October 11, 2022 • 39 mins
You see them on the sidelines during games, talking into their clipboards and in movies giving rousing speeches at half-time to fire up the team for the inevitable comeback victory, but what are coaches really up to? Mike Yam and Michael Robinson get into it on this episode of the NFL explained. podcast.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
NFL Explained is a production of the NFL in partnership
with I Heart Radio. Hello, beautiful people, that's like my
m ROV introduction. I'm trying my best. Did I bring
it like you would? Your voice conveys way more emotion
(00:26):
than mine does, but I was trying to do the
intro like you would do it. It's a brand new
edition of NFL Explained, Mike Yam Michael robinsons with me.
I'm trying to match your energy level and your positivity,
So I promise. As we are teasing head coaches and
saying they won't really do anything, I'm going to say
it would a smile on people can hear the smile
(00:48):
through the sound waves through the airways. Man. But I'm
doing great. It's another football week. Can't wait to talk
some Yes. Well, part of that conversation, and I'm touching
on it a little bit, is the fact of we
watch all these games. We see these head coaches on
the sidelines, and I know what you're thinking, like, what
are these dudes actually do? Right? Like it's game day.
They got coordinators, they got you know, different dudes run
(01:11):
around the position coaches. The whole thing. We've all seen
hard knocks. We've seen how big the coaches rooms actually are.
It feels like they're just dudes. Like CEO is almost
just saying, hey, point one direction, get this done for me.
It's getting a little bit more CEO ish as we
you know, evolved. But I'm glad I get to talk
about it today. I can finally say what I want
to say about head coaches. But get fined, you know
(01:33):
what I mean. You know, when you're a player, you
can find you say some negative things about the head coach.
Ye do we do? We beg you're going And I've
heard from you. You've actually gotten phone calls after some
of the things that you've said about head coaches in
commercial breaks. But I'm not even getting paid by him anymore.
I'm in the media and I still get the call.
And you and you told that coach you can't find
me this time, not gonna happen. Look, and there's some
(01:57):
coaches that are out there. You've got the old heads,
the O g so to speak to belichicks of the
world that certainly come to mind. You got the mcveighs.
On the other side, it feels like it runs gamut
in terms of personality style. The whole thing. Is there
really a need though, I think that almost might because
we always hear this phrase like, oh, they're professionals out there,
do you actually, like really need a head coach? I
(02:19):
know that sounds sort of ridiculous because of what we're
used to, but like to not really know some of
the intricacies, I think someone might ask that question. I'll
start by saying this, I believe, Mike, that every human
being walking the planet needs a coach. So I'll start
by saying that because some days we wake up some
(02:41):
days we are motivated, some days we you know, we're
wake up on the bad hone, the wrong side of
the pillow. Sometimes sometimes you just need somebody to help,
uh kindle that fire that's already inside of you said,
you need to try to help bring it out, and
a head coaching football is no different, right. It helps
provide direction. And again, I only play for a few
head coaches in the National Football League, so my experience
(03:03):
is a little limited. But I'll talk about Pete Carroll
because I know a lot of our listeners know exactly
who Pete Carroll is. He provided direction for us, and
I know that's very simple and you know whatever, But
it's a lot of different layers to it. He had
different messaging. So I was with the Seattle Seas from
my last season was season four seasons and the messaging,
(03:24):
especially early in the season in when I first got there,
was totally different than the messaging he was saying in
the season when we had the quarterback, we knew our
defense worked, we had the running back, and Beast was
a generational like we had of all the pieces in.
He was more talking like, hey, guys, we're gonna be
a thorn in some people's behinds. Man the like, we're
(03:47):
not gonna be a hard out. I know I just
got here. And I'm talking to Pete Carroll. He's like,
I know, I just got here. I know where we
broke all they broke. We broke a record for like
transactions like two or some transactions during like I don't know,
training camp or something like that. It was a lot, right,
we were getting guys in and out of the locker room.
We should actually play a game in the locker room,
like all right, we're gonna guess who's going to walk
through here today. It was that many guys going in
(04:09):
and out of the line. We would we would try
to guess it, but that was the messaging in better
by the way coming in and going out. Absolutely yeah um.
And we went to the playoffs with the seven and
nine record eleven. It changed a little bit because our
team was a little bit better. We still didn't quite
find the quarterback. We found our quarterback. We knew that
the league was on notice, we knew that we were
(04:30):
one of the best teams in the league. We knew
that this was kind of our time, and Pete provided
that direction. He told us where we needed to go,
and obviously we responded to it. How often did you
see coaches being willing to evolve? Because I I'm looking
at you and you're telling me about some of your
experiences in the NFL. I'm thinking back to one of
our previous episodes when we talk about evolutions of offenses
(04:52):
and quarterbacks, and you know the story in your recruiting
process at Penn State dual threat or you were a
real dual threat quarterback, and that wasn't something that Joe Paterno,
for example, it was used to seeing. I think about
him as old school as it really gets, and yet
he was willing to make those changes. The adaptability factor
are the more experienced guys less willing to make those changes. Yeah,
(05:17):
because doing what they've done in the past got them
to where they are. So they're like, well, why would
I change when that version of myself has elevated me
to get in the job of my dreams being a
head coach on whatever level that that that may be.
But I will say this, deadlines force change. Deadlines force change.
We know that in business. We know that anytime there's
(05:39):
a you know, the trade deadline, you hear nothing about
a damn trade and then all of a sudden, twenty
four hours before the trade deadline comes all of these
speculation things, you know, stuff starts to happen. And even
with Joe Paternal, I think the change happened because, first
of all, college football changed, and then I think it
was pressure from the board of trust and he's the
fire I think there was pressure. There's pressure from front
(06:01):
offices and owners on head coaches, whether you're young or
the year old, but especially because we talk about some
of the older ones, you better change or you lose
your job. You see what I'm saying that that that
that that deadline is the losing your job part. And
when you get nine and will say threatened. But when
you get presented with that type of the situation, head
(06:23):
coaches are in one of those situations, whether they're like
I either gotta get with the program or die sticking
with my program, which most of them evolved. Well, m Rob,
you know the younger guys, Pete Carroll as you made reference,
who is not necessarily a young guy anymore but has
sort of that that young way about him and obviously
came from USC, Joe pa Turner, sort of the old
(06:44):
school mentality. I want to take you through some new
head coaches. Thirty two head coaches in the NFL. Ten
of the thirty two are in the first year with
their teams. Mike McDaniel, Brian Dayball, not I Reflus, Nathaniel Hackett,
Kevin O'Connell, Todd Bowles, Doug Peterson, Dennis Allen, Lovey Smith,
and Josh McDaniels, just to name those guys that are
out there. Okay, so there's a physical goal appearance for
(07:07):
some of the coaches in the league. They just look young,
and guess what, because they are young. As of this season,
the average age of an NFL coaches forty nine point
two years old. There are nineteen coaches over forty and
thirteen under that age. Yeah, let's start with the offseason
where the NFL coaches have a little bit of a
(07:28):
letter schedule, though, because I think it's important for us
to kind of dive into what a lot of these
guys are doing on a regular basis offseason. You're like, oh, yeah,
it's light. No, it's still kind of busy here. You've
got staffing issues that you need to address, coaches that
are leaving, moving on, guys that you need to replace
them with. You're sitting down with your general manager talking
about free agents, draft strategy. My lord, I know the
(07:49):
conversations that happened in this building around the draft, and
it's pretty epic. There's only one head coach who has
the role of GM that title and coach. That's Bill Belichick. Yeah,
you've done that before. We heard that some of the
most successful early head coaches that were also GMS early
Curly Lambeau, Paul Brown. I know you like that one.
(08:09):
George Hallis, Vince Lombardi shout out for Ham University. Bill Parcels,
by the way, notoriously said about being a coach GM cool.
They want you to cook the dinner. They can at
least let you buy the groceries. Perfect. Yeah, I'm also
the dude that doesn't want to buy the groceries but
definitely wants to eat and doesn't want to cook. That's
my role. I do go to the grocery shopping at
my household. There seems to be a little bit of
(08:31):
a weird disconnect when there comes to the general manager
that makes personnel decisions and a coach that just has
to deal with it and make the best of it.
Pete Carroll and you brought him up earlier in this podcast,
he's not GM slash coach. He's the executive vice president
of football Operations. Basically, what that means he actually has
a huge say in personnel as the guy that's on
the sidelines m rob that also has a saying who's
(08:54):
on his team. Is there a benefit to what they're
doing up there. It is a small benefit, just being
that you do want your head coach who represents the
coaching staff, and that you want those guys involved in
the scenael decisions because those are the guys who have
to deal with the personnel on a day to day
basis and make the schemes come off the paper into reality,
and that involves, you know, dealing with the players during
(09:17):
with personnel. So I do think that's a good set up.
I look at it as like this. I know you
just explained all that business stuff, you know, and I
get it. You know, we live in the Western world,
and you know we gotta have it as capitalism, and
you've got titles and all that type of stuff. From
a player's standpoint, this would it looks like to me,
It looks like a good cop bad cops. This looks
like an opportunity during negotiations, during whatever the case may be.
