Teams should think twice before hiring coaches to be high-level executives

[The Dolphin]

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When the Dolphins hired Bill Parcells to serve as the team’s V.P. of football operations in 2008, some marveled at the fact that NFL owners hadn’t made a move like that sooner, giving the keys to the franchise to successful coaches who had decided to no longer coach. From Don Shula to Chuck Noll to Bud Grant to John Madden to Tom Landry, men who no longer were coaching NFL teams to championships (or close to it) could be running NFL teams to championships (or close to it).

The next year, the Browns followed suit, making Mike Holmgren the Grand Poobah in Cleveland. Three years ago, the Jaguars did it with Tom Coughlin.

Post-Coughlin, it’s fair to revisit the question of whether it makes sense to make a coach anything but a coach.

It could be impossible for a former coach to stop coaching, whether through interactions with players or while watching games from the luxury suite and second-guessing every decision the coach is making. As one league source explained it on Wednesday night, former coaches are more likely to react emotionally to an actual or perceived affront from a player, in lieu of making a dispassionate decision on how to handle a difficult situation.

Former General Managers, not former coaches, could make much more sense in that upper-level oversight role. A G.M. already, in most situations, is operating in a way that is similar if not identical to the functions of a V.P. of football operations. Regardless, the G.M. job is far more aligned with the V.P. job than a coach’s job is.

This doesn’t mean the door is closed. Some in league circles believe that, whenever Bill Belichick stops coaching the Patriots, he’ll land with another team as the V.P. of football operations (along with a slice of equity in the franchise). Even if he hires his son Steve to be the head coach (or maybe especially if he hires his son Steve), Belichick will nevertheless have a hard time leaving coaching behind and focusing only on running the show.

That’s not a knock on Belichick, no differently than it’s not a knock on Parcells, Holmgren, or Coughlin. They are who they are, and by the time they’re ready to stop doing what they’ve done for decades, it may not be a good idea to put them in a job that keeps them dangerously close to the job they had for so long.