Ben McAdoo and Dirk Koetter Show Folly of QB Favoritism
By Erik Lambert
People applauded when the New York Giants and Tampa Bay Buccaneers promoted Ben McAdoo and Dirk Koetter to become their next head coaches.
It made perfect sense right? Both men had strong relationships with their quarterbacks. That’s reason enough to fire Lovie Smith and Tom Coughlin, two proven head coach who’d been to Super Bowls. Head coaches who are tied to the quarterbacks are all the rage these days. Look at Doug Pederson and Sean McVay. Look at Sean Payton and Mike McCarthy. The problem with that is not every offensive coach makes a great head coach.
Coaching offense and coaching an entire team are two different things. It takes a certain kind of leadership to pull off. Crazy as it sounds, not every man who has it coach that side of the ball. Tampa Bay and New York are learning this cold reality week by week. In fact the Chicago Bears know this pain all too well. They also fired Smith back in 2012 for the same reason. To get an offensive coach for Jay Cutler.
They came up with Marc Trestman.
Trestman was a cautionary tale Giants and Bucs did not heed
Like McAdoo and Koetter, Trestman had success his first year. The Bears came a hail mary pass away from winning the NFC North and finished 8-8. The cracks started to show though in 2014 when it became clear that Trestman did not have the presence or understand of how to control a roster of over 50 young men with lots of money and lots of opinions.
Now both men are encountering the same problem. McAdoo had the boating incident back in January and just got blasted 51-17 by the Rams. Koetter went 9-7 last year and now his team is 2-6 coming off their worst performance of the season. One in which all discipline broke down leading to fights on the field. Both teams are falling apart and the head coaches are failing to restore any form of discipline.
Next: 2018 NFL Mock Draft: #1 Pick Creates All Sorts of Controversy
Catering to the quarterbacks is never a bad thing, but just because a head coach might have a defensive background doesn’t mean he can’t do that. Ask Belichick, Tomlin, Zimmer, Rivera, and Carroll. Good head coaches will recognize the importance of keeping the quarterback happy and secure, regardless of background.