(09:42):
And I'm just gonna use Pete and John because those
my guys, those guys I know. But I'm talking about
all gms and head coaches and which head coaches who
have a little bit of a business role as well.
Hey man, who gonna play bad cop? Today? Who gonna
play a good cop? You know, where's the price point? Okay,
this is where we want to sign them from. Okay,
I'm gonna tell him how much we love him in
this that in the third you're gonna hit him with
the business side, and when he gets upset, I'm I'm
(10:04):
get him over here with me. Tell them how much
I love him and you, and they just go and
they do the dance. And I think it's it's good
to be able to have somebody who exclusively looks at personnel,
being that general manager role. And it also, again from
a coaching standpoint, who has to deal with the player
every day, gives somebody to blame stuff on. Hey man,
(10:26):
it's just john Man, it's Johnson. He wanted to let
you go. That won't me. Man, I love you, you
know what I'm saying. That's a good card backup dynamic.
It does make some sense, but it also strikes me
as really difficult to balance both of those roles because
that's a lot of responsibility. You gotta delegate, man, but
then you're not your fingertips aren't on everything then, And
(10:46):
it's only twenty four hours in a day, but you
gotta sleep for eight hours. That gives you sixty. I mean,
you got family, it's only it's only limited. So you
have to be able to do the research on your
coaching staff to know that the guys you have around
you are going to do the work. That's why you
see so many guys take their homies and friends that
get into the level job. They just got rocket up
(11:07):
the organizations because it's all about trust against human relationships.
Welcome back to the NFL Explained podcast. Okay, so, as
far as the responsibilities are concerned, I mentioned the staffing
issues that are there. You got league meetings, you got
(11:27):
offseason programs, strength and conditioning workouts in April early May,
you got the Rookie Football Development Program, rookie Minicamp in
mid May. You got voluntary O t A s in
May and June, you got mandatory minicamp in June. How
important is the head coach when it comes to those
activities like infseason. Yeah? Oh man, Like they're not you know,
(11:51):
taking you through those workouts the coaches they put I mean,
you know, you see Pete Carrot throwing the football around,
but they're not really doing nothing for real. They just
you know, they're just having a good time and whatever.
But I will say this, just like I started off
the podcast and saying, they still provide direction. So yeah,
we may not meet every day with the head coach
(12:12):
in the off season, but we do meet every week,
and that one meeting that when big team meeting will
have a week. Yeah, the coach will talk about the goals.
They'll talk about, Hey, man, we got some fat guys
I'm looking at I'm looking at the weights coming in. Man,
you need to stop your extracrict activity or we got
the draft coming up. You know what I'm saying. These
are the holes in our roster. You know what I'm saying,
(12:32):
these are the needs. We just again putting everybody on point,
making sure everybody's focusing on the right thing. And then schedule,
that's so important. Like football players just need to know
the schedule. The schedule is probably the most posted thing
on any NFL locker room, is on every TV, It's
on everything. When do I gotta go in for workouts?
(12:52):
When do I gotta talk to my coach? When do
I got treatment? And when can I get the hell
out of this building so I go see my family?
I mean in the coach is vitolin setting those landmarks
and setting the schedule very important. Rex Ryan obviously was
a former head coach. He actually said his biggest regret
in coaching was missing the birth of one of his children.
He said, quote, I missed that one not recommended. That's
(13:14):
my biggest regret in coaching. That's you know, like this
is a labor, love, and a lot of I won't
miss my sons. Yeah, we got to a certain point.
We were playing Tennessee hous with four to nine. As
we're playing Tennessee that Sunday and the doctor, we talked,
if we get to Tuesday that week and he ain't here,
we didn't do it. Tuesday came, We walked in, We
(13:34):
was partying, we had the music on. We induced he
came when we had him come, ye part Now I
don't have children. I can't imagine how many people who
are listening to this post. You had music going going.
I got a whole video I edited and everything that
does sound like a type of move here. Let's talk
a little bit about your typical Monday through Saturday for
(13:55):
an NFL coach. He got a ton of meetings various people.
You got full team meetings almost on a daily basis.
They're sitting in on offensive defenses and special team meetings,
position group meeting. Most have regular conversations with their team
owners along with front office executives. Most meet regularly with
player leadership committees. Uh and Rob, you know about that
(14:15):
because I know you were that dude. Various meetings with others.
He got training staff, strength and conditioning coaches, you got
quarterback gurus that it might be helping out. You've got
obligations to the media that you have to go and do.
Can't you just get one zoom going and just be like, yeah,
it's a rap no, because that you know that that
leadership committee. Uh yeah, I've been on a lot of them,
and you'd be surprised some of the things that have
(14:37):
been You haven't seen that show first forty eight when
he put the spotlight on the criminal and then they
start asking them questions and then you stop seeing them
shaking and start folding a way. Man, it'd be a
bunch of telling on people in the meeting. Sometimes I'll
be like, may shut up, Mike. I have taken more
fines in those meetings because I will not tell on
my teammates. I have personally taken the fine because I
(15:01):
will not tell on my teammates' golden take. Did I
said that out loud? He was it out? He was
actually up here. Yeah, he did a show. He held
me ten thousand dollars and I and I ain't gonna
say what it was for on this podcast, but maybe
snitching man, because you know the coach be like, hey,
what's going on? Man? You know what's going on with
the team. Do we need to go? Do we need
to take the pads off? You know me, I'm full
(15:22):
back away say yeah, may take the pass off and
take paths on my defensive lineman. They hurt my officsive linement.
They heard the quarterback got touched last week. Take the paths,
you know what's stuff like that. But man, guys be snitching.
I'm not gonna talk about and again you are listening.
Can you give me an example. You're not gonna call
anyone out our listeners can guess. I've only played for
two teams, Mike, Okay, it's not very hard. I only
(15:43):
played for the Services before the nine US and the
Seattle Seahawks. Man, I've been a part of a meeting
man with this dude, and in that meeting and coach saying, hey, man,
so what's going on? And he just started spitting all
the types of stuff to the point where guys are like, dude,
shut up. Yep, I'm not gonna say who the guy was.
I played with a lot of different guys than that.
(16:05):
To the football league, Mike. I'm just saying sometimes that
turns into a big title tell fest. But head coaches
in season, let's see whyhould transition back. We steer this
thing back. Head coaches in season. Look, man, you think
they're meeting with they they have staff meetings early every day,
right because think about it. I talked about the head coach.
(16:29):
I'm a professional talker. This is what I do. Okay,
coaches have to set the direction and so every part
of that football building has to be on the same page.
And we want our super Bowl in Seattle. Every I'm
talking about the janitor, which was ended up being beast
most uncle. The janitor knew what we were trying to do.
We wanted to dynastay. Everybody was on the same page.
(16:52):
You have staff meetings with everybody in the organization. You
got the medical staff, everybody, nutritions, everybody talking everything. Then
you have a straight coaches meeting. You gotta talk about
the coaches, how the issues from medical staff, How does
that going on with the game plan this week? That's
gonna affect the personnel changes that could possibly happen. I'm
talking about this happening on Monday, when Tuesdays when you
bring in players in to work them out, to see
(17:14):
if they could be on your roster for that week.
So again, and that's before the team and we talked
about the team meeting where the coach actually has to
you know, talk to the team and the players and
things like that. So it's a lot that goes on
and Mike, usually team meetings, which is the last of
the meetings I'm talking about teamings, usually happen eight o'clock
in the all. So what I'm saying is there's a
lot that goes on before that meeting that the head
(17:35):
coach has to go through. One thing you haven't mentioned
is film study. And that's all I ever hear about
from a player's perspective or the players that don't do it,
which we don't need to get into. That was chronicles
before the season started. But also the coaches take me
through that. So a head coach looks at film. A
lot of times, a head coach is looking at those
looking at tape and stuff when players have to be
(17:58):
in other areas. Players may be going through their position meetings,
players may be going through workouts, whatever the case may be,
with the head coach and have to be there. That's
when he's going through his tape that's when he's set
in a direction. That's when he's saying, Okay, yeah, you
know we're playing a high flying offense, we might have
to run the ball a little bit more. Again, I'm
not saying called the play. I'm saying, set the philosophical
(18:22):
direction for that week. That's what the head coach is
doing when he's watching tape and things like that. So, yeah,
tape was all over the place. Position coaches and coordinators
probably watch a little bit more tape, you know what
I'm saying, because again, they're the ones dealing directly with
the player. Given the player the tools and his tool
belt so that the guy can go out there and
(18:43):
do his job. And then there's practice. Oh yeah, there's practice.
We just got the practice. Yeah. I feel like I've
been talking forever and we just got the practice. We
did practice. Generally, we're talking about Wednesday through Saturday. If
it's a road week, a little different because of travel
on either Friday or Saturday. There's a full practice on Wednesday,
and then the practices actually get shorter as the week
(19:05):
progress is there and then you got essentially no pads
on Saturday. Why even bother all I hear about from well,
the full pad deal, like, why are we in pads
this much? And I know it's been cut down, but
all I keep hearing about is dudes struggling to get
out of bed. The pain that's They're like, why even
bother going is there? Really is okay? When I decided
(19:27):
to play for a long time ago, when I got
a scholarship to go to Penn State, when I got
drafted and decided to sign that signing bonus and cash
that check, I signed up for eggs and pains and
getting out the bed slow and all that. I know
exactly what I signed up for. I'll make an example
like this. So, Mike, you're a great host, bro. Amazing,
like the way you are able to handle ideas. Sometimes
(19:50):
I see the teleprompt to be breaking on t A
and you still be handled it doing all your things.
