The Changing of the Guard and new generation of NFL coaches

Image via AP

By Lucas Kochevar

The standard of the NFL for the past two decades has been the Patriots and Bill Belichick. The Patriot way was often described as the culture teams wanted to instill in order to be a winner. Countless attempts have been made, but nothing replicated the real thing. How could it? Six Super Bowls won and countless regular season wins is something teams dream of, but all dreams come to an end eventually. 

Once Tom Brady left, Bill Belichick was forced to prove that his way could last, even without the greatest quarterback of all-time. It didn't work and Belichick is now out of New England, four years after Brady’s departure. It’s the end of an era in New England and football as a whole. Not only is Belichick gone from New England, Nick Saban is retired and Pete Caroll was, effectively, retired by the Seahawks. 

These coaches are in the top one percent of winning coaches to ever grace the sideline. Saban and Belichick are considered the greatest of all-time. We have to come to terms with the fact that the league and football is changing. College is easy to describe as NIL and the transfer portal can be linked to Saban’s departure. The NFL is a different story. 

It’s the changing of the guard for coaches in the NFL as the young, offensive guru is the wave in the NFL. Two coaches, however, will likely maintain their old school approach to the game. Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh are now the longest tenured coaches with their one team. Both of them aren’t your traditional Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan, but they’ve won games their own way. Hard-nosed defenses that find effective offenses when they need it. Although the Steelers have struggled with that recently, Tomlin has never seen a losing season.

The old way works, as evidenced by these two coaches and Andy Reid, but the new generation is coming up and it’ll be intriguing to see the innovations brought to the game. The west coast offense, that often shows receivers going in motion like the CFL, is taking over the league. The Dolphins have seen great success using motions and fakes to fool the defense. The Rams have seen their offensive resurgence with under center run plays and play-action. The 49ers offense is uber talented, but it clearly comes back to the mastermind running the show in Shanahan. 

If you can’t tell, I can’t sing the praises of these coaches enough. This offensive system is something I fell in love with watching with the 2016 Falcons, a coaching staff that is similar to the 2012 Washington staff that featured numerous current NFL head coaches. This system puts an unrelenting pressure on defense to play perfect, while the offense runs their fundamentals to perfection. The system flourishes and elevates talent as long as you do your job. 

Numerous coaches will enter their first NFL job and they’ll run this system. The Texans OC Bobby Slowik could find a job after elevating C.J. Stroud and the Texans. Bengals OC Brian Callahan has been interviewed several times and he’s a grandson on the coaching tree of Sean McVay. Looking at coaching trees is a fascinating exercise and most of them come from either Bill Walsh or Bill Parcells. 

Back to Bill Belichick, a product of the Parcells coaching tree, he’s now in an interesting position. He could choose almost any team that reaches out to him and it’s no secret the Falcons are putting their chips in for Belichick. We’ll see whether or not he accepts a job again this season, but with the other legendary coaches I mentioned retiring, it could be possible that Belichick follows suit at age 71.