Great players don’t always make the best coaches. Maybe things came too easily to them and that elevates their expectations from players they coach. Maybe they were athletically gifted enough that they didn’t have to pay attention to details like coaches must do. Maybe they were so instinctive as a player that they struggle to understand why others can’t respond as they did to the dynamic stimuli that surrounds every player each time they step onto the field.
A look around the NFL and you’d be hard-pressed to find a former great player who skippers a big league sideline. That’s not to say it can’t happen. It’s just not all that common.
Deion Sanders’ success at Jackson State University has in some ways changed the optics on “great players turned head coach”. He helped elevate the program at the Southwestern Athletic Conference school. Now Sanders’ good friend Ed Reed will try to do the same at the Daytona Beach, FL based Bethune-Cookman University. Here’s hoping Ed’s Hall of Fame resume as a player translates to the Wildcats success in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.
Huge congratulations to 33rd Team member Ed Reed on being named head coach of Bethune-Cookman!@TwentyER | #HailWildcats pic.twitter.com/OrzJiGCaqX
— The 33rd Team (@The33rdTeamFB) December 27, 2022
“Bethune-Cookman got a great coach, got a great football man. I was very excited for Ed [Reed] for one thing, because I know that he’s been working on that. He’s been at the University of Miami as an assistant coach and doing a great job down there. Then, to get the opportunity to run his own program, I know he’ll do a great job. Of course, we’ll support him every way we can. Bethune-Cookman made a great hire.” ~ John Harbaugh
You’re Fired
It’s not often that a first-year head coach is fired just 15 games into a four-year deal. But that’s what happens when a team invests $242.5M, three first-round picks and players in a quarterback who throws for just 12 touchdowns to go with 9 picks and produces just 3 wins.
You can’t fire the players, right?
The Washington Post’s Jason LaCanfora, who has been known to pound his chest like a silverback gorilla during mating season following those rare situations when he gets something right, championed the idea of sending Denver’s Nathaniel Hackett packing over two months ago.
“Smart people”?
What “smart people” fire a head coach after just six games?
A lot of smart people in this league were suggesting to me back by Week 6 that the Broncos could save their season by bringing in someone like Gary Kubiak or Marvin Lewis as an interim head coach. Wrote about it at length @washingtonpost. Now's far too late to salvage anything
— Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) December 26, 2022
How about some more chest thumping and smart people?
Wrote about the very high probability that Derek Carr is dealt a few weeks ago for @washingtonpost. Smart execs around the league were already talking about it
— Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) December 28, 2022
LaCanfora’s misfires do have some value. He’s now pitching himself as a betting analyst – a sports handicapper, and that just might provide opportunity for all of us. If his gambling advice is on par with those “breaking stories” that are accurately defined as broken stories, then take his advice and do the exact opposite.
Prosperity awaits you, smart people!
"I can confidently pick the Bengals to win and cover based on the Quarterback"@Devan_Kaney likes Joey Ice and the Bengals to take care of business in New England 🏈 @BetMGM Gameday best bets is coming up next: https://t.co/ncUag50Wgl pic.twitter.com/xadi7WW6BY
— BetQL (@betqlapp) December 24, 2022
More Hackett
Nathaniel Hackett 💀 pic.twitter.com/eZAOEIfm0s
— PFT Gym (@PFTGym) December 26, 2022
Upon reading this tweet, many fans took the bathroom quote to be true. It’s not! Maybe Hackett’s alter-ego would have said it. Check out this weirdness that Russ is cooking up…
I still fail to understand what the point of this was. Like, it’s his alter ego, but it also is his… motivation to do stuff? Equal parts unknowable and fascinating https://t.co/eLygf3RMma
— Jake (@jakelouque) December 27, 2022
Finish
And lastly, coaches always tell players to play through to the whistle. This one took it to a new extreme.
The committee approves of this block. Wow! pic.twitter.com/nGPWZS5xrR
— Geoff Schwartz (@geoffschwartz) December 28, 2022
Enjoy your day everyone!
2 Responses
Deion has the glam amd glitz to get the recruits but Ed has more football brains. Deion has a social media network with 200k subcribers and growing like a weed along with friends at the networks. If Ed can walk into high school players parents houses and get it done he will do good.
Couldn’t agree more, well said
Chris
https://shinebuddi.myshopify.com/