It's amazing, all seriously, but you're able to do that
right because you had reps. You had the reps of
messing up a few times. Not doing it is perfectly
I wanted to do. And so now you've gotten to
a point where you know, I do my thing. Even
if I do mess up, I ain't really mess up
(20:10):
because you know what I'm saying that's that's what I do.
Same thing with football players. They need the work with
full pads on because that's what the game is played
in full pads. You know what I'm saying, Um, I
get taken care of the player. I get that the
rules have kind of parred down a little bit where
you're not in pads every week, or you don't have
to be in pads every week. And yes, you do
(20:31):
have to take some of the hits off the guys.
But look, I played fullback and we had a podcast
before I said, I used to tell some of the
scout guys, hey, look bro, I know we don't have
passed today, but I need you to go put on
your path because I need that work at the end
of practice. You gotta get laded up. Football is a
physical sport. You cannot play the game of football without
doing physical activities, and that's practicing with your pads on.
(20:53):
It's also interesting too, because I've heard this over the years,
and not to make this a college thing, because I
know it does happen occasionally in the pros, but I'll
reference it because I know first half when USC and
Willie would be made. First off, I'm bringing this up.
But when US was dealing with a lot of sanctions,
they were low on numbers and to combatant, they weren't
tackling in practice. And then all of a sudden you
saw tackling become an issue in some of their games
(21:14):
because just dudes weren't doing that during the course of
the week. So I think what you're speaking to in
terms of reps is a real thing. Early on in
football seasons, we mike you hear man, We see Twitter,
we see social media. We got to deal with it
on some of the shows here at NFL Network had
of fans are like, oh man, it's going on. My
guys are missing. We see it every week. The first
six weeks of the season are essentially preseason. It's essentially
(21:36):
guys getting enough game reps to master the craft. Yeah, no,
I'm with you there. One other note, by the way,
on coaches and their schedules, because I think a lot
of people watch Thursday Night Football on Amazon. What's fascinating
to me is the amount of times that you hear
Al Michael's and Herb Street talk about the meetings that
they're having with players and coaches. That is a huge
(21:58):
part of the broadcast and part of their responsibility ahead
of the game to give you some intel, talk to
you about some things off the records and things really
some things on the record, to get a sense of
what's about to happen during the course of the week.
The point is, coach is pretty damn busy coming up
next here. I don't know what you're thinking. They're getting paid, right,
it's all about the Benjamin's find out about those page
(22:18):
checks a little bit more. Will we come back here
on the NFL Explained podcast Welcome back to the NFL
Explained Podcasts. I made reference to it in our last episodes.
Nothing wrong with sliding into the d m s. You
know what I'm saying. At Real Mike rob at Mike Underscore. Yeam,
(22:39):
we've been getting questions from you. I'm legit excited. We've
gotten some good ones so far. If there's a topic
or a question you want answered, I promise we will
work it into our mail bag episodes. So keep some
of those comments and those questions coming our way. But
I had made reference to some of the cash and
the checks, Like at the end of the day, everyone
knows a lot of these players are making serious money.
(23:01):
I mean We're always referring to a lot of those contracts,
but NFL coaching allies not always released to the public.
So we put together, we got a little bit of data,
we know some people who know some people. UH put
together in NFL head coaching salary, sort of list a
couple of notable contracts and just sort of some sources
that we really trust. The average coach three to four
(23:22):
million per year on the low end and over ten
million a year on the high end. Pete Carroll not
that we need to be blowing up anyone's salaries, and
we're gonna do it anyway, signed an extension eleven plus
mill in December of our guy Ian Rappaport, he said
he signed another five year extension to make him one
of the most highly compensated, if not the highest paid
(23:43):
coach in the NFL. That five year extension that was
reported by Adam Schefter in eighteen. Rappaport had those original numbers.
Cincinnati Zach Taylor he signed an undisclosed extension this offseason
after being one of the lowest paid NFL coaches at
three point seven five million dollars per year. That's according
to Schefiters. Yeah, it's nice toning that and look, I
(24:05):
know people are like, Mike, did you just say three
point seven five? That's all. If the most important position
is the quarterback position, and that guy's salary is ballooning
around forty million per and you're supposed to be one
of those guys that can make those guys one of
the best in the league, I think you should make
more than three and a half million. Get to a
super Bowl that help get you that raise. David Culley
(24:29):
at Houston signy fully guaranteed four year, twenty two million
dollar contract, fired after one season, bring me the cash,
ship me my bread and didn't fire me. You were
here from me for the next three years. Money well spent,
I would say yes, especially the ones that have a
proven track record, like the ones you know obviously, the Belichecks,
(24:50):
the Pete Carroll's, the guys that have been proven to
go places and when I think they should, especially when
you look at the TV money, the ballooning salaries of players.
I mean, if everybody, if all ships arise and truly
let all ship, I think head coaches should make more.
And I do think the ones that can go into
any football situation and help their team, I mean by this.
(25:12):
You got your Sean mcveigh's, your offensive gurules, you got
your ta bows, your defensive gurus and play callers. Those guys, Okay,
to Bowl sees the game, certain leins, Okay, he sees
the game happening. He's gonna always look at well, how
can we stop them from doing the positive? You see
what I'm saying, Because that's a that's a defensive concept,
that's a defensive way of thinking. Sean McVeigh is gonna
(25:34):
always be an attack mode. He's always gonna say, oh,
they're scoring, Okay, how can we score more? You see
what I'm saying. It's a different way of looking at it.
But when you got that coach and again I had
your paternal in college, but there's coaches out there in
the national football they get e Bill Belichick whatever who
And I know Bill Belichick has a defensive specialty to it,
but can walk into any situation at halftime. Remember being
(25:57):
down by two touchdowns. I think it was the Green
Bay may have been to somebody else with the Seattle Seahawks,
and Pete Carroll walked into the offensive side and say, hey,
I know we're down by fourteen points, but we're gonna
go twenty two personnel with just two tight ends and
two running backs and one while receiving we're gonna go
twenty two and twenty one personnel, arrested the game and
we're gonna win. And we looked like but that goes
against conventional wisdom. He saw something, he saw that he
(26:19):
couldn't handle, beast mode. He saw the weak side run
game out of two tight ends they couldn't handle. Again,
a coach walking into a football situation and lending his expertise,
and at the end of the day, if we want
to lose, it falls on him. That's his job. That's
you see what I'm saying. So it's always nice from
a players standpoint to look at a guy and know
that you have a guy that can walk in any
(26:39):
situation to help you. If you're listening to this podcast,
well clearly you're listening to this podcast. But if you
just heard m Rob, well you did hear m Rob.
M Rob just said twenty two personnel. If that's confusing
to you, I do encourage people to go back to
one of our previous episodes where we talked about offensive
play calling and what that actually entails. It is a
great recap for anyone here that has been checking out
the NFL Explained podcast. Game Day sort of an interesting
(27:03):
scenario he got the morning of your your of course,
if you're a coach, you're looking at some of the
game film, that one last look at it. You're probably
with your family, maybe that pregame meal, going over some
last minute stuff. Late morning, you go from hotel to
the stadium, even if you're the home team, because the
home team also stays at a hotel. Once you get there,
you're making some determinations on actives and inactives. You're meeting
(27:26):
with your coaches, players, game officials, announcers as well. From
an inactive active selection. What goes into that if you're
a head coach, man first and foremost as injuries, Like
most guys are active or inactive based off of health.
Can they you know, can they physically go out there
and help the team and do their job and be
(27:47):
the best version of themselves. Yeah, you have guys that
are part of the fifty three man roster that you
already know, Okay, this guy probably will be inactive. Will
have them just in case somebody in this position group
goes down. But injuries determine a lot of those inactives.
Game plan like, okay, we want to run the football.
Going back to that example that I said a little
(28:08):
bit earlier, we're dealing with a high power team offensively,
we want to run the football because defensively we may
have some issues stopping the other team. So maybe we
bring up a running back this week, maybe we put
down a linebacker this week, and you kind of play
that chess game. And then last but not least, business man.
I mean, I don't know if I should be saying
(28:29):
it on the NFL podcast, but just me and you,
ain't just me and you, Okay, nobody else here, Okay, cool? Well,
you know, sometimes God may need some catches for a
certain incenter. Happened and they're like, well, you said what
about me? You said this about me. We're already losing. Um,
you're gonna be inactive today. We're not gonna You're not
gonna be able to get that bonus. Or Jimmy Garoppolo,
(28:52):
I mean, what if he was still what if Tree
Lance was still healthy or whatever, and Jimmy Garoppolo was
on the team, they probably make him inactive every week.
