatory: clock manager, halftime adjuster, two-point conversion consultant, sideline espionage videographer, flea flicker lobbyist, spike coach, end zone choreographer, pregame warm-up coordinator, principle screamer, assistant principle screamer, huddle designer, fair catch instructor, wind sock holder.
Not only would that provide a scapegoat for every calamity (out of time outs again? Fire the clock manager), but expand the typical staff of assistants to roughly 30.
Still again, no need to thank me.
Read more: [url="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09207/986494-150.stm#ixzz0N6H02QEj"]http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09207/98 ... z0N6H02QEj[/url]
Sunday, July 26, 2009
By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
[url="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09207/986494-150.stm"]http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09207/986494-150.stm[/url]
Today's singularly edgy opinion is that, with training camps opening this week, there simply are not enough assistant coaches in the National Football League, but first, still another news update in the news cycle that never, ever, ever goes to sleep.
The reporting on the immediate future of former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick this week was spotty at best, with even the most accomplished football journalists unable to find out the time and date of his pivotal meeting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell until it had apparently already happened.
Well sure, Goodell could have met with Vick "today or tomorrow," but he also could have done it yesterday. Oops.
Additionally, the results of that meeting remained purely speculative, although this column was able to dig up a partial transcript of the conversation.
GOODELL: "Michael, what up dog!"
VICK: "Aw, come on!"
GOODELL: "Sorry, but I was wondering, as the operator of Bad Newz Kennels, can you tell me why the 'z' is substituted for the 's' in news but not for the 's' in kennels?"
VICK: "Yeah, I'll have marketing get back to you."
That's all I've got so far, but the import of it all will become evident in the next few days, and then perhaps you can judge for yourself who is more likely to play in Goodell's league this season, Vick or Brett Favre.
There's a working assumption on these issues that they have to be resolved quickly as training camps are imminent, but I'm not sure that's right. The part about training camps opening this week, I'm sure that's right.
Maybe you read in these pages this week that Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, in preparation of Friday's arrival of the defending Super Bowl champions, has purchased 5,400 chicken breasts, 200 pounds o' beef, 900 pounds of haddock, 520 pounds of cod and 2,200 turkey burgers.
And that's just for the coaches.
The Steelers list 16 assistants to Mike Tomlin, which is slightly less than the average league roster of coaches. Once upon a time, the roster and the coaches were two different things, and I guess they still are, but now there is a roster of coaches. The Minnesota Vikings have 22 assistant coaches, including a strength and conditioning coach, an assistant strength and conditioning coach and an assistant to the assistant strength and conditioning coach. The Steelers list but a single conditioning coordinator, which you're hoping is not a detriment on the afternoon of Oct. 25, when the Fighting Favres or Favreless visit Heinz Field.
With 22 coaches, the Vikings have one coach for every player on both sides of the football, and the fact that a football doesn't have sides (the actual topic of a previous column), shan't compromise our working premise.
Twenty-two assistant coaches is not enough.
How come, for example, most teams have a quarterbacks coach, but nobody has a guards coach, even though there are two guards and only one quarterback on the field at the same time?
There's an ancient photograph on the Cleveland Browns Web site this week showing Paul Brown and his original staff for the inaugural 1946 season. What do Paul Brown and his original staff have in common with the Dave Clark Five? Right, their publicity shots contain the same number of humans.
Sixty-three years later, the size of an NFL coaching staff is in some cases barely four times as large?
A typical post-modern staff includes an assistant head coach, an offensive coordinator, a defensive coordinator, a running backs coach, a defensive line coach, an offensive line coach, a tight ends coach, a defensive backs coach, a linebackers coach, a quarterbacks coach, a wide receivers coach, a special teams coach, an assistant special teams coach, a strength and conditioning coach, a quality control coach on offense and a quality control coach on defense.
The head coach loves this, for obvious reasons, and for one reason that is not always so obvious: It's a veritable herd of scapegoats. Averaging less than 200 yards a game total? Gotta get a new offensive coordinator in here.
But even this roster of every conceivable discipline does not serve the head coach as well as an expanded staff might. Every NFL head coach should consider these additions, most of them self-explanatory: clock manager, halftime adjuster, two-point conversion consultant, sideline espionage videographer, flea flicker lobbyist, spike coach, end zone choreographer, pregame warm-up coordinator, principle screamer, assistant principle screamer, huddle designer, fair catch instructor, wind sock holder.
Not only would that provide a scapegoat for every calamity (out of time outs again? Fire the clock manager), but expand the typical staff of assistants to roughly 30.
Still again, no need to thank me.
Read more: [url="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09207/986494-150.stm#ixzz0N6H02QEj"]http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09207/98 ... z0N6H02QEj[/url]
Comment