It’s official now that Todd Haley has become the coach of the Kansas City Chiefs…for the first time that I can remember (which isn’t very long considering my affinity for beer) there are zero coaches in the NFL that came from the College Ranks. I guess you have Nick Saban and Bobby Petrino to thank for that. I am okay with this. Most of the time when you have college coaches in the NFL they realize quickly that their schemes do not work in the big leagues.

There a very few college coaches out there now that would actually be considered for the pros now anyways…Pete Carrol, Urban Meyer are the two that come to mind for me…all of the other coaches like “Grimace” Charlie Weis and maybe Rich Rodriguez from a few years ago have shot themselves in the foot. All of the talent in CFB seems to be at the “mid-major” level and they are all jockeying to get into bigger programs.

Anyways – No college coaches in the NFL is what this post is about…not climbing the ladder to get to the NFL. There are 11 new head coaches in the NFL this year…and not one from College. I have not done the research on it, but I do believe that 11 head coaches in one year is the largest coaching turnover in the NFL ever. A full 1/3 of the teams in the league are starting over to a degree?

A look at current Head Coaches and where they came from…

In the last five years 80% of head coaching positions have cahnged in the NFL. 26 of 32! That’s astounding.

All of the GMs and owners out there are continually making changes hoping to find the “Next Tony Sparano” or the “Next Mike Smith.”  They see a coach change and have immediate success – so they follow suit. The issue is – someone has to win in the NFL. When coaches “turn programs around” in such a short time – they are dubbed as geniuses. A coach can be an idiot or a genius – and still win or lose football games…because there has to be a winner and a loser.What do I mean by this?

Let’s look at another piece to the puzzle? How much did all of these coaches mean to their previous teams  when they were coordinating? What was the impact of their departure?

11 of 21 teams showed improvement? On the surface this seems like these coaches were holding their teams back right? In reality…a team has to win and a team has to lose. When someone says coach comes in and “changes the culture” of a team, “turns them into winners”…blah blah blah, and they do it in the first few years of taking a team over – they are called  (insert adjective here).

When 80% of the head coaches are new in the NFL…and success is measured by getting to the playoffs – in a league where half of the teams actually get to play in the post season…someone is going to give the coach a whole bunch of credit. Consequently when you don’t make the playoffs and new coaches do – you get casualties like Mike Shanahan and Jon Gruden.

Who will be the 2009 Poster Boy for coaching success? Early favorite Jim Caldwell of the Colts  has to be eliminated form the conversation because he is being handed a Super Bowl contender…but if he screws it up – it will show how good Tony Dungy really was.

Man…I can’t wait until kickoff.

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