You know what I'm saying? So business does play a
role in its Super Bowl year for the Bucks. A
couple of years ago, Tom Brady was aware even Bruce
Arians had made reference to some guys being close to bonuses.
They made a concerted effort late in that season get
(29:12):
those dudes to ras. Sean m does the same thing.
Man who need a bonus? Give him a catch? Yeah,
get your dudes paid. You mentioned some of the in
game adjustments that come at halftime. You give us an
example before those big time speeches that we see in
the movies. Is that a thing? Uh no, not not
really is you? The speeches, the real good speeches to
(29:36):
me come from the players or the position coaches, because
that many and the fire man, I mean, they are
the ones that are literally going back and forth with
the opponent. You know what I'm saying. But one thing
a head coach can do. A head coach can alleviate
doubt at halftime. If you're doubting your team, if you're
(29:57):
doubting your opportunity to come back in a game, if
you're doubting your ability to finish, the head coach makes
you go. All that know the thirty three rule, Right
percent of people gonna be leaders three percent of people
are gonna be able to go either way in thirty three. Look, man,
I ain't doing it. The head coaches put that bottom
thirty three, the head coach goes after them, then the
(30:19):
upper thirty three. During that halftime speech raises all ships
coin flip. Who's making the call? Usually the head coach
come yeah. Usually the head coach will come over. I
know when I was always calling the coin flip, it
would always be so funny. It would always be the
head coach find me because out for whatever reason they
wanted me to talk. Head coach will find me. But
he would always have the field goal kicker right next
(30:40):
to him, and the field goals kicker basically look at
his thumb saying with direction, winds going throwing up grass,
acting like he's a mediologist. He's talking about whether and
the angles and degrees and in halftime, in the sunsets
and instead and uh yeah, but the final one comes
down to the head coach. Okay, I made reference to
coaches in their ages. A little bit earlier. We've taken
(31:02):
people through, generally speaking, what the coaches are doing during
the week, responsibilities calling plays. You're thinking to yourself, well,
you've got some coaches who already have coordinators. So who's
doing what. Here's how I'm gonna break it down for you.
Thirty two head coaches, eighteen of them call the plays
on defense or offense. As you could imagine, fourteen of
(31:22):
those coaches are calling offense, only four calling defense. And
just so that you have some sort of semblance of
whose specialty is what, I'll take you through it. Cliff Kingsbury,
Arthur Smith, Zach Taylor, Kevin Stefanski, Nathaniel Hackett, Moult Floor,
Frank Reich, Doug Peterson, Andy Reid, Josh McDaniels, Sean McVeigh,
Mike McDaniel, Kevin O'Connell, Kyle Shinahan. All on the offensive
(31:45):
side defensively, Love Smith, Brandon Staley, Dennis Allen, Todd Bowles.
Obvious question put Bill Belichick in that AMPK. They're both
defensive more sliding to that side. Well, we'll lean that way.
I think the obvious question here is have the eight
calling plays? What are you doing? Alright? Mike? You know
(32:07):
I meditate right then I'll tell you that you actually
didn't tell me. I feel like I would have. I'm
really deep when it comes to that and meditation really
is the ability to stay focused on one thing without
allowing other stuff in. And your reality comes with what
you focus on the most stuff. You see what I'm saying.
(32:27):
The head coach's job is to keep a pulse on
the team and to remind everyone with the direction and
the purpose always is he keeps the team focused so
that the reality that the entire team wants can come
to fruition. Now, things happen. We're all human, and that
(32:49):
conscious focus on that goal sometimes gets skewed. You know, somebody,
you know the media starts talking about their head coaches
job being up, you know, up for grabs or whatever.
That can skew his focus and things like that. But
the good ones stay focused. I love Bill Belichick. Man,
you hear them here at the press conference. He's the
same old dude. He may gave you a little half smile,
(33:09):
but he's the same old dude over and over and over.
And another thing the head coach does, because it's in
humans nature, it's the blame it on somebody, right, we
lose put the finger point the finger, and that's good
mental health for the players, right, because you don't want
them to be down on themselves. And that's why you
always see the good coaches, I e. Sean McVeigh, I
(33:29):
either Pete Carroll's the Bill Beck that was on me.
I did that. That was on me. Any decisions that
they're making that I'm not thinking of during the game.
And to me, like Brandon Stalley, I just brought his
damn like he's gotten a lot of heat for like
those fourth down, fourth down penalty outcomes, whether to go
(33:50):
for it or not on fourth down. I think you
would just going there with Brandon Staley whether to kick
a field goal punt or not. Talk to the Whitehattan
officials and to make them to wear of their jobs.
You know what I'm um guarantee the players need are
being met in armed to do their job effectively, basically
meaning putting the pressure on the assistant coaches so that
(34:12):
these guys are armed to do their job again keeping
everybody focused on the goal at hand. Is there. Look,
I just mentioned that the some of the coaches that
we have in the NFL, there's some really high level
guys that have achieved so much in this league. When
you reflect back to you that you're playing days or
guys that you've been around, anyone that comes to mind,
(34:33):
and you would say, hey, revolutionize the game. Revolutionized the game. Um,
you hit me. You hear me talk a lot about
Pete Carroll. I think his approach as far as being
more of a player coach, always focusing on the positive,
never really bringing up or highlighting the negativity, was revolutionary.
And I think his first stint as a head coach,
(34:55):
the league wasn't ready for it. The second stint, the
league was ready for the right young person started to
come through. People may not know this, but Mike Marts
the par exactly the greatest show on turf for the St.
Louis Rams. He was my offensive coordinator in San Francisco
for a couple of years, and I think he revolutionized
offense with timing and spacing and the quarterback being able
(35:17):
to hit his last step, let the ball go to
an area, to a space, and allowing the receiver to
come into Things like that are now just part of
everyday vernacular, part of everyday NFL concept. You know what's
sort of interesting. I keep seeing Kyle Shanahan. I've been
up to the Bay Area numerous times. I know obviously
I saw his dad, Mike, what he was able to
do with the Broncos for a really long period of
(35:38):
time and have success there. I'm always fascinated by like
the father sons, like what those calls are on those
off days, like if Dad's been watching something, It's almost
like having an additional coat. Like now your staff, the
Shannon has I'm actually glad you said that. Now they
have been revolutionary. I've never played with, but you know,
obviously Bill Walsh, most of the West Coast concepts are
(36:00):
now just regularly just part of everyday football. Mike Shanahan,
shan and those guys, that's Shanahan style. That the way
that you run the football, the way that you coach
the offensive line, the way that you coach the running
back to get to a spot and make a decision,
and then it's easy playing it after that. I do
think that Shanahan system is revolution as the game. But
(36:21):
then you have guys like Matt Lafleur who went his
way with it. You got Sean McVeigh who out leverages
defenses by motion shifts in the wide receiver diversity that
he has. That's how he went his way with it.
Kyle Shanahan and younger Shanahan the way he outleverages defenses
by not only motions and shifts, but by the ball
carrier who's carrying the football, and just in the run game.
(36:44):
I just don't think that there's a better guy at
out leveraging a defense. So he took that Shanahan, his
dad Shanahan offense to a whole another direction. I think
the Shanahan system right now is probably the most revolutionary
system in today's modern game. Yeah, it's kind of wild
man like. And I wonder what those conversations are really
like between those two dudes when they're just talking ball. Like,
if God's like, dude, I'm proud of you, like this
(37:06):
is sure he is, But I guarantee you he's challenging
them that, well, if a defense does this, you can't
do this and coles hell dad. But if I do
this in the backfield, my backfield action is this, his
eyes are gonna go here. It's a big game with
chess man. Yeah. I remember when I first got to ESPN,
someone gave me a piece of advice. They said, look,
you're working with so many different anchors and hosts. Take
(37:26):
and see what people are doing and use it yourself.
But like, your own style is gonna morph out of
that just naturally from just doing your thing. You can't
mimic and completely copy someone else. And I think the
way you just described it with a lot of these coaches,
it's the same thing, right, Like there's some core base
concepts that are there, and then everyone just sort of
puts their little pixie dust, their personal pixie dust on it,
and it becomes their own. It becomes their own. And
(37:48):
even when you look at if you really study Bill
Walsh and his story, I mean he talks about it offers.
I think we may have talked about it here. He
talked about developing this offense out of desperation. I mean,
stuff was happening, Injuries was happening, and they had a
certain quarterback at So that's how the West Coach short
passing system came to voition Oftentimes as injuries oftentimes, it's
things that are happening human human beings are very smart.
(38:11):
Things are happening with their team, and you're just like, Okay,
how can I figure this out. That's how the spread
system went in. That's how read option happened, that's how
all pos happened. Oh my office line isn't that good? Well,
everybody blocked down we'll just handle everybody with the ball.
