I am european and I live in Europe following both soccer and football.
One thing that is interesting to me is that in Europe there are so many former star players that became coaches. Some of them have been very successful coaches. Others less so. But the point is a lot become coaches. And Head Coaches nonetheless. I can list like 15-20 people without even thinking too hard.
In football, that seems to not be the case. People like Prime and DeMeco Ryans are the exceptions.
It is a two part issue 1) why are former top players not interested in being coaches 2) why are teams not offering top gigs to former players straight up
Let’s look at two current examples. Bills OC job and the Texas A&M job. Both of these jobs are highly desirable and pay well. A&M likely $10 mil +.
Why are people like Larry Fitzgerald, Rivers, Demarcus Ware, Matt Ryan, Drew Brees, Mannings, Brady, Revis not interested and not being offered these jobs straight up?
I can easily see Messi or Ronaldo coaching down the road. Many players of their status have done it.
And I am not talking about recent developments. Many of the former star players never became coaches over the past 30+ years
But it seems impossible to imagine Mahomes or Mannings becoming coaches down the road. Wondering why such a difference.
Thanks!
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Its one thing to know your profession and a completely different thing to know how to teach it to others.
Its a completely different skill set.
Star football players make $10-$30 million per year and play many years to become stars. If you have $100 million in the bank, why you want to get out of bed at 4:30am every day and get ready for a long day of teaching 20 year olds when you could be living your best life out spending $100 million?
Because they don’t want to.
Concussions and racist billionaires, more or less.
Coaching in football is very stressful and tiring with the amount of hours they have to put in. It isn’t like coaching basketball where you just come in and collect a check and go home.
Being an NFL coach is a ton of work and most of them get fired within 4 years of taking the job. A TV career is a lot more relaxing and arguably more lucrative. Fox offered Brady a 375 million dollar contract to call games and work significantly less than a coach would.
They are loaded and want to enjoy retirement.
Probably the fact that coaching hours and stress is insane and generational wealth makes them realize it’s not worth it at the nfl level.
They want to enjoy their lives and families and millions of dollars and not get back to the insane grind of being a coach
Why can’t you just be as gifted as me.
Because playing something doesn’t mean you’re good at coaching it. The vast majority of anyone in the coaching side of things never makes the NFL level, they get to CFB, don’t get drafted and start over.
Lol “coach” prime 😂🤣🤣
coaches are insane people - harbaugh went through his week in 2013 and basically the only free time he had was on friday night lol
if you’re already a multimillionaire from playing football there’s just no reason to subject yourself to that grind unless you really really love coaching
Yep. And even if you love coaching, you love your wife and kids more.
Peter Principle. Coaching and playing are two different things. Sure, they overlap, but just because you played doesn’t mean you can coach.
I dont think a lot of people who reached those heights wanna start from ground zero. Like Jeff Saturday, he wanted to be a coach but didn’t wanna start as an intern and work his way up. I think if more players were offered head coaching gigs without having to grind you’d see it more. And like Saturday a lot of them would flame out.