Coaches – the heroes of martyrs of NFL - NFL Feature
The most insecure job in the National Football League (NFL) is of coaches; failure of one season can cost success of even a decade to some officials.
Take for example Jim Caldwell and his assistants. Caldwell led the Indianapolis Colts to many glorious wins over a period of past 10 years. He failed in 2011 and owner Jim Irsay let him and his all assistants go in one sweep. From Del Rio, Bruce Arians to
Jim Caldwell, everyone lost their jobs last season, turning out be scapegoats of poor performances of their respective teams.
Another example is of Bud Adams – the owner of Tennessee Titans. He has issued a stark warning to coaches to get ready for scrutiny on their failure to do as better as they did last season. Mike Munchak led the Titans to an impressive 9-7 record in 2011.
This year the team have failed to give a notable performance, and the coach is on warning, already.
One can argue that it is a part of the business, but the owners show a little mercy when they fail in the business. So, success for the coaches is essential to secure their jobs as long as they can.
It is also a norm of the business that change of ownership means change of all officials in the coaching department and from the front offices. Pat Shurmur, the second-year coach of Cleveland Browns, is through an uncertainty about the prospects under Jimmy
Haslam, the team’s new owner.
So the sword of being sacked continuously hangs over coaching officials, and they are likely first victims of rebuilding exercises of all teams. They take the blame not only for the failures of the players but also of hiring and firing, since they contribute
to such decisions in any team.
They are also made subjects of fines and suspensions as much as other members of the league over the matters as significant as criticism of referees’ decisions. The league office frequently scrutinises and disciplines them.
Currently, no platform protects the interest of coaches. They do have a representative body but it is very ineffective.
There are hopes that the body is going to be reorganised on the lines of NFL Players Association (NFLPA), which should take some time. In the meantime, these officials are expected to be treated the way they are.
At a number of occasions, reports of discrimination and injustice to coaching officials have emerged but no remedial measures have been taken in this regard. It is essential that the league office should take measures to give some respectable status to the
coaching officials and their grievances should be heard and solved.
Also, it will be ideal that league office has some sort of training facility for the coaches, where they can be trained according to their abilities and rated accordingly. There should be a limit set for their remuneration packages as per their calibre and
ability so that element of discrimination is avoided in the payouts.
At the moment many coaches of good calibre and experience end up working as assistants just because of lack of job security. This leads to direct or indirect discrimination to them in spite of the fact that they serve the league in professional manners.
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