Handling ball travels faster thing than players, and that's how
that came to us. I love it. Man, talk about
this all day, No seriously, and look, we can and
(38:34):
we will continue to have these types of conversations throughout
the course of the season. We've been talking a little
bit about the duties of a head football coach. Hopefully
you've enjoyed this episode and if you didn't, you just
get into Mike robs d m at Real and my
wife said, no at Real, Mic rob at Mike underscore. Yeah,
NFL head coaches and what they do, explain, no,
NFL Explained is a production of the NFL in partnership
with I Heart Radio. Hello, beautiful people, that's like my
m ROV introduction. I'm trying my best. Did I bring
it like you would? Your voice conveys way more emotion
(00:26):
than mine does, but I was trying to do the
intro like you would do it. It's a brand new
edition of NFL Explained, Mike Yam Michael robinsons with me.
I'm trying to match your energy level and your positivity,
So I promise. As we are teasing head coaches and
saying they won't really do anything, I'm going to say
it would a smile on people can hear the smile
(00:48):
through the sound waves through the airways. Man. But I'm
doing great. It's another football week. Can't wait to talk
some Yes. Well, part of that conversation, and I'm touching
on it a little bit, is the fact of we
watch all these games. We see these head coaches on
the sidelines, and I know what you're thinking, like, what
are these dudes actually do? Right? Like it's game day.
They got coordinators, they got you know, different dudes run
(01:11):
around the position coaches. The whole thing. We've all seen
hard knocks. We've seen how big the coaches rooms actually are.
It feels like they're just dudes. Like CEO is almost
just saying, hey, point one direction, get this done for me.
It's getting a little bit more CEO ish as we
you know, evolved. But I'm glad I get to talk
about it today. I can finally say what I want
to say about head coaches. But get fined, you know
(01:33):
what I mean. You know, when you're a player, you
can find you say some negative things about the head coach.
Ye do we do? We beg you're going And I've
heard from you. You've actually gotten phone calls after some
of the things that you've said about head coaches in
commercial breaks. But I'm not even getting paid by him anymore.
I'm in the media and I still get the call.
And you and you told that coach you can't find
me this time, not gonna happen. Look, and there's some
(01:57):
coaches that are out there. You've got the old heads,
the O g so to speak to belichicks of the
world that certainly come to mind. You got the mcveighs.
On the other side, it feels like it runs gamut
in terms of personality style. The whole thing. Is there
really a need though, I think that almost might because
we always hear this phrase like, oh, they're professionals out there,
do you actually, like really need a head coach? I
(02:19):
know that sounds sort of ridiculous because of what we're
used to, but like to not really know some of
the intricacies, I think someone might ask that question. I'll
start by saying this, I believe, Mike, that every human
being walking the planet needs a coach. So I'll start
by saying that because some days we wake up some
(02:41):
days we are motivated, some days we you know, we're
wake up on the bad hone, the wrong side of
the pillow. Sometimes sometimes you just need somebody to help,
uh kindle that fire that's already inside of you said,
you need to try to help bring it out, and
a head coaching football is no different, right. It helps
provide direction. And again, I only play for a few
head coaches in the National Football League, so my experience
(03:03):
is a little limited. But I'll talk about Pete Carroll
because I know a lot of our listeners know exactly
who Pete Carroll is. He provided direction for us, and
I know that's very simple and you know whatever, But
it's a lot of different layers to it. He had
different messaging. So I was with the Seattle Seas from
my last season was season four seasons and the messaging,
(03:24):
especially early in the season in when I first got there,
was totally different than the messaging he was saying in
the season when we had the quarterback, we knew our
defense worked, we had the running back, and Beast was
a generational like we had of all the pieces in.
He was more talking like, hey, guys, we're gonna be
a thorn in some people's behinds. Man the like, we're
(03:47):
not gonna be a hard out. I know I just
got here. And I'm talking to Pete Carroll. He's like,
I know, I just got here. I know where we
broke all they broke. We broke a record for like
transactions like two or some transactions during like I don't know,
training camp or something like that. It was a lot, right,
we were getting guys in and out of the locker room.
We should actually play a game in the locker room,
like all right, we're gonna guess who's going to walk
through here today. It was that many guys going in
(04:09):
and out of the line. We would we would try
to guess it, but that was the messaging in better
by the way coming in and going out. Absolutely yeah um.
And we went to the playoffs with the seven and
nine record eleven. It changed a little bit because our
team was a little bit better. We still didn't quite
find the quarterback. We found our quarterback. We knew that
the league was on notice, we knew that we were
(04:30):
one of the best teams in the league. We knew
that this was kind of our time, and Pete provided
that direction. He told us where we needed to go,
and obviously we responded to it. How often did you
see coaches being willing to evolve? Because I I'm looking
at you and you're telling me about some of your
experiences in the NFL. I'm thinking back to one of
our previous episodes when we talk about evolutions of offenses
(04:52):
and quarterbacks, and you know the story in your recruiting
process at Penn State dual threat or you were a
real dual threat quarterback, and that wasn't something that Joe Paterno,
for example, it was used to seeing. I think about
him as old school as it really gets, and yet
he was willing to make those changes. The adaptability factor
are the more experienced guys less willing to make those changes. Yeah,
(05:17):
because doing what they've done in the past got them
to where they are. So they're like, well, why would
I change when that version of myself has elevated me
to get in the job of my dreams being a
head coach on whatever level that that that may be.
But I will say this, deadlines force change. Deadlines force change.
We know that in business. We know that anytime there's
(05:39):
a you know, the trade deadline, you hear nothing about
a damn trade and then all of a sudden, twenty
four hours before the trade deadline comes all of these
speculation things, you know, stuff starts to happen. And even
with Joe Paternal, I think the change happened because, first
of all, college football changed, and then I think it
was pressure from the board of trust and he's the
fire I think there was pressure. There's pressure from front
(06:01):
offices and owners on head coaches, whether you're young or
the year old, but especially because we talk about some
of the older ones, you better change or you lose
your job. You see what I'm saying that that that
that that deadline is the losing your job part. And
when you get nine and will say threatened. But when
you get presented with that type of the situation, head
(06:23):
coaches are in one of those situations, whether they're like
I either gotta get with the program or die sticking
with my program, which most of them evolved. Well, m Rob,
you know the younger guys, Pete Carroll as you made reference,
who is not necessarily a young guy anymore but has
sort of that that young way about him and obviously
came from USC, Joe pa Turner, sort of the old
(06:44):
school mentality. I want to take you through some new
head coaches. Thirty two head coaches in the NFL. Ten
of the thirty two are in the first year with
their teams. Mike McDaniel, Brian Dayball, not I Reflus, Nathaniel Hackett,
Kevin O'Connell, Todd Bowles, Doug Peterson, Dennis Allen, Lovey Smith,
and Josh McDaniels, just to name those guys that are
out there. Okay, so there's a physical goal appearance for
(07:07):
some of the coaches in the league. They just look young,
and guess what, because they are young. As of this season,
the average age of an NFL coaches forty nine point
two years old. There are nineteen coaches over forty and
thirteen under that age. Yeah, let's start with the offseason
where the NFL coaches have a little bit of a
(07:28):
letter schedule, though, because I think it's important for us
to kind of dive into what a lot of these
guys are doing on a regular basis offseason. You're like, oh, yeah,
it's light. No, it's still kind of busy here. You've
got staffing issues that you need to address, coaches that
are leaving, moving on, guys that you need to replace
them with. You're sitting down with your general manager talking
about free agents, draft strategy. My lord, I know the
(07:49):
conversations that happened in this building around the draft, and
it's pretty epic. There's only one head coach who has
the role of GM that title and coach. That's Bill Belichick. Yeah,
you've done that before. We heard that some of the
most successful early head coaches that were also GMS early
Curly Lambeau, Paul Brown. I know you like that one.
(08:09):
George Hallis, Vince Lombardi shout out for Ham University. Bill Parcels,
by the way, notoriously said about being a coach GM cool.
They want you to cook the dinner. They can at
least let you buy the groceries. Perfect. Yeah, I'm also
the dude that doesn't want to buy the groceries but
definitely wants to eat and doesn't want to cook. That's
my role. I do go to the grocery shopping at
my household. There seems to be a little bit of
(08:31):
a weird disconnect when there comes to the general manager
that makes personnel decisions and a coach that just has
to deal with it and make the best of it.
Pete Carroll and you brought him up earlier in this podcast,
he's not GM slash coach. He's the executive vice president
of football Operations. Basically, what that means he actually has
a huge say in personnel as the guy that's on
the sidelines m rob that also has a saying who's
(08:54):
on his team. Is there a benefit to what they're
doing up there. It is a small benefit, just being
that you do want your head coach who represents the
coaching staff, and that you want those guys involved in
the scenael decisions because those are the guys who have
to deal with the personnel on a day to day
basis and make the schemes come off the paper into reality,
and that involves, you know, dealing with the players during
(09:17):
with personnel. So I do think that's a good set up.
I look at it as like this. I know you
just explained all that business stuff, you know, and I
get it. You know, we live in the Western world,
and you know we gotta have it as capitalism, and
you've got titles and all that type of stuff. From
a player's standpoint, this would it looks like to me,
It looks like a good cop bad cops. This looks
like an opportunity during negotiations, during whatever the case may be.
(09:42):
And I'm just gonna use Pete and John because those
my guys, those guys I know. But I'm talking about
all gms and head coaches and which head coaches who
have a little bit of a business role as well.
