2 Croatians and a Lot of Football

     As we await the final game of the college football season and we enter into the NFL Playoffs, we are faced with the age old question--who is more important, the coaches or the players? "Honest" coaches say that it is the players, for without talented players, there would not be any success. Of course, there are other coaches who make it all about themselves, not withstanding the assortment of players they have assembled into a team.

     Many players would have you understand that it is all about them. They are excellent athletes and they perform at a higher level than other players. Or those more honest about their successes will relate those successes to a "team effort."

     The 12 NFL teams that made it into the tournament, plus Alabama and Georgia, won more games than most of their competitors. Those teams are replete with star athletes, from a multitude of gifted 5 star athletes recruited by the college teams, to the Hall of Fame caliber players like Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Ben Roethlishberger, to top 1st round draft picks like Jared Goff and Cam Newton. There are a bevy of wide receivers, including Andre Brown, who was having a career year before missing a couple of games due to injury. Then there are defensive stalwarts such as the plethora of New England defensive backs and the marvelous play of rising star T.J. Watt, brother of Houston's all-everything J.J. Watt. Don't forget the running backs like Todd Gurley and the breathtaking duo at Georgia Plus there are some of the best kickers, too. The list is almost endless.

     There will be heroes and goats as the college season concludes in Atlanta and the NFL season heads towards Minneapolis and the Super Bowl. Stellar play will be balanced by glaring mistakes. Athleticism will overshadow brute force and sheer will, yet both are important in football success.

     Yet, to prevail, there is the need for coaches. Highly intelligent, dedicated coaches who will put the players in the right places, with the proper defenses and the better offenses. Without the coaches, would the athletes prevail by themselves? I think not.

     Look at the coaches in the College Football Championship.  Alabama's Nick Saban has won 5 National Championships while compiling an incredible 217-62-1 collegiate record as the head coach at Toledo, Michigan State, LSU and Alabama. After winning his first National Championship at LSU and his teams going 48-16, Saban mistakenly re-entered the NFL where he had been an assistant coach for the Houston Oilers and then on the staff of Bill Belichick as his defensive coordinator when Belichick was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns. His pedestrian 15-17 with the Miami Dolphins was enough reason, based upon Saban's success at LSU, for Saban to agree to let Alabama make him their 27th head football coach.

     At Alabama, Saban's teams have gone 126-20, won 4 National Championships in 6 attempts, won 7 Southeastern Conference titles and he has been named SEC Coach of the Year 4 times. Fifteen of his former assistant coaches are head coaches in the NFL or in college, including one of his best, Georgia's Kirby Smart. Along with Belichick, two of the most renowned names in football coaching are of Croatian heritage.  Not too shabby for a former defensive back from West Virginia who played at Kent State (fatefully, he and a teammate decided to have lunch first before going to watch the protests, thus avoiding the calamitous National Guard shootings of the protesters) and reluctantly became a graduate assistant under Coach Don James, first successful himself at Kent State and then the University of Washington, where James' 1991 team won a National Championship.

     So what you see from Saban is that his learning curve started with Don James and then continued under his good friend, Bill Belichick. He coached in college and in the pros under a number of good, quality mentors. He found assistant coaches who had the burning desire to learn and excel. Plus they were great talent evaluators. His Alabama teams melded exceptional, teachable, top college prospects who might be able to play at the next level, with superior coaching. Which is why his squads have only 20 losses. But even Saban could make a big mistake--a young, ambitious man named Urban Meyer applied for a graduate assistant position with Saban while Saban was coach of Toledo, but his application was rejected. Meyer went on to win multiple National Championships at Florida and Ohio State.

     Having mentioned Bill Belichick, he is undeniably one of the greatest NFL head coaches, if not the greatest of all time. As in 5 time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots' head coach. As in 2 time Super Bowl winner as the defensive coordinator under the legendary Bill Parcells with the New York Giants, which included the monumental upset of the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXXV based on tremendous execution of his masterful defensive game plan (which resides in the Pro Football Hall of Fame).

     The son of an assistant coach at the United States Naval Academy, he learned the x's and o's of football from his father. As a youngster, he played football and lacrosse, the latter his favorite sport. He is in the Athletic Hall of Fame at Phillips Exeter Academy where he went to shore up his grades after graduating from Annapolis H.S., and at Wesleyan University, where he played center and tight end on the football team, was a senior captain of the lacrosse team and he also played squash while earning his degree in Economics in 1975.

     Belichick joined the staff of the Baltimore Colts in 1975, earning $25.00/hour. In 1976, Belichick was an assistant coach with the Detroit Lions, then with the Denver Broncos in 1978. He then started an impressive 12 year stint as an assistant with the Giants, first under Ray Perkins and then Parcells.

     The Cleveland Browns beckoned the wunderkind with a head coaching job, where his teams went 36-44. He was fired just as the team was moving to Baltimore. He reunited with Parcells in New England as an assistant coach and the team went to the Super Bowl.

