End of An Era
Three legendary football coaches are out in the span of a day.
Earlier this morning, wrote about the retirement of Nick Saban, the consensus greatest coach in the history of major college football. The news has just broken that his longtime friend Bill Belichick, the consensus greatest coach in the history of professional football, is out at the New England Patriots.
While not quite on the same level, news broke yesterday afternoon that Pete Carroll is out as the coach of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, where he had won a Super Bowl and came one dumb play call away from winning another. And he had also won two college championships at USC.
Talk about the end of an era. Three of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport are out within a span of less than 24 hours.
Changing of the guard, aging out, whatever you want to call it, at some point all organizations need to move on to new leadership. After all, isn’t the mantra in business, if not life, “what have you done for me lately?”
Don’t forget Jimbo Fisher. (Yes, that’s sarcasm worth about $77M).
Now, as a Browns fan, I remember Bill Belichick was a failure at Cleveland (36-44 in five seasons). Is it the man, the organization, or just serendipity?
@Scott: it was Tom Brady.
@Scott:
Long ago I read an essay on thermodynamics by Asimov, in which he qualified certain physical laws with the words “in an expanding universe.”
So, to answer your question about Belichick, he’s one of the best coaches of all time, with Brady under center.
On the other hand, it’s no unusual for a top coach to lose once many of his star players leave. Consider Chuck Noll in the 70s. He had plenty of sinning seasons, lots of playoff appearances, and went undefeated in four Super Bowls. Once players like Bradshaw, Swann, Lambert, Bleier, Harris, Shell, etc. began to retire, Pittsburgh settled into mediocrity for several years.
It’s too bad we can’t run controlled experiments with football teams. We can’t take the Pats at their heyday and place a different coach in charge and see how they do. Nor can we switch Brady for someone else. The closest was one season Brady missed due to injury, and Bellichick had to make do with, I think, Matt Cassel. they went 11-5, but didn’t make the playoffs.
Belichick still is an outstanding field coach, but the game has passed him by in the areas of player development and talent recognition. He needs to be some place where he just coaches and a GM handles the other functions.
It’s important for the outstanding coach of a big time program and the fans of that program to recognize that time erodes the value of all, and there is a time to end the reign. Otherwise, we get a Joe Paterno situation where the coach is the author of the graffiti on his marker. Belichick has clearly turned into someone who was devaluing the great reputation of the coach of those Tom Brady teams. At some point we all need to step away.
It might just be the beginning of the “end of an era” if Carroll and Belichik find new roosts to coach from.
It’s not talked about often, but Alabama’s transition from a defensive powerhouse early in Saban’s tenure to an offensive powerhouse — which kept Bama and Saban from fading — came with Saban hiring Pete Carroll proteges and former offensive coordinators, Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian.
Carroll and his OCs don’t get enough credit (or blame?) for helping to change the way college football is played. I think Carroll would have had maybe 1-2 more m college championships had there been a playoff around when he was at USC with Norm Chow, Kiffin, and Sark calling plays. Same for Mark Richt’s Georgia teams.
Earthshaking news in New England about Belichick.
Maybe Saban can become the other senator from Alabama.
It is weird to see some level of surprise that the two oldest NFL coaches, coming off somewhat disappointing seasons, are leaving.
Of course the last time these two were out of a job at the same time Belichick followed Carroll in New England.
I suspect that either Texas or Ole Miss is about to lose its head coach.
@CSK:
He is much, much, MUCH smarter than Tuberville.
@a country lawyer:
As a Texas alum, I would prefer Sark stay put. But I also doubt he would leave. First, following Saban is a fool’s errand. Second, Sark is in a perfectly good place to be highly succcessful–why leave what he just built/is building? Third, with respect to Tuscaloosa, Austin is a far better place to live.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Oh, I know. On the other hand, few people aren’t.
@Steven L. Taylor: who isn’t?
I don’t know who came to this consensus.
Belichick has a losing record without Tom Brady.
Brady won a SB without Belichick.
Back in my days at Microsoft, we adopted a leadership program put together by Pete Carroll and his staff – it was an excellent resource and I gained a great deal of respect for the man and his leadership abilities. He was absolutely a players-coach and many players came back to Seattle after leaving just so they could play for him again.
His style of leadership parallels my own, where I feel like loyalty and the desire to not let down the boss gains a better outcome than fear and intimidation and threats.
Pete will be missed.
@a country lawyer:
(1) Lane Kiffin might want the Alabama gig, but would Alabama want him?
(2) Steve Sarkissian has it going on at Texas – they’re wwinning, have a lot of resources ain a football crazed state, and he’s in Austin. Would he really want to move from Austin to Tuscaloosa?
(3) Dan Lanning at Oregon has been mentioned. See Sark above. He’s got it wired at Oregon. Lots of resources (Phil Knight, Nike money), plus trade Eugene for Tuscaloosa? Don’t think so.
(4) Kalen DeBoer at Washington also mentioned. Like Lanning. he’s got it wired there too. But … he’s young enough (49) and he makes $4M, whereas in Alabama probably 2x or 3X more. Plus excelpt for Seattle, he’s worked at unglamorous places, so Tuscaloosa is probably fine with him.
okay, my 2 cents – I think both Kalen de Boer and Brian Kelly at LSU are logical fits, the only drawback for Kelly is that he’s 62.
@Tony W:
I suspect the reason Carrol and Belichick were let go is while they are fine for winning, they are now too old to stick around for total re-building. Takes trading away the top talent for high draft pics, and some years of losing to acquire other high draft picks and then refine the talent. At their age and with their records the fans expect them to win now.
Both are first ballot HOFers. Perhaps it’s best all around they hang it up.
@al Ameda: I’m having trouble seeing “he’s 62” as an obstacle in a nation where people change jobs (IIRC) about every 5 years on average and boomers refuse to leave the arena until forced out (see 2 of 3 of our subjects for this post).
ETA: And note that Carroll wasn’t terminated; he was “promoted” to a pseudo-upper management position.
Man, don’t get me started about that pass play into the end zone against the Pats. Grrr….
@Daryl:
The first two, and maybe the third, Super Bowl wins can be attributed much more to Belichick than Brady.
Also, Belichick was likely the only coach who would have stuck with Brady once Bledsoe was healthy enough to play.
@Steven L. Taylor: Agree. Even as an Alabama alum and fan, I’d rather have the Texas or USC jobs. They’re comparable programs historically and Austin and LA are considerably better places to live if you’re rich.
@al Ameda: While I wouldn’t mind Kiffin, I think DeBoer is the heavy favorite at this point.
@al Ameda: DeBoer looks much, much older than 49. Wow. Stress does a number on men.
@James Joyner: From a Georgia-born USC alum: I hope for Alabama fans’s sake that y’all do not hire FireLane Kiffin lol
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