Hey man, who gonna play bad cop? Today? Who gonna
play a good cop? You know, where's the price point? Okay,
this is where we want to sign them from. Okay,
I'm gonna tell him how much we love him in
this that in the third you're gonna hit him with
the business side, and when he gets upset, I'm I'm
(10:04):
get him over here with me. Tell them how much
I love him and you, and they just go and
they do the dance. And I think it's it's good
to be able to have somebody who exclusively looks at personnel,
being that general manager role. And it also, again from
a coaching standpoint, who has to deal with the player
every day, gives somebody to blame stuff on. Hey man,
(10:26):
it's just john Man, it's Johnson. He wanted to let
you go. That won't me. Man, I love you, you
know what I'm saying. That's a good card backup dynamic.
It does make some sense, but it also strikes me
as really difficult to balance both of those roles because
that's a lot of responsibility. You gotta delegate, man, but
then you're not your fingertips aren't on everything then, And
(10:46):
it's only twenty four hours in a day, but you
gotta sleep for eight hours. That gives you sixty. I mean,
you got family, it's only it's only limited. So you
have to be able to do the research on your
coaching staff to know that the guys you have around
you are going to do the work. That's why you
see so many guys take their homies and friends that
get into the level job. They just got rocket up
(11:07):
the organizations because it's all about trust against human relationships.
Welcome back to the NFL Explained podcast. Okay, so, as
far as the responsibilities are concerned, I mentioned the staffing
issues that are there. You got league meetings, you got
(11:27):
offseason programs, strength and conditioning workouts in April early May,
you got the Rookie Football Development Program, rookie Minicamp in
mid May. You got voluntary O t A s in
May and June, you got mandatory minicamp in June. How
important is the head coach when it comes to those
activities like infseason. Yeah? Oh man, Like they're not you know,
(11:51):
taking you through those workouts the coaches they put I mean,
you know, you see Pete Carrot throwing the football around,
but they're not really doing nothing for real. They just
you know, they're just having a good time and whatever.
But I will say this, just like I started off
the podcast and saying, they still provide direction. So yeah,
we may not meet every day with the head coach
(12:12):
in the off season, but we do meet every week,
and that one meeting that when big team meeting will
have a week. Yeah, the coach will talk about the goals.
They'll talk about, Hey, man, we got some fat guys
I'm looking at I'm looking at the weights coming in. Man,
you need to stop your extracrict activity or we got
the draft coming up. You know what I'm saying. These
are the holes in our roster. You know what I'm saying,
(12:32):
these are the needs. We just again putting everybody on point,
making sure everybody's focusing on the right thing. And then schedule,
that's so important. Like football players just need to know
the schedule. The schedule is probably the most posted thing
on any NFL locker room, is on every TV, It's
on everything. When do I gotta go in for workouts?
(12:52):
When do I gotta talk to my coach? When do
I got treatment? And when can I get the hell
out of this building so I go see my family?
I mean in the coach is vitolin setting those landmarks
and setting the schedule very important. Rex Ryan obviously was
a former head coach. He actually said his biggest regret
in coaching was missing the birth of one of his children.
He said, quote, I missed that one not recommended. That's
(13:14):
my biggest regret in coaching. That's you know, like this
is a labor, love, and a lot of I won't
miss my sons. Yeah, we got to a certain point.
We were playing Tennessee hous with four to nine. As
we're playing Tennessee that Sunday and the doctor, we talked,
if we get to Tuesday that week and he ain't here,
we didn't do it. Tuesday came, We walked in, We
(13:34):
was partying, we had the music on. We induced he
came when we had him come, ye part Now I
don't have children. I can't imagine how many people who
are listening to this post. You had music going going.
I got a whole video I edited and everything that
does sound like a type of move here. Let's talk
a little bit about your typical Monday through Saturday for
(13:55):
an NFL coach. He got a ton of meetings various people.
You got full team meetings almost on a daily basis.
They're sitting in on offensive defenses and special team meetings,
position group meeting. Most have regular conversations with their team
owners along with front office executives. Most meet regularly with
player leadership committees. Uh and Rob, you know about that
(14:15):
because I know you were that dude. Various meetings with others.
He got training staff, strength and conditioning coaches, you got
quarterback gurus that it might be helping out. You've got
obligations to the media that you have to go and do.
Can't you just get one zoom going and just be like, yeah,
it's a rap no, because that you know that that
leadership committee. Uh yeah, I've been on a lot of them,
and you'd be surprised some of the things that have
(14:37):
been You haven't seen that show first forty eight when
he put the spotlight on the criminal and then they
start asking them questions and then you stop seeing them
shaking and start folding a way. Man, it'd be a
bunch of telling on people in the meeting. Sometimes I'll
be like, may shut up, Mike. I have taken more
fines in those meetings because I will not tell on
my teammates. I have personally taken the fine because I
(15:01):
will not tell on my teammates' golden take. Did I
said that out loud? He was it out? He was
actually up here. Yeah, he did a show. He held
me ten thousand dollars and I and I ain't gonna
say what it was for on this podcast, but maybe
snitching man, because you know the coach be like, hey,
what's going on? Man? You know what's going on with
the team. Do we need to go? Do we need
to take the pads off? You know me, I'm full
(15:22):
back away say yeah, may take the pass off and
take paths on my defensive lineman. They hurt my officsive linement.
They heard the quarterback got touched last week. Take the paths,
you know what's stuff like that. But man, guys be snitching.
I'm not gonna talk about and again you are listening.
Can you give me an example. You're not gonna call
anyone out our listeners can guess. I've only played for
two teams, Mike, Okay, it's not very hard. I only
(15:43):
played for the Services before the nine US and the
Seattle Seahawks. Man, I've been a part of a meeting
man with this dude, and in that meeting and coach saying, hey, man,
so what's going on? And he just started spitting all
the types of stuff to the point where guys are like, dude,
shut up. Yep, I'm not gonna say who the guy was.
I played with a lot of different guys than that.
(16:05):
To the football league, Mike. I'm just saying sometimes that
turns into a big title tell fest. But head coaches
in season, let's see whyhould transition back. We steer this
thing back. Head coaches in season. Look, man, you think
they're meeting with they they have staff meetings early every day,
right because think about it. I talked about the head coach.
(16:29):
I'm a professional talker. This is what I do. Okay,
coaches have to set the direction and so every part
of that football building has to be on the same page.
And we want our super Bowl in Seattle. Every I'm
talking about the janitor, which was ended up being beast
most uncle. The janitor knew what we were trying to do.
We wanted to dynastay. Everybody was on the same page.
(16:52):
You have staff meetings with everybody in the organization. You
got the medical staff, everybody, nutritions, everybody talking everything. Then
you have a straight coaches meeting. You gotta talk about
the coaches, how the issues from medical staff, How does
that going on with the game plan this week? That's
gonna affect the personnel changes that could possibly happen. I'm
talking about this happening on Monday, when Tuesdays when you
bring in players in to work them out, to see
(17:14):
if they could be on your roster for that week.
So again, and that's before the team and we talked
about the team meeting where the coach actually has to
you know, talk to the team and the players and
things like that. So it's a lot that goes on
and Mike, usually team meetings, which is the last of
the meetings I'm talking about teamings, usually happen eight o'clock
in the all. So what I'm saying is there's a
lot that goes on before that meeting that the head
(17:35):
coach has to go through. One thing you haven't mentioned
is film study. And that's all I ever hear about
from a player's perspective or the players that don't do it,
which we don't need to get into. That was chronicles
before the season started. But also the coaches take me
through that. So a head coach looks at film. A
lot of times, a head coach is looking at those
looking at tape and stuff when players have to be
(17:58):
in other areas. Players may be going through their position meetings,
players may be going through workouts, whatever the case may be,
with the head coach and have to be there. That's
when he's going through his tape that's when he's set
in a direction. That's when he's saying, Okay, yeah, you
know we're playing a high flying offense, we might have
to run the ball a little bit more. Again, I'm
not saying called the play. I'm saying, set the philosophical
(18:22):
direction for that week. That's what the head coach is
doing when he's watching tape and things like that. So, yeah,
tape was all over the place. Position coaches and coordinators
probably watch a little bit more tape, you know what
I'm saying, because again, they're the ones dealing directly with
the player. Given the player the tools and his tool
belt so that the guy can go out there and
(18:43):
do his job. And then there's practice. Oh yeah, there's practice.
We just got the practice. Yeah. I feel like I've
been talking forever and we just got the practice. We
did practice. Generally, we're talking about Wednesday through Saturday. If
it's a road week, a little different because of travel
on either Friday or Saturday. There's a full practice on Wednesday,
and then the practices actually get shorter as the week
(19:05):
progress is there and then you got essentially no pads
on Saturday. Why even bother all I hear about from well,
the full pad deal, like, why are we in pads
this much? And I know it's been cut down, but
all I keep hearing about is dudes struggling to get
out of bed. The pain that's They're like, why even
bother going is there? Really is okay? When I decided
(19:27):
to play for a long time ago, when I got
a scholarship to go to Penn State, when I got
drafted and decided to sign that signing bonus and cash
that check, I signed up for eggs and pains and
getting out the bed slow and all that. I know
exactly what I signed up for. I'll make an example
like this. So, Mike, you're a great host, bro. Amazing,
like the way you are able to handle ideas. Sometimes
(19:50):
I see the teleprompt to be breaking on t A
and you still be handled it doing all your things.
