What percentage of a team's success

And it may be less. College, sure. Pittsburgh has won, Tomlin isn’t a profound difference maker. McCarthy, same. Levy, good coach but a dominating difference maker? Point is, Little Bill certainly is an example but the two most identifiable characteristics of a winning NFL team ( at least) is pure talent and a positive locker room with the leader(s) of that team dictating to the younger players, coaching. I think in the NFL, the most important relationships are between the QB, HC and OC. If those three are not in sync that will bring a team down the quickest.

Coaching is one of them.

You still need good players.

who is responsible for the players' execution. If it's mostly the coach, then the percentage rises to 75-80% coaching over talent. If execution is mostly the players' responsibility, then the percentage (of coaching influence) drops to perhaps 25%.

But of course you really can't put a meaningful number on how much of execution (as opposed to talent) -- not to mention motivation -- belongs on the coaches' or players' side of the ledger.

in football than other sports.

Hard to measure though. I would say that the coaches are more impactful than any player except for the QB.

Let's say

the worst coaching in the league coaches the same roster
as does the best coaching

against the same teams


I'd say the difference is 5 wins

In comment 14504484 .McL. said:

Quote:

in football than other sports. Hard to measure though. I would say that the coaches are more impactful than any player except for the QB.

In the case of the great coaches - the Belichicks, Lombardys, Walsh's, Halas's, Browns... I think the coaches are more impactful than the QBs. Belichick's Pat's, for example, with Brady out for the year, went what 11-5 with Matt Cassel at QB.

There's a chess playing aspect to football, and the HC or his direct subordinates the OC and DC are the ones moving the chess pieces.

There really is not much of that in baseball, basketball, or ice hockey.

Soccer perhaps has more, but then it's still largely a continuous flow, unbroken into a series of called offensive plays vs defensive counter measures.

...for sure hard/impossible to quantify. And maybe your 75% figure is a little high. But IMO it's definitely in the neighborhood! There is an emotional component as well. Players' feeding off the leadership /good cheer / good will/ confidence of their Head Coach!

is extremely high.

There have been a number of bad coaches to win a SB and a number of very good ones who never did. Barry Switzer won a SB! George Seifert. And what those guys had in common is that they took over teams that had great rosters and they took over for very good coaches.

If coaching played such a large role in the game, you wouldn't have had the same core of teams rotating to challenge for titles in the 80's with the stacked rosters. you also wouldn't see the turnstile we see today in playoff turnover year over year. Also, a guy like Jon Gruden would succeed in every stop if he played a 75% role in team success.

If you look at the consistent trends of what makes a team a winning team (ignore the Pats as they break every rule), it is a combination of excellent health and a decent turnover margin. Both of those aspects are fairly variable, so that's one of the reasons you see such change year over year in playoff squads.

Coaching surely has an impact, but it would have to be under 50% as far as contributing to a team's success.

I would say 1/3 is about coaching, game plan, in-game strategy, clock management, adjustments, etc.

1/3 is the overall talent level/health. How much talent are you fielding overall and how is health impacting that?

1/3 is player execution.

there are far too many variables.

You have the GM who builds the team, and while the HC has some input, it might not be as much as is required.

You have the HC who might be involved in every aspect of the game, or allow the DC and OC and ST to manage their portion of the team and the HC just manages the overall strategy.

If you have a crappy roster, not much any coach will be able to do initially, but he will be responsible for the incremental improvements of that team. If you have a great roster, those players can hide deficiencies in the coaching.

The players themselves. They need to execute whatever gameplan is implemented. The hope here is that the all the coaches and GM are on the same page and are designing the gameplan to the players strengths and not just implementing something hap haphazardly.

the at Philadelphia game last year and in-game stuff cost Coughlin his job 3-4 years ago.

... between in game coaching and preparation coaching. While in game is important it is much less so than how you prepare your players, the system that you run, and how you utilize your players within your scheme around (and coach up their strengths/weaknesses.

I would say the former is worth sub 40%... and the latter is worth at least 70% of your team's success.

In comment 14504485 huygens20 said:

Quote:

Let's say the worst coaching in the league coaches the same roster as does the best coaching against the same teams I'd say the difference is 5 wins

Mostly agree but I think it's bell curved to talent.

I'd say coaching is responsible for

• 3 games with a top 5 roster
  
• 5 games with a 500 roster
  
• 3 games with a bottom 5 roster
  

In comment 14504596 Johnny5 said:

Quote:

... between in game coaching and preparation coaching. While in game is important it is much less so than how you prepare your players, the system that you run, and how you utilize your players within your scheme around (and coach up their strengths/weaknesses. I would say the former is worth sub 40%... and the latter is worth at least 70% of your team's success.

Hmm that last sentence in the first paragraph is broken... lol. Should be "...and how you utilize your players within your scheme, and scheme around (and coach) up their strengths/weaknesses.

In comment 14504535 FatMan in Charlotte said:

Quote:

is extremely high. There have been a number of bad coaches to win a SB and a number of very good ones who never did. Barry Switzer won a SB! George Seifert. And what those guys had in common is that they took over teams that had great rosters and they took over for very good coaches.

Aren't there examples on the other side, such as Ray Handley taking over for Bill Parcells?

there are. But the Giants didn't get bad just because of Handley. They lost several of their players too. They also were faced with the Cowboys at the peak of their success.