HELP WANTED: A Ball Coach

[TL24x7]

Hello all,

I'm looking for someone who has experience as a coach and could critique coaches each week on:


* Game Plan (both O and D)
In Game Decisions
Clock Management
Challenges

* Pivotal Decisions

* Halftime Adjustments

If you or anyone that you know may be interested, please email me at TL@profootball24x7.com

Thanks for your consideration....

[ActualSpamBot]

What level of coaching are we talking about here? Pop Warner, high school, college?

[wickedsolo]

Are we talking in Baltimore? Or would this be somewhat of a virtual task?

[TL24x7]

Preferably HS or >

This would be a critique of John Harbaugh and his staff for preparation and in game decision making...

[GOTA]

Ouch! Call Brian Billick. You really want an amateur writing something like that? It's going to read like a Mike Preston article.

[RopeRaven]

You're right that Coach Billick would be ideal, but even acquiring the services of lesser pros may be not be realistic. Remember too that it was amateurs on this board who called for such reasonable changes as Cam's removal and Boldin to the slot long before the pros finally went for it, and don't forget the contributions of our great Filmstudy. Personally, I like the idea of a critique of our coaches. It depends on whether Tony can find a suitable writer for this post. I don't think he'd follow through with this idea if couldn't find the right person. But he probably thanks you for the warning.

[JimZipCode]

This would be a critique of John Harbaugh and his staff for preparation and in game decision making...

I've been thinking about this a bit. What percent of coaching, do we think, are comprised of things like:

• In Game Decisions
• Clock Management
• Challenges
• Halftime Adjustments
• "Pivotal Decisions"

?

It seems pretty obvious to me that those things must be a rather small part of coaching. Think about it this way: Harbaugh and his staff have been working their asses off for, what, 7 weeks? Since about July 31 to now? And have really only had to make those kinds of decisions once, in all that time. (Plus 4 practice runs over the preseason.) It must

During the season, coaches only spend 3 hours a week doing that, out of 168 hours in a week. That's 1.8% of the time. If you say, ok, the actual "work week" is shorter than that, I shouldn't divide by 169; I would argue that coaches famously are workaholics. But ok, let's say Harbaugh and the coaching staff work only 55 hours a week. (I'm sure that's way low.) Still, the three hours of game time represent 5.4% of the work week.

What are they doing the other 95% of the time?

And that's just during the season! Harbs and the staff were extremely busy from the Super Bowl thru the draft thru free agency thru minicamps, right up until they took vacations in late August. Not one second of that time was spent calling timeouts, throwing challenge flags, or making tactical adjustments at halftime. Yet they were busy.

And it's not like this coaching staff sucks, either. Harbs is building a Hall of Fame coaching career so far. He has the 2nd-highest winning pctg among active coaches (behind Mike Smith), 13th-best all time. He's tied with Belichick and Jimmy Johnson for the 10th-best postseason winning pctg all time. He keeps going what he's been doing, he's going to be regarded as one of the greatest coaches in NFL history.

Remember in Harbs first offseason, there was a lot of talk about how he had shook up the team. He changed the locker room assignments, mixing up offense & defense and breaking up cliques. He switched the team over from weight machines to free weights, and got more competition going in the offseason strength program. All this was before training camp even started!

The inescapable conclusion is that there must be a ton more to being a good NFL coach, than in-game tactical stuff. Some guesses as what those things might be: scouting, roster management, coordinating with Ozzie, building a coaching staff, motivating players thru the offseason program, working with players on fundamentals, setting the tone for practice, planning the practice schedule, etc etc.

I agree with most posters here, that over his career Harbaugh has not been awesome during the game with challenges and clock management in end-of-half situations. Sometimes I've disagreed with him on run/pass distribution and on going or not going for it on 4th down.
(By the way, the Ravens clearly did something right at halftime of the AFCCG, so I'm reluctant to pile on when it comes to halftime adjustments.)
But here's the thing: I think he could be absolutely awful at those things, and (so long as he doesn't pull a Mornhinweg by electing to kickoff in OT) still be a great head coach. In-game tactical things are most of what we SEE Harbaugh doing; but they are less than 5% of his job. Probably they are less than 2% of his job.

The one thing I have sometimes wondered, though: head coaches hire coordinators. They hire OCs and DCs, and spec teams Cs. They are not expected to be able to be 100% hands-on during the week with those squads. Would it also make sense to have a gameday tactical coach or coordinator? Harbs is clearly awesome at just about every other aspect of the job, from the offseason thru training camp thru mid-week game preparation.
(This loss was Harbaugh's first with an extra week to prepare – his first loss ever in an opener or coming off a bye. So clearly "preparation" is not a problem.)
What about adding one guy to the gameday staff, who's only job is to say "We should call a timeout after the next play" and "This is 4-down territory" etc? Sometimes Harbaugh is busy on the sideline – interacting with players, etc – so maybe it would make sense to have a dedicated set of eyes on those tactical things.

I think we do see that occasionally. I think that was the role Harbaugh had Vic Fangio in, back in Harbs' first season 2008. A senior guy to "consult" on game day with challenges etc. Then Fangio moved on to join Jim at Stanford, and I guess Harbs moved on without that consulting help. Maybe it would make sense to get another guy to do that.

Heaven help the person who suggests that to Harbs, though. :-)

Sorry, this was a long and rambling post.

[cross462]

Should contact Ed from Arbutus that calls into 1057 constantly. Guy goes so in depth in his calls, I can only imagine him writing an article haha.

[AirFlacco]

Ouch! Call Brian Billick. You really want an amateur writing something like that? It's going to read like a Mike Preston article.

Even he said he's damaged goods.

CAV is available. He's the one who pushed Billick to go for Boller after he threw
the ball thru the goal posts from midfield on one knee.

[TL24x7]

Should contact Ed from Arbutus that calls into 1057 constantly. Guy goes so in depth in his calls, I can only imagine him writing an article haha.

Actually I reached out to him last year. Scott Garceau got his contact info for me. He was initially interested but then his shift at work changed and he said he couldn't do it. I thought it would have been fun to have him on...

Back to the drawing board...

[HoustonRaven]

Friedgen is local and not doing anything.

[Raveninwoodlawn]

Friedgen is local and not doing anything.

He's back in Georgia after burning his UMD's degree.


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