High-pressure NFL environment hampering player development

[Tempest]

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000449402/article/highpressure-nfl-environment-hampering-player-development

 

The 2011 draft class has quickly built a reputation as one of the best to come along in decades. And if you really look at it, it's amazing those guys have developed the way they have.

As many of them complete their rookie deals and prep for a life-changing payday, another Black Monday is poised punctuate the challenge they've each faced getting here. Since that class entered the league, 18 of the NFL's 32 teams have changed coaches. Four teams -- the Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers -- are on their third coach in that timeframe, and that's not accounting for the clubs that went through large chunks of one of those seasons with an interim guy in place.

The problem here, as football people see it, is real. Players aren't developing like they used to for a variety of reasons -- and one of the first is related to environment.

"I think it has a tremendous effect on them," said one veteran offensive coordinator. "Players are drafted by coaches and the personnel staff for a reason -- they met a schematic element those guys had in mind. Most NFL coaches are good at developing people and players, but say that shift comes, then the new coach doesn't like something about the fit with a guy. There's no benefit of the doubt anymore, because he didn't draft him. So he's not getting better anymore."

Take the 2011 rookies for the aforementioned quartet of three-coach teams -- a pool of players that includes boom picks like Justin Houston, Cecil Shorts, Allen Bailey, Mason Foster andJordan Cameron, and busts like Jon Baldwin, Greg Little and Blaine Gabbert.

Those guys entered the league in a lockout and under conditions where coaches were adjusting to rigid new rules that limited the time spent with -- and workload that could be imposed on -- players. And then there's the fact that each of those teams has gone through two coaching changes since, meaning the draftees in question have had, at best, just one (truncated) offseason with any measure of normalcy -- provided they're still with their original squads in the first place.

Remember, these players often have just a few years to get their careers on track.

Everyone knows being drafted by Seattle, New England or Denver can be an advantage. All these conditions make it an even bigger edge than one might think at first glance.

An NFC general manager put it like this: "You have storms colliding," between the flood of underclassmen leaving college early and the growing gap between the college game, where schools are adjusting to simplify things for athletes, and the pro level, which continues to get more complicated.

The GM continued: "These kids are at their best when they're playing fast, when they're reacting. You can apply that to anyone in their job -- if you have to think too much, it slows you down. Then you take the lack of an offseason, there's too much time off, that's affecting the kid's ability to do his job. Now, if you keep changing scheme, add that to less time in the offseason, and they're constantly thinking instead of reacting."

The best test case over the past decade is probably Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith, taken first overall by the San Francisco 49ers in 2005. He was the first quarterback selected with a high draft pick to come out of a 2000s-era spread offense (at Utah), and he played for five different offensive coordinators, under two head coaches, in his first five years as a pro. In 54 games over that time, he completed 57.1 percent of his passes for 9,399 yards, 51 touchdowns, 53 picks and a 72.1 passer rating.

In 2011, coach Jim Harbaugh arrived in San Francisco, and he, offensive coordinator Greg Roman and quarterback coach Geep Chryst made a point to slow things down for Smith. Roman told me at the time, "You could tell he was taught a lot of different things. ... A lot of things were just a little bit off, because he's been told five different ways to do it. We thought if we could narrow his thought process, the benefits would show."

In 56 games since, Smith has completed 63.4 percent of his passes for 11,459 yards, 71 touchdowns, 23 interceptions and a 92.8 rating.

The flip side of this could be seen in Patriots running back Jonas Gray's 201-yard breakout against Indy in November. As the NFC GM sees it, "the unknown running back had a great game. It's because they know their scheme, they know what works best against that type of defense. And they can say, 'With what kind of back we have here, this is how we'll do it.' "

That's not to say Smith -- who will miss the regular-season finale with a lacerated spleen -- has suddenly turned into the NFL's best quarterback. But it's a pretty good example of what stability can do.