It's amazing, all seriously, but you're able to do that
right because you had reps. You had the reps of
messing up a few times. Not doing it is perfectly
I wanted to do. And so now you've gotten to
a point where you know, I do my thing. Even
if I do mess up, I ain't really mess up
(20:10):
because you know what I'm saying that's that's what I do.
Same thing with football players. They need the work with
full pads on because that's what the game is played
in full pads. You know what I'm saying, Um, I
get taken care of the player. I get that the
rules have kind of parred down a little bit where
you're not in pads every week, or you don't have
to be in pads every week. And yes, you do
(20:31):
have to take some of the hits off the guys.
But look, I played fullback and we had a podcast
before I said, I used to tell some of the
scout guys, hey, look bro, I know we don't have
passed today, but I need you to go put on
your path because I need that work at the end
of practice. You gotta get laded up. Football is a
physical sport. You cannot play the game of football without
doing physical activities, and that's practicing with your pads on.
(20:53):
It's also interesting too, because I've heard this over the years,
and not to make this a college thing, because I
know it does happen occasionally in the pros, but I'll
reference it because I know first half when USC and
Willie would be made. First off, I'm bringing this up.
But when US was dealing with a lot of sanctions,
they were low on numbers and to combatant, they weren't
tackling in practice. And then all of a sudden you
saw tackling become an issue in some of their games
(21:14):
because just dudes weren't doing that during the course of
the week. So I think what you're speaking to in
terms of reps is a real thing. Early on in
football seasons, we mike you hear man, We see Twitter,
we see social media. We got to deal with it
on some of the shows here at NFL Network had
of fans are like, oh man, it's going on. My
guys are missing. We see it every week. The first
six weeks of the season are essentially preseason. It's essentially
(21:36):
guys getting enough game reps to master the craft. Yeah, no,
I'm with you there. One other note, by the way,
on coaches and their schedules, because I think a lot
of people watch Thursday Night Football on Amazon. What's fascinating
to me is the amount of times that you hear
Al Michael's and Herb Street talk about the meetings that
they're having with players and coaches. That is a huge
(21:58):
part of the broadcast and part of their responsibility ahead
of the game to give you some intel, talk to
you about some things off the records and things really
some things on the record, to get a sense of
what's about to happen during the course of the week.
The point is, coach is pretty damn busy coming up
next here. I don't know what you're thinking. They're getting paid, right,
it's all about the Benjamin's find out about those page
(22:18):
checks a little bit more. Will we come back here
on the NFL Explained podcast Welcome back to the NFL
Explained Podcasts. I made reference to it in our last episodes.
Nothing wrong with sliding into the d m s. You
know what I'm saying. At Real Mike rob at Mike Underscore. Yeam,
(22:39):
we've been getting questions from you. I'm legit excited. We've
gotten some good ones so far. If there's a topic
or a question you want answered, I promise we will
work it into our mail bag episodes. So keep some
of those comments and those questions coming our way. But
I had made reference to some of the cash and
the checks, Like at the end of the day, everyone
knows a lot of these players are making serious money.
(23:01):
I mean We're always referring to a lot of those contracts,
but NFL coaching allies not always released to the public.
So we put together, we got a little bit of data,
we know some people who know some people. UH put
together in NFL head coaching salary, sort of list a
couple of notable contracts and just sort of some sources
that we really trust. The average coach three to four
(23:22):
million per year on the low end and over ten
million a year on the high end. Pete Carroll not
that we need to be blowing up anyone's salaries, and
we're gonna do it anyway, signed an extension eleven plus
mill in December of our guy Ian Rappaport, he said
he signed another five year extension to make him one
of the most highly compensated, if not the highest paid
(23:43):
coach in the NFL. That five year extension that was
reported by Adam Schefter in eighteen. Rappaport had those original numbers.
Cincinnati Zach Taylor he signed an undisclosed extension this offseason
after being one of the lowest paid NFL coaches at
three point seven five million dollars per year. That's according
to Schefiters. Yeah, it's nice toning that and look, I
(24:05):
know people are like, Mike, did you just say three
point seven five? That's all. If the most important position
is the quarterback position, and that guy's salary is ballooning
around forty million per and you're supposed to be one
of those guys that can make those guys one of
the best in the league, I think you should make
more than three and a half million. Get to a
super Bowl that help get you that raise. David Culley
(24:29):
at Houston signy fully guaranteed four year, twenty two million
dollar contract, fired after one season, bring me the cash,
ship me my bread and didn't fire me. You were
here from me for the next three years. Money well spent,
I would say yes, especially the ones that have a
proven track record, like the ones you know obviously, the Belichecks,
(24:50):
the Pete Carroll's, the guys that have been proven to
go places and when I think they should, especially when
you look at the TV money, the ballooning salaries of players.
I mean, if everybody, if all ships arise and truly
let all ship, I think head coaches should make more.
And I do think the ones that can go into
any football situation and help their team, I mean by this.
(25:12):
You got your Sean mcveigh's, your offensive gurules, you got
your ta bows, your defensive gurus and play callers. Those guys, Okay,
to Bowl sees the game, certain leins, Okay, he sees
the game happening. He's gonna always look at well, how
can we stop them from doing the positive? You see
what I'm saying, Because that's a that's a defensive concept,
that's a defensive way of thinking. Sean McVeigh is gonna
(25:34):
always be an attack mode. He's always gonna say, oh,
they're scoring, Okay, how can we score more? You see
what I'm saying. It's a different way of looking at it.
But when you got that coach and again I had
your paternal in college, but there's coaches out there in
the national football they get e Bill Belichick whatever who
And I know Bill Belichick has a defensive specialty to it,
but can walk into any situation at halftime. Remember being
(25:57):
down by two touchdowns. I think it was the Green
Bay may have been to somebody else with the Seattle Seahawks,
and Pete Carroll walked into the offensive side and say, hey,
I know we're down by fourteen points, but we're gonna
go twenty two personnel with just two tight ends and
two running backs and one while receiving we're gonna go
twenty two and twenty one personnel, arrested the game and
we're gonna win. And we looked like but that goes
against conventional wisdom. He saw something, he saw that he
(26:19):
couldn't handle, beast mode. He saw the weak side run
game out of two tight ends they couldn't handle. Again,
a coach walking into a football situation and lending his expertise,
and at the end of the day, if we want
to lose, it falls on him. That's his job. That's
you see what I'm saying. So it's always nice from
a players standpoint to look at a guy and know
that you have a guy that can walk in any
(26:39):
situation to help you. If you're listening to this podcast,
well clearly you're listening to this podcast. But if you
just heard m Rob, well you did hear m Rob.
M Rob just said twenty two personnel. If that's confusing
to you, I do encourage people to go back to
one of our previous episodes where we talked about offensive
play calling and what that actually entails. It is a
great recap for anyone here that has been checking out
the NFL Explained podcast. Game Day sort of an interesting
(27:03):
scenario he got the morning of your your of course,
if you're a coach, you're looking at some of the
game film, that one last look at it. You're probably
with your family, maybe that pregame meal, going over some
last minute stuff. Late morning, you go from hotel to
the stadium, even if you're the home team, because the
home team also stays at a hotel. Once you get there,
you're making some determinations on actives and inactives. You're meeting
(27:26):
with your coaches, players, game officials, announcers as well. From
an inactive active selection. What goes into that if you're
a head coach, man first and foremost as injuries, Like
most guys are active or inactive based off of health.
Can they you know, can they physically go out there
and help the team and do their job and be
(27:47):
the best version of themselves. Yeah, you have guys that
are part of the fifty three man roster that you
already know, Okay, this guy probably will be inactive. Will
have them just in case somebody in this position group
goes down. But injuries determine a lot of those inactives.
Game plan like, okay, we want to run the football.
Going back to that example that I said a little
(28:08):
bit earlier, we're dealing with a high power team offensively,
we want to run the football because defensively we may
have some issues stopping the other team. So maybe we
bring up a running back this week, maybe we put
down a linebacker this week, and you kind of play
that chess game. And then last but not least, business man.
I mean, I don't know if I should be saying
(28:29):
it on the NFL podcast, but just me and you,
ain't just me and you, Okay, nobody else here, Okay, cool? Well,
you know, sometimes God may need some catches for a
certain incenter. Happened and they're like, well, you said what
about me? You said this about me. We're already losing. Um,
you're gonna be inactive today. We're not gonna You're not
gonna be able to get that bonus. Or Jimmy Garoppolo,
(28:52):
I mean, what if he was still what if Tree
Lance was still healthy or whatever, and Jimmy Garoppolo was
on the team, they probably make him inactive every week.
You know what I'm saying? So business does play a
role in its Super Bowl year for the Bucks. A
couple of years ago, Tom Brady was aware even Bruce
Arians had made reference to some guys being close to bonuses.
