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If NFL coaches were told they could either find a cure for cancer or a cure for losing
games, they’d probably have to think long and hard about which to choose.
OK, that may be going a little too far, but for a coach to take a pass on finding a
cure for losing would undoubtedly torture his soul.
When asked about the worst part of coaching, Falcons RB coach Ollie Wilson said,
"I think the losses are. Obviously when you’ve worked very hard and you think
that you’ve done what you had to do and for whatever reasons — whether you
don’t have enough players or something turned the other way or the ball bounced the
wrong way — and you don’t get the thing done, I think that’s the hard
thing."
How painful is losing for NFL coaches? Just consider a sampling of reactions to defeat
from this past season.
Giants head coach Jim Fassel on a 15-14 loss to the Rams: "It was gut-wrenching to
lose a game like that. It just tears your heart out."
Saints head coach Jim Haslett on his team’s four-game losing streak to end the
season: "I’ve been sick to my stomach for the last month."
Seahawks head coach Mike Holmgren on a 23-0 loss to the Dolphins: "It almost makes
me sick. It was just awful."
Then-Panthers head coach George Seifert on a 27-25 loss to the Saints: "I have no
consolation."
Seifert on a 17-14 OT loss to the Redskins: "This was pretty devastating."
Seifert on having a bye with his team in the midst of a 12-game losing streak: "It
just kind of prolongs the agony."
Seifert after a 30-7 loss to the Cardinals: "That was particularly brutal."
He also called it "a particularly humiliating loss."
Then-Colts head coach Jim Mora on a 40-21 loss to the 49ers: "That was a
disgraceful performance. We threw that game away. It was pitiful, absolutely
pitiful."
Chiefs head coach Dick Vermeil on a 27-7 loss to the Jets: "I’m ticked off at
myself. I’m mad at my coaches. I’m mad at my players."
The litany of woe, of hurt, of emotional pain could go on and on, but you get the idea.
What makes coaching in the NFL so tough each week is the fact that it is such a
black-and-white business. There is no gray area for a pretty good job. You’re either
a hero or a bum, depending on what the scoreboard says.
"You have a test every week, and you either pass or you fail, which is really kind
of a scary thing," Lions defensive assistant Don Clemons said. "There’s no
B’s. There’s either an ‘A’ or an ‘F.’ "
Not getting too high after a win or too low after a loss is one of the most important
qualities in an NFL coach. Staying grounded after a big win tends to be easier to do
because of the nature of the league. There just isn’t enough time to celebrate
excessively after a win, because the long grind of the next week’s preparations tends
to throw cold water on feelings of euphoria.
Broncos director of football administration Neal Dahlen described the feelings of
coaches after a win as, "just having relief as opposed to joy. It’s a
short-lived joyfulness. It’s relief more than that as you go through trying to get to
where you think you need to go with a particular team."
Although the same long grind awaits coaches after a loss, those feelings are especially
difficult to shake.
"They work so many hours and work so hard and try to uncover every potential
pitfall and prepare so well that they don’t make a mistake even in one
instance," Dahlen said. "And then when you’re working that hard and worried
right up to game day and to kickoff whether you thought it through well enough and
you’re going to make the right decisions and recommendations and things like that.
Then when you have done all of that work and find out that you come up short, it’s a
very deflating thing."
The fact that there are so few games in pro football compared to other sports makes
defeat all the more difficult to come to terms with for coaches.
"I think it’s a little different in football than it is in baseball,
basketball and I guess hockey because they play so many more games," Dahlen said.
"What they’re doing is once they get their training camp finished, they’re
looking at playing three or four or five or six games a week, and it’s very little
bit of new planning with regard to going out and just playing again.
"Whereas in football, you win one and then you’ve got a week to work as hard
as you can to make sure that you can win one again. So that’s a little bit different,
because the loss is so much greater with regard to your opportunity to bounce back,
because you’ve got another full week of preparation.
"It’s just a constant, now we got this one out of the way but we have to win
the next one. Or we didn’t get this one out of the way, now we really have to win the
next one. … They put themselves under that kind of pressure."
Ideally, a coach keeps this self-induced pressure under control. Maintaining an
"even keel" is a phrase that coaches use over and over again to describe coping
with the major highs and lows of their profession. During tough times, failure to do so
can keep a coach from paying attention to what is really important.
"When I was a young coach, I lived on every play, never mind every game, and it
was one of those deals where, ‘oh my god,’ that type of thing," Wilson
said. ‘… I was coaching at the University of California at Berkeley, and the
first couple of years we weren’t very good, and it was a real struggle. Everything
was wrong. The players weren’t playing well. You weren’t getting the right
calls. We were playing too tough a schedule. All those things were going on, and bottom
line is I let things worry me that I had no control over.
"As I settled in, one of the people that I felt real strongly about that really
helped me a lot in coaching was Bruce Snyder who was the head coach at Arizona State.
… And he kind of taught me a lesson about learning the ropes and trying to get to a
part where you’re staying on an even keel and you just coached. You have control on
what you coach and what your technique is and how you coach and those types of things, and
deal with that rather than the emotional part of the game to a point, because those
(emotional) things don’t help you. That was a real special thought for me."