"It's hard, especially at quarterback, to go through change," said one AFC head coach. "You get three different coordinators in four years? That's hard. The more you're in a system, the more you're with the same guys, the better. That goes for everyone -- the offensive line, you have the same five guys working together, you're better for it. But change three years in a row? How are you playing fast when you're learning new things? How are you gonna adjust when new things come up?"

After a six-year stretch in which 45 coaching changes occurred, there are at least subtle signs of sanity.

In Miami, Ryan Tannehill, the eighth overall pick in 2012 -- who has an option coming up that could land him more than $16 million in 2016 -- was facing the possibility of learning his third offensive system in four years. Amid an internal assumption that the staff had to get to 9-7 to survive, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross called off the dogs when the team got to 8-7 last weekend, assuring the public that coachJoe Philbin would be back for a fourth season.

Meanwhile, in Washington, coach Jay Gruden and quarterback Robert Griffin IIIhave (at least for now) dispelled the notion that a divorce is inevitable, which spared Griffin the same circumstance Tannehill was staring at, whether in D.C. or somewhere else.

"You draft to fit a skill set for a position, and you'd like to think, from a football intelligence standpoint, guys, especially at quarterback, can adapt," said an AFC personnel director. "But the maturation and development of each guy, that process is impacted by his level of understanding as much as his intelligence. If there's a new system, it takes time for that system to take hold. It's repetition in a redundant process. You don't want to be spending more time learning than polishing and refining."

And too often, that's exactly what's happening.

[Tempest]

1) Running out of replacements. The dynamic discussed above should affect the way owners and franchises make their decisions over the next few days, going into Black Monday and beyond. But something far simpler figures to slow movement: a dearth of slam-dunk coaching candidates. In part because there have been 45 coaching changes over the last six cycles, and 23 over the last three, the pipeline has started to run dry. In 2009, a number of assistants whose names had been mentioned in previous years (Jim Schwartz, Rex Ryan,Josh McDaniels) were finally taking their first cracks at becoming head coaches. Now? Broncosoffensive coordinator Adam Gase and Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn are the closest things to that, having been candidates last year. But even those two are fairly new as NFL coordinators; two years ago, Quinn was defensive coordinator at Florida and Gase was Peyton Manning's position coach. Certainly, the success of Jim Harbaugh, Pete Carroll and Chip Kelly will prompt more poaching from the college ranks, and there are qualified names at that level (Brian Kelly, David Shaw, Jim Mora, etc.). But there isn't necessarily a big fish out there, like Chip Kelly was in 2013 or Harbaugh was two years earlier. One NFC executive put it this way: "If you're Miami, do you stick with Joe Philbin, or is the guy who's replacing Joe Philbin gonna be that big an upgrade?" It's a fair question to ask, and a reason why as few as four clubs could be switching out head coaches.

[BlueInCanada]

Good article, really hits on a lot of things wrong with today's NFL.

 

I remember watching this documentary on NFL network about the draft, back when it had 12 rounds, it talked about how GMs/Coaches would draft players and just leave them on the team for four plus years, just to coach the player into the system through practice. Typically a coach would come in and lay down a four to six season plan to build a winning team, how he would draft, what type of players he wanted, his scheme for offence and defense, what he would want out of the GM type of thing. They would bring stability and leadership and with that hopefully a winning record, that's even why you would see teams back in the 60s and 70s stick with coaches who would put them through multiple losing seasons, just because it takes time and effort to build a team.

 

This doesn't happen in the NFL anymore, you almost have one year to make an impression if you are lucky or else you are out on your ass looking for a new team. Look at the Raiders who have constant turn over in the coaching staff or more recently the Redskins, both teams are running through head coaches and coordinators like they are going on sale, and both teams continue to be a joke in their division.

[Sephiroth]

Interesting.

 

Makes you wonder how bad the Giants front office and/or coaching staff must be since they all stayed together, yet developed very little talent from 2008-2012.

[Bigblue25]

Gus Malzahn is the big college name

[Bigblue25]

Interesting.

 

Makes you wonder how bad the Giants front office and/or coaching staff must be since they all stayed together, yet developed very little talent from 2008-2012.

 

It's true and this article kinda contractdicts itself