They made a concerted effort late in that season get
(29:12):
those dudes to ras. Sean m does the same thing.
Man who need a bonus? Give him a catch? Yeah,
get your dudes paid. You mentioned some of the in
game adjustments that come at halftime. You give us an
example before those big time speeches that we see in
the movies. Is that a thing? Uh no, not not
really is you? The speeches, the real good speeches to
(29:36):
me come from the players or the position coaches, because
that many and the fire man, I mean, they are
the ones that are literally going back and forth with
the opponent. You know what I'm saying. But one thing
a head coach can do. A head coach can alleviate
doubt at halftime. If you're doubting your team, if you're
(29:57):
doubting your opportunity to come back in a game, if
you're doubting your ability to finish, the head coach makes
you go. All that know the thirty three rule, Right
percent of people gonna be leaders three percent of people
are gonna be able to go either way in thirty three. Look, man,
I ain't doing it. The head coaches put that bottom
thirty three, the head coach goes after them, then the
(30:19):
upper thirty three. During that halftime speech raises all ships
coin flip. Who's making the call? Usually the head coach
come yeah. Usually the head coach will come over. I
know when I was always calling the coin flip, it
would always be so funny. It would always be the
head coach find me because out for whatever reason they
wanted me to talk. Head coach will find me. But
he would always have the field goal kicker right next
(30:40):
to him, and the field goals kicker basically look at
his thumb saying with direction, winds going throwing up grass,
acting like he's a mediologist. He's talking about whether and
the angles and degrees and in halftime, in the sunsets
and instead and uh yeah, but the final one comes
down to the head coach. Okay, I made reference to
coaches in their ages. A little bit earlier. We've taken
(31:02):
people through, generally speaking, what the coaches are doing during
the week, responsibilities calling plays. You're thinking to yourself, well,
you've got some coaches who already have coordinators. So who's
doing what. Here's how I'm gonna break it down for you.
Thirty two head coaches, eighteen of them call the plays
on defense or offense. As you could imagine, fourteen of
(31:22):
those coaches are calling offense, only four calling defense. And
just so that you have some sort of semblance of
whose specialty is what, I'll take you through it. Cliff Kingsbury,
Arthur Smith, Zach Taylor, Kevin Stefanski, Nathaniel Hackett, Moult Floor,
Frank Reich, Doug Peterson, Andy Reid, Josh McDaniels, Sean McVeigh,
Mike McDaniel, Kevin O'Connell, Kyle Shinahan. All on the offensive
(31:45):
side defensively, Love Smith, Brandon Staley, Dennis Allen, Todd Bowles.
Obvious question put Bill Belichick in that AMPK. They're both
defensive more sliding to that side. Well, we'll lean that way.
I think the obvious question here is have the eight
calling plays? What are you doing? Alright? Mike? You know
(32:07):
I meditate right then I'll tell you that you actually
didn't tell me. I feel like I would have. I'm
really deep when it comes to that and meditation really
is the ability to stay focused on one thing without
allowing other stuff in. And your reality comes with what
you focus on the most stuff. You see what I'm saying.
(32:27):
The head coach's job is to keep a pulse on
the team and to remind everyone with the direction and
the purpose always is he keeps the team focused so
that the reality that the entire team wants can come
to fruition. Now, things happen. We're all human, and that
(32:49):
conscious focus on that goal sometimes gets skewed. You know, somebody,
you know the media starts talking about their head coaches
job being up, you know, up for grabs or whatever.
That can skew his focus and things like that. But
the good ones stay focused. I love Bill Belichick. Man,
you hear them here at the press conference. He's the
same old dude. He may gave you a little half smile,
(33:09):
but he's the same old dude over and over and over.
And another thing the head coach does, because it's in
humans nature, it's the blame it on somebody, right, we
lose put the finger point the finger, and that's good
mental health for the players, right, because you don't want
them to be down on themselves. And that's why you
always see the good coaches, I e. Sean McVeigh, I
(33:29):
either Pete Carroll's the Bill Beck that was on me.
I did that. That was on me. Any decisions that
they're making that I'm not thinking of during the game.
And to me, like Brandon Stalley, I just brought his
damn like he's gotten a lot of heat for like
those fourth down, fourth down penalty outcomes, whether to go
(33:50):
for it or not on fourth down. I think you
would just going there with Brandon Staley whether to kick
a field goal punt or not. Talk to the Whitehattan
officials and to make them to wear of their jobs.
You know what I'm um guarantee the players need are
being met in armed to do their job effectively, basically
meaning putting the pressure on the assistant coaches so that
(34:12):
these guys are armed to do their job again keeping
everybody focused on the goal at hand. Is there. Look,
I just mentioned that the some of the coaches that
we have in the NFL, there's some really high level
guys that have achieved so much in this league. When
you reflect back to you that you're playing days or
guys that you've been around, anyone that comes to mind,
(34:33):
and you would say, hey, revolutionize the game. Revolutionized the game. Um,
you hit me. You hear me talk a lot about
Pete Carroll. I think his approach as far as being
more of a player coach, always focusing on the positive,
never really bringing up or highlighting the negativity, was revolutionary.
And I think his first stint as a head coach,
(34:55):
the league wasn't ready for it. The second stint, the
league was ready for the right young person started to
come through. People may not know this, but Mike Marts
the par exactly the greatest show on turf for the St.
Louis Rams. He was my offensive coordinator in San Francisco
for a couple of years, and I think he revolutionized
offense with timing and spacing and the quarterback being able
(35:17):
to hit his last step, let the ball go to
an area, to a space, and allowing the receiver to
come into Things like that are now just part of
everyday vernacular, part of everyday NFL concept. You know what's
sort of interesting. I keep seeing Kyle Shanahan. I've been
up to the Bay Area numerous times. I know obviously
I saw his dad, Mike, what he was able to
do with the Broncos for a really long period of
(35:38):
time and have success there. I'm always fascinated by like
the father sons, like what those calls are on those
off days, like if Dad's been watching something, It's almost
like having an additional coat. Like now your staff, the
Shannon has I'm actually glad you said that. Now they
have been revolutionary. I've never played with, but you know,
obviously Bill Walsh, most of the West Coast concepts are
(36:00):
now just regularly just part of everyday football. Mike Shanahan,
shan and those guys, that's Shanahan style. That the way
that you run the football, the way that you coach
the offensive line, the way that you coach the running
back to get to a spot and make a decision,
and then it's easy playing it after that. I do
think that Shanahan system is revolution as the game. But
(36:21):
then you have guys like Matt Lafleur who went his
way with it. You got Sean McVeigh who out leverages
defenses by motion shifts in the wide receiver diversity that
he has. That's how he went his way with it.
Kyle Shanahan and younger Shanahan the way he outleverages defenses
by not only motions and shifts, but by the ball
carrier who's carrying the football, and just in the run game.
(36:44):
I just don't think that there's a better guy at
out leveraging a defense. So he took that Shanahan, his
dad Shanahan offense to a whole another direction. I think
the Shanahan system right now is probably the most revolutionary
system in today's modern game. Yeah, it's kind of wild
man like. And I wonder what those conversations are really
like between those two dudes when they're just talking ball. Like,
if God's like, dude, I'm proud of you, like this
(37:06):
is sure he is, But I guarantee you he's challenging
them that, well, if a defense does this, you can't
do this and coles hell dad. But if I do
this in the backfield, my backfield action is this, his
eyes are gonna go here. It's a big game with
chess man. Yeah. I remember when I first got to ESPN,
someone gave me a piece of advice. They said, look,
you're working with so many different anchors and hosts. Take
(37:26):
and see what people are doing and use it yourself.
But like, your own style is gonna morph out of
that just naturally from just doing your thing. You can't
mimic and completely copy someone else. And I think the
way you just described it with a lot of these coaches,
it's the same thing, right, Like there's some core base
concepts that are there, and then everyone just sort of
puts their little pixie dust, their personal pixie dust on it,
and it becomes their own. It becomes their own. And
(37:48):
even when you look at if you really study Bill
Walsh and his story, I mean he talks about it offers.
I think we may have talked about it here. He
talked about developing this offense out of desperation. I mean,
stuff was happening, Injuries was happening, and they had a
certain quarterback at So that's how the West Coach short
passing system came to voition Oftentimes as injuries oftentimes, it's
things that are happening human human beings are very smart.
(38:11):
Things are happening with their team, and you're just like, Okay,
how can I figure this out. That's how the spread
system went in. That's how read option happened, that's how
all pos happened. Oh my office line isn't that good? Well,
everybody blocked down we'll just handle everybody with the ball.
Handling ball travels faster thing than players, and that's how
that came to us. I love it. Man, talk about
this all day, No seriously, and look, we can and
(38:34):
we will continue to have these types of conversations throughout
the course of the season. We've been talking a little
bit about the duties of a head football coach. Hopefully
you've enjoyed this episode and if you didn't, you just
get into Mike robs d m at Real and my
wife said, no at Real, Mic rob at Mike underscore. Yeah,
NFL head coaches and what they do, explain, no,
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