     Belichick was the interim head coach of the New York Jets in 1997 for six days while the Patriots and Jets negotiated a deal to release Parcells from his New England contract. Belichick remained with Parcells in New York as assistant head coach and defensive coordinator. When Parcells stepped down after the 1999 season, Parcells had arranged for Belichick to be his successor. That lasted 1 day, when, in a bizarre press conference, Belichick resigned as the Jets' Head Coach. Two separate terms as the Head Coach of the New York Jets, lasting 7 days.

     Declining the Jets turned out to be Belichick's greatest move. Named as the Patriots' head man in 2000, New England had a 5-11 record. That losing record is Belichick's only one with New England, and coincided with the only season that Number 12, Tom Brady, perhaps the G.O.A.T. QB ever in the NFL, was not the starting QB.

     Belichick's numbers are astounding with the Patriots. 214-74 in the regular season and 25-9 in the post-season and counting. Brady, of course has a lot to do with those numbers.

     So, too, does the coaching tree that unfurls from his lead--Belichick studied under 5 NFL head coaches; 7 of his assistants became NFL head coaches; 7 assistants became Division I football coaches--there is overlap with Saban, Bill O'Brien and Al Groh; plus 19 more who have been assistant head coaches, coordinators or executives in the NFL. Urban Meyer--yes the one who Saban rebuffed--considers himself to be a protege of Belichick (then again, so does Saban). Belichick has learned from Bill Walsh, the late, great Stanford and San Francisco 49'ers coach, and he became good friends with Rutgers coach Greg Schiano when Belichick's son Steve played lacrosse at Rutgers--so much so that a pipeline of Rutgers players from Schiano's teams have had major success with New England. And if that isn't enough, son Stephen is the safeties' coach for the Patriots and son Brian is a scouting assistant for the team. And for good measure, his daughter Amanda is the head coach for women's lacrosse at Holy Cross.

     Belichick's tenure has been far from spotless. Controversy abounded with the videotaping of the Jets' sideline signals, which was against league rules. For this, dubbed "Spygate," Belichick was fined $500,000 and the Patriots lost their 2008 first round draft choice.

     Then there was "Deflategate." Balls used in a playoff game versus Indianapolis in 2015 were found the be under inflated. Tom Brady was subsequently suspended for 4 games, leading to legal battles that finally upheld Commissioner Roger Goodell's ruling. Although the Patriots came back and won the Super Bowl, the taint follows both Brady and Belichick.

     And now ESPN has reported that there is internal strife among Brady, owner Robert Kraft and Belichick relating to the trading of backup QB Jamie Garoppolo to San Francisco. Observes say that Belichick is less than thrilled with the outcome, that Brady is in favor with Kraft over him and that Belichick may lose his two coordinators as head coaches elsewhere. Whether this is the end of his run in New England is strictly conjecture as this point.

     Whatever happens, his legacy is as great as anyone's in the NFL. His name belongs with the top coaches in the professional game: Halas, Lambeau, Landry, Lombardi, Noll, Parcells and Walsh.

     Just like Nick Saban, besides the Croatian ties, these two giants know how to spot talent on the field and display the talent to coach those players to be even greater. Which is why they are at the pinnacle of their respective domains.

     Thus, I find it laughable that in the SEC, so many good coaches are fired or have to leave their schools because they cannot beat Saban. Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Texas A&M all made changes, with Dan Mullen leaving Mississippi State for Florida. Even Georgia is just two years removed from that chase, having picked off alum and Saban coordinator Smart to replace the very successful Mark Richt, who only went 145-51 in 15 seasons. Alas, Richt's shortcoming was that he could not defeat Saban nor win a National Championship.

     The exuberant 42 year old Smart was a superb player and an Academic All American at Georgia, then the Broyles Award winner at Alabama, being recognized as the top assistant coach in the nation in 2009. His pedigree, from his father who was a high school football coach at Bainbridge, GA H.S., through his affiliation with Saban, is exemplary. However, the SEC has high expectations. The burden in this Monday night's game is equal but different--Saban is supposed to win because he is Nick Saban. For Smart, he too is supposed to win--because Georgia hired him to beat Saban and Alabama.

     The same expectations which reside on the shoulders of Saban are there with Belichick. He is supposed to win because he has Brady and he is, after all, Bill Belichick. All the other AFC coaches are pretenders, whether it be Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin, a Super Bowl winner himself during his 11 years with the Steelers; or Andy Reid, who has chalked up many regular season wins while in Philadelphia and Kansas City but no Super Bowl wins; newcomers in Buffalo, Tennessee and Jacksonville. Only Ron Rivera of Carolina and Sean Payton from New Orleans have earned a Super Bowl ring as a head coach in the NFC, and they have Cam Newton and Drew Brees as the QB's. Again, everyone is chasing Belichick.

     Which is why I wish good fortune to Jon Gruden, leaving the safety of the ESPN booth, to return to the Oakland Raiders, where he won, but ended up ironically being traded by owner Al Davis to Tampa Bay, where Gruden's team won his Super Bowl. Ten years and a lot of money can be a big lure for someone to return to the coaching ranks.

     Nonetheless, as long as Belichick has Brady and remains at New England, Gruden, just like Nick Saban's pursuers in the SEC, and like so many before him, will be looking up at Belichick, trying to catch the master.

     Good luck guys. At least the pay is good.