(01-16-2021, 09:54 PM)TheDuke007 Wrote:

(01-16-2021, 07:19 AM)The Real Marty Wrote: The step up from NFL coordinator to NFL HC has proven equally tough for coaches.  The failure rate of NFL coordinators who become NFL head coaches is enormous.  So I don't put much stock in this thing about "lack of NFL experience."  NFL experience doesn't seem to make coordinators any more successful as head coaches than guys coming straight from college.

If you look at the teams that made the playoffs this year, 13 out of 14 had head coaches with NFL coaching experience prior to getting their current job.  If you also count playing in the NFL, all 14 had NFL experience.  Meyer doesn't.  NFL experience matters.

Promoting NFL coordinators was the most common method of having a playoff coach with 9 falling into that category.  3 were former NFL head coaches who were also previously either NFL coordinators or NFL assistant head coaches.  1 came directly from being a college head coach but had also previously been both an NFL head coach and an NFL coordinator for more than one team. 1 was a college coach with no NFL coaching experience.  The bottom line is that there's not one way to find a winning coach, but the numbers say promoting an NFL coordinator is the best option.

If you think this is just some one year fluke, it's not.  Let's look at history.  You have to go back 25 years to find the last time a team went to the Super Bowl with a head coach that had no NFL experience prior to getting that job.  

I'm hoping for the best and I plan to get fully behind our new head coach.  However, based upon the track record, I can understand why some fans have concern.

That's a misuse of statistics.  The question is, what percentage of NFL head coaches who had NFL experience succeeded, vs what percentage of NFL head coaches with no NFL experience succeeded.  What percentage of head coaches who had prior NFL experience failed vs what percentage of NFL head coaches who had no prior NFL experience failed.  Not raw numbers.  Percentages.  

What you are doing is like saying, since most great software engineers have brown hair, we should only hire software engineers who have brown hair.   

Suppose (hypothetically) there are 100 new NFL head coaches over a period of years.  95 of them had prior NFL experience as coordinators.  85 of them failed.  There is another group of 5 former college head coaches who had no prior NFL experience, and 3 of those failed at being an NFL head coach.  Since we have 10 NFL coordinators that were successful vs 2 college head coaches without NFL experience that were successful, you would say NFL experience is the best indicator of success.  But you could also say, the success rate of those coordinators is 10%, while the success rate of those college head coaches without NFL experience is 40%, and therefore head coaching experience, even if it is only in college, is best.  < I don't know what the actual statistics are.  I'm just asking the question.  

What we have in the case of Urban Meyer is an ultra-successful college coach with no NFL experience but loads of head coaching experience.  The other candidates had NFL experience, but no head coaching experience.  Which one is better?  The experience of being in the NFL, or the experience of being the head man and running a whole program?  

I'm looking for a new CEO. Do I promote the guy who did a great job running the finance department, or do I hire the guy who absolutely kicked [BLEEP] as a very successful CEO of a smaller company?  

Conclusion:  The reason most successful NFL head coaches have prior NFL experience might be because more coordinators without head coaching experience are hired in the first place.  But if you have the same failure rate as college head coaches without NFL experience, then I don't think you can draw any conclusion.

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