Clemons said, "(If you get too low after a loss) then everything becomes the game.
Then you lose your focus. You’ve got to focus each day because you’ve got to
prepare yourself, you’ve got to help prepare the team. Whatever your job may be on
the team, you’ve got to stay zeroed in on what you have to do, and if you allow
yourself to become so emotional that you’re … too down for too long a period,
your performance at your specific job can suffer a little bit. You sit around and wonder,
why did we lose? Well, instead of going in there and trying to figure it out and fix it,
you sit there like, ‘Oh woe is me.’ It’s a tough situation. …
You’ve got to keep on pushing that stone up the hill all the time."
The best way for a coach to keep doing so is to spend most of his time looking ahead
instead of behind.
"When Mondays come, the old 24-hour rule is whether you win or lose, after 24
hours, hey, we’ve got to get ready to go do this again," Steelers head coach
Bill Cowher said. "It’s a gradual buildup to the next game."
And yet, a coach can’t be so driven in his pursuit of the next win that he never
bothers to stop and smell the roses.
"We’re all going to be replaced at some time, at some point, but this game is
still going to move on," Cowher said. "So while you’re in the game, enjoy
it, respect it and see if you can add a little bit to it."
A coach must not be so consumed by the final destination that he fails to embrace the
journey. In other words, he can’t let a loss rob him of his enthusiasm.
"Coaches are leaders … and the first (thing) that you cannot do is you
can’t walk around with your head down, feeling sorry for yourself because you’ve
lost a couple of games," said NFL Coaches Association executive director Larry
Kennan, who previously coached for 15 years in the NFL. "You’ve got to jump up
and go out there and go get ’em and coach the 100th day of the year just like you did
the first day of the year — with a great deal of enthusiasm and positiveness and
belief, and that’s sometimes very difficult to do."
It’s an interesting catch-22. A coach can’t be so fired up about victory that
he is unable to cope with defeat, yet so many coaches are hard-chargers who have gotten
where they are because of their incredibly competitive nature.
"I’ve always been a very emotional guy," Buccaneers head coach Jon
Gruden said. "When I play golf and shank my 4-iron, I get very upset. When I’m
playing Wiffle ball in the backyard, and the neighbor kids come over and beat Deuce (his
son) and I, I get upset. I don’t swear, but I … you know.
"I was a dirt-kicker quarterback at Dayton. I wasn’t very good. I’d
throw an out route in the dirt in practice, and I’d get upset and kick the dirt.
That’s what they called me, and I was just one of those guys. I’d strike out in
high school, and every once in a while I’d throw my helmet and get yelled at.
"I get excited when things go good too. I’ve been the first to pump my first
or give a guy a high-five."
Gruden was the head coach of the Raiders before moving on to Tampa Bay this offseason.
While coaching in Oakland, Gruden got the opportunity to work with all-time great WR Jerry
Rice. Late in the season, Rice talked about the qualities he’s seen in the successful
coaches he’s worked with in his career.
"I think what I really enjoy about the coaches I have worked with is they’re
so competitive," Rice said. "It’s just like they’re basically on that
football field with you. They’re playing the game. And when it’s all over with
and done they’re just so tired. I’m finding that with Jon Gruden. This guy is
going to challenge me. If I do well he’s going to praise me, he’s going to do
everything, but if I make a mistake he’s going to get up in my face and he’s
going to challenge me. I think that basically elevated my game."
Prior to becoming a member of the Steelers, LB Joey Porter remembers being impressed by
Cowher’s passion for the game.
"I used to see all the excitement that he had as a head football coach,"
Porter said. "Jerome (Bettis) would have a big run and he’s pounding on his
chest, and then Cowher (would) go out there and … give him a head butt or something.
Man, this guy is playing with a lot of enthusiasm and he’s not even out there
playing. You see a coach fired up like that, you as a player you have to go out there and
play like that."
Cowher said, "If you can’t enjoy game day, then I think you’re in this
for all the wrong reasons."
When the Panthers hired John Fox to be their new head coach in January, it was his
passion for the game that swayed them.
"In doing our research, the thing that kept coming back from everyone was
John’s energy level and enthusiasm," Panthers owner Jerry Richardson said.
This sort of enthusiasm for the game that is to evident in so many coaches can result
in them wearing their emotions on their sleeves.
Even a tough-as-nails, man’s man like coaching legend Vince Lombardi was this way.
In the book "Winning is a Habit: Vince Lombardi on Winning, Success and the Pursuit
of Excellence," Lombardi said, "Hell, I’m an emotional man. I cry. …
I’m not ashamed of crying. Football’s an emotional game. You can’t be a
cold fish and go out and coach. If you’re going to be involved in it, you gotta take
your emotions with you."
With so many passionate men coaching in a game in which there are only winners and
losers and nothing in between, it can be difficult to rein in these emotions.
"When you have a good game and you feel like you’ve contributed, it makes the
hard work worth it," Gruden said. "You get a good feeling from that. When you
don’t have a good performance, it’s tough to go to sleep that night."
Part 2: The player-coach relationship
Part
1: Setting the tone
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