As per my previous post - my statement was limited to players jumping straight to assistant level with little to no previous coaching experience.
This is absolutely supported by reality. Most of successful ones worked their way up, at least a little, rather than being made an NFL position coach immediately.
I’ll even quote myself:
Ahh, you were making a narrower point than I thought you were. Carry on.
I have to concur that it seems natural for someone like McCown to get their feet wet at the college level prior to going to the NFL.
I said before that from what I’ve heard, McCown has potential and should get an NFL gig at some point. But a college position before then would be a great idea.
Depends how far you take this. Would it be weird or unusual for McCown to get some experience in college. Not at all. Would it be weird for him to bypass that by getting hired directly as a Pro coach. Also, not at all. One path is not more appropriate or more valid than the other.
Byron Leftwich, Dan Campbell, Mike Vrabel, Frank Reich, Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay, Bill Belichick, Zac Taylor, Ron Rivera, Jim Harbaugh, Doug Pederson are a sampling of coaches with no college coaching experience prior to the pros (a couple were graduate assistants in college for a year or two, but not coaches.)
The suggestion that going through college is the “normal” or is somehow more valid than not is just wrong.
Just went through this, but this list is partly wrong and/or misleading.
Vrabel was an assistant at OSU (!) for 3 years. Jim Harbaugh was a (usually unpaid) assistant to his dad at Western Kentucky for 6-7 years (and if we’re being honest, didn’t get a lot of buzz in the NFL until after his Stanford stint).
Zac Taylor was at Texas A&M first (as a graduate assistant for 4 years - fair- but he never got out of NFL training camp, anyway, so a former ‘player’ only technically).
Doug Pederson never coached college but headed up a high school program for 4-5 years.
Leftwich, Campbell, and Reich didn’t go straight to a coaching position. They were all NFL interns first.
Yeah, I messed up on Vrabel. And it’s not misleading, I specifically said coaches, unpaid/graduate assistants are not coaches and it’s arbitrary to say that this type of job is somehow more qualifying than being a long time NFL QB. If you’re actually worried about nepotism or the good old boys club, those kinds of make work jobs are the worst offenders.
As for Harbaugh, the fact he went to Stanford is no more relevant to this topic than his current position at Michigan, you’ve moving the goal posts. You were claiming that there’s something fundamentally wrong with a player getting his first coaching job in the pros instead of going to high school or small-time college first. Harbaugh’s first gig was as a professional QB Coach and everything that followed was on merit. You’re contending that McCown should be expected to go to high school (which is utterly absurd on so many levels) or to some small-time college before he’s qualified to be a professional coach. I’d say the burden is on you to somehow prove that there’s actually an issue with that based on history.
Why do folks not really read my posts?
First, Harbaugh’s first job BEFORE the NFL was as an assistant to his dad at Western Kentucky as a QBs coach. Not in the pros as a QBs coach.
The Stanford thing is a separate point, sure, but still a good one - that NFL teams got really interested in him on the basis of success at that level. He made HC of an NFL team faster by doing that.
As for McCown, my point is NOT that he needs to go to a college but that jumping straight to QBs coach is not typically a recipe for success as a coach. I have been totally consistent on this point.
My contention (for the N-th time) is that most former players who are eventually successful at a high level in the NFL take a more typical route of low level staff in the NFL or in the trenches in college. They do not typically jump straight to being a positions coach, much less a coordinator or head coach. Nearly all the “counter” examples given so far have actually matched that.
So, please, for all that is holy, go back and check my posts and somehow tell me (for the N-th time) that I’m saying something different now. Nothing in those posts said that McCown should be “expected” to coach high school or college first but that some experience at a lower level is more highly correlated with success as an eventual high level NFL coach. I still stand by that. I think it is unfair to him and to the team to put him in that position, especially under somebody who is known to be a defensive coach, who is less likely able to mentor him effectively.
So is it fair to say…
There are coaches who have taken jobs in the NFL without any previous experience coaching in college, who have found success in doing so. Which means that this isn’t a bad thing, or a guarantee of failure.
Most coaches who are successful in the NFL have previous experience coaching in college. So, if a person wants to succeed in the NFL as a coach, it would be better if they first coached at the college level.
Given those two things, it would be better for McCown to get his feet wet at the college level before attempting his hand in the NFL. But it wouldn’t be wrong or strange if he didn’t do that first.
Does that seem sensible?
Or…
I’ll also grant that there may be some retired players (particularly backup QBs) who had already decided to go into coaching while they were still active players, and may have effectively been serving in a hybrid coaching/playing role. I have no idea if McCown has been doing this.
Yeah, those are all fair to say, and a good summary of what I was trying to say.
McCown has been playing, rather than coaching. He’s been assisting at a high school (his kids’ school) but getting special consideration so he can play in the NFL. He got on the Texans’ radar as their backup QB for a while. He’s been bouncing around year by year as a backup.
My quibble is with the word “most”. Certainly many, but it’s by no means a meaningful majority. I wouldn’t be shocked if an actual analysis showed that it was the minority. When you narrow the filter to look only at former long-time professional players the balance shots even farther towards not starting in college. When you then filter it to former NFL QBs, the balance shifts farther again.
I hadn’t seen this reported before:
Couple surprising things. Bieniemy was on a 1-year contract in 2020 and again in 2021. Why in the hell is he on a one year deal? Did he do that so he could renegotiate a higher salary after another predictable post-season run? Did he do it because he thought it would somehow make him a more desirable HC candidate? Did the Chiefs do that because they were somehow uncommitted to him? Do him and Reid have a slightly adversarial relationship?
Also surprising, Bieniemy and the Chiefs still haven’t met to try and resolve this. He’s not currently under contract for 2022 and the Chiefs don’t have an OC or a QB coach right now. I know Reid is capable of doing that pretty much on his own and will have no shortage of willing candidates who want to get the Chiefs shine on them, but this is big news that I somehow missed.
That seems like a pretty solid hire.