Mean Joe Greene compares Belichick to Noll

I love the following quote from MJG and to me, this is the difference between the really great coaches like Noll and Belichick and the coaches who are destined for goodness. The really GREAT coaches are constantly looking to make adjustments to exploit the other teams weaknesses. One of my criticisms of Tomlin has always been that he's a "fundamentalist as opposed to scheme" and he's one of these coaches who lives by the mantra of "we do what we do" and just doesn't seem willing or able delve into the more strategic aspects of the game. Cowher was a lot like that as well. There are alot of coaches like that in the NFL right now, good team managers, rah rah guys, good teachers of the fundamentals. But the coaches in short supply are those coaches that stay up into the wee hours of the night consuming film and breaking down the nuances and tendencies of the opposing team to try to give themselves a competitive schematic and strategic advantage and are willing to scrap a gameplan and devise another at halftime if it's not working. I hope when Tomlin's time is done in Pittsburgh, we make a concerted effort to try to find the next Chuck Noll.

“And they have a system they’re going to run and if you find some kind of way to shut it down, it’s going to lead to deficits elsewhere and that’s how you play — you attack, you attack, you attack and when that gets defended, you go somewhere else.

“I’m familiar with that philosophy, that’s how Chuck was, whether on offense or defense — [opponents] have to stop what you do. And if they do stop it, you expose somewhere else. That’s how we played the game. And the Patriots do it very well."

-Mean Joe Greene

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/...dy-passing-Noll-Bradshaw/stories/201701310103

 

Very true.....


Bill Belichick is a master tactician and strategist. He seeks to exploit enemy weaknesses and can adapt his own should they fail with a bevy of contigency plans.



As for finding the next Noll.... good luck with that. Said type of coaches are notoriously difficult to find and even more difficult to bring along should the incentives not be in their favor.

 

I realize it is wishful thinking to find the next Noll, but once Tomlin decides to call it quits (or has it decided for him), I hope the Steelers hire more of a tactician and strategist as opposed to a fundamentalist and motivator.

 

I don't think it's even that. I mean, a lot of coaches will sleep in the office etc. as if it gives them the edge, but they've not done any better or worse than coaches who don't.

For me, Bellichick is successful because he approaches the game without adhering to the conventions. He's trying to exploit every aspect of the game by thinking beyond the parameters all the time.

It reminds me of Clive Woodward, who was the England rugby coach. He looked at every aspect of the game in order to tweak things that others wouldn't think about. For example, he noticed that when teams stood and sang the national anthem at the start of a match, they would yell their hearts out (passion = great) but as a result expend energy (slightly out of breath = slow start on the field). So he made sure that while the other team were singing their anthem, his guys were rehydrating. It's a tiny move, but doing 20 of them around the whole operation of the game, and you get an edge.

So while there's a lot of work in that, it's not just about watching film and drawing up plans. It's also about asking the right questions, and thinking about the game from different perspectives. No surprise that Bellichick has been caught cheating so much, really...

And those guys are once a generation. Noll, Walsh, Bellichick...

 

It seems now there's the rush to the latest and greatest "hot" coordinator. How many times does that work out?

 

It called preparation, putting your players in a position to succeed. I am thoroughly tired of
our coaching staff not having this quality and losing to two-three teams a year we should beat.
And you wonder why we don't sniff home field in the playoffs?Unless our coaching staff can change
we are going to continue to see the same results we have seen against the NE's of the NFL.
The window is closing on #7, we just missed a golden opportunity,and did not take advantage of it.