I already answered this in part...but then the phrasing struck me:
is Head Coaching success as much luck as greatness?I would never say it's "as much." Though it's also unclear how literally to take that phrase...does it literally mean luck is an equal factor?
I would say that top and dynasty-level head coaches have all had some luck now and then. It's just part of the equation. But no one can get by counting on luck. It doesn't count "as much," I would say, as coaching ability. Luck in itself didn't make those guys what that are but I would say they all had some luck now and then.
Bellichick for example was always going to be a great coach, but, did the Patz luck into Brady? In a sense yes. They always claimed they liked him because of his mental make-up, but they had so many other needs they couldn;t think about taking a qb before the third round. So is it luck, or not, that no one else took him? In part yes, in part they saw things others didn't, which is due to their own research.
Quote
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www.businessinsider.com]
"Every round, we're looking at Brady," Pioli said. "When it got to the sixth round — we had the [draft] board stacked vertically [with columns moving left to right] — by the time we got to the sixth round, Brady is all the way over to the left by himself and we said 'what are we doing?' ... everyone liked Brady ... so we took him."
The value of a player they liked at that point of the draft outweighed other needs the team still had.
Luck is probably a stronger factor for the next tier of coaches, the really good ones who always have a chance at a superbowl but usually only get to one or two. Sometimes things bounce their way and they can leap over the pack; sometimes things bounce the wrong way and they fall just short in a given year. Sometimes it has nothing to do with being unlucky or lucky and they just manage to have a strong hand in a given year and play it right.
But luck is always part of football, however small a part, because the game has so many separate and different things to account for. 3 different units with more than 22 players and an oblong-shaped ball that can bounce strange. Unexpected things just happen, good and bad.
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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2017 02:26PM by zn.
