New NFL Rule Proposal on Penalties: “No Sizable Advantage”

January 16, 2023December 2, 2023 RilalyLeave a comment

“How many penalties are we going to call in this game?” the National Football League (NFL) fan asks when they watch a game now. We know we’re not alone when we say, “Something has to be done here. This is just getting ridiculous.”

“Don’t complain unless you have a proposed solution,” my 6th grade teacher said so often that it’s so ingrained that I wouldn’t write this article without a proposed solution.

Have you watched an NFL game recently? Of course you have, we all have. Have you noticed the number of penalties called? Of course you have, we all have, dating back to our dads and our grandads. Our complaints usually center around three things: Too many rules, too many flags, and how all of the above often prevents the players from playing the game. We blame the on the field NFL referees, which is a little unfair, because it’s not their fault. They’re the face of the NFL rules developed and handed down by the NFL’s Competition Committee (NFLCC), and those rules are so numerous and restrictive that when officials don’t throw flags, players complain. They’ve become so accustomed to so many flags being thrown that when they’re not the players are shocked. We all are. In some ways, I think NFL officials would welcome a new rule by the NFLCC that takes some of the burden off them by reversing the current trajectory of annually adding so many rules that it inhibits the fans’ enjoyment of the game. Let these incredible athletes play the game to determine the outcome. The collective we should vie to go back to the day, not so long since passed, when the NFL, the NFLCC, and the NFL referee’s goal was for no one to know their name at the end of the game. That’s gone. It just is.

Another point of emphasis we should add here, to sympathize with the average NFL referee, is that they, like most of us, are graded on performance. They are heavily scrutinized. They’re graded on accuracy of course, on calls made, on the flow of the game, on proper positioning and general professionalism. In the 2021 regular season of the NFL, referees made 11.8 calls per game, up 4% over 2020. In 2023, referees average around 12.5 calls per game. That .7 isn’t a huge uptick, but it does feel higher.

The next question we have is has the NFLCC added .7 more penalties occurring on the field? Is there stricter enforcement of the rules, or are referees more scrutinized than ever before? After every game, referees are scrutinized on a play-by-play basis, and they receive a coaching session on how they could’ve called various plays better. At the end of the regular season, those referees with the highest grades make the post-season roster of referees.

Somewhere, in the recent history of the NFL, the NFL’s Competition Committee (NFLCC) realized that they went too far making rules in favor of the offense. They realized that were making it almost impossible to play defense without some sort of penalty being called. It’s one thing to institute rules that protect players from injuries and potential injuries, but offense-friendly rules progressed so much that some former defensive stars of the NFL said things like, “I’m just glad that I don’t have to play in the modern game.” Some former defensive stars suggest that some of their hits, and the methods they used to defend a player, would’ve been legislated out of the game. (Think Rodney Harrison, Ronnie Lott, and Ray Lewis.) The NFLCC decided, in their infinite wisdom, to correct that unfairness, perceived or otherwise, by instituting more rules and more penalties, this time on the offense. That, of course, resulted in more flags, tons of them.

I don’t know if this was a general practice that dates back decades, but the current NFL players is now coached, in sessions, how to comport themselves according to the rules. In the past, I can only imagine, players went through drills and coaches said, “Yeah, that’s illegal now, according to the new NFLCC rules.” The players are now coached in closed-room settings put on by an instructor from the NFL. If this has always occurred and I’m unaware of it, that’s fine, but it appears as those there are so many rules now that the average NFL player has such a tough time keeping up with what’s legal and illegal that they need a closed-door session, put on by the NFL, just to keep up.

There are now so many flags thrown a game that not only does it inhibit the game, but it gives the officials far too much power in determining the outcome of games, power I would guess NFL referees would gladly relinquish. Rather than pass more rules to counter the counter, I suggest that they institute the two new words sizable advantage to the 2023 NFL Rulebook.

Anyone who has watched the NFL for as long as I have, has blindly accepted meaningless and ticky tack penalties for most of our lives. We’ve seen them so often and for so long that we accept the idea that officials are going to make certain calls. We’ve accepted that a twitch by a left guard is a five-yard infraction called illegal motion, for example, but does that twitch give the offense a sizable advantage in that play? As I wrote, we’ve accepted this for so long that it’s accepted. Yet, if there is no discernible advantage, and the left guard returns to a stationary position, the 2023 NFL should not require that the official throw a flag under the new, 2023 no sizable advantage rule. The NFLCC should require their officials to determine if that twitch gained the left guard an advantage against a D-lineman, or does the D-lineman gain an advantage, based on the idea that the left guard just tipped him off regarding what direction the play is headed in? In my sizable advantage rule, if a referee throws a flag, a three panel replay review board would determine, via expedited review, if the offense gained a sizable advantage by the twitch. If they decide there was no sizable advantage, the officials pull the flag. One asterisk: if a D-lineman spots the twitch, they can come across the line and force the official to throw the flag, but they run the risk of the officials missing the twitch. Whatever the case, if that twitch that doesn’t draw the defense offsides, the twitch rule needs to go.

My new “sizable advantage” rule would receive applause and boos throughout the league, as officials would be calling it both ways of course. The call would be “expedited review claims that the offense did not receive a sizable advantage for the infraction, no penalty.”

The same process would apply to the “two men in motion” and “illegal formation” penalties. As long as both players become set before the snap, no “two men in motion” men in motion penalty will be called. As for the illegal formation penalty, one definition of it states that someone on the end of the line has to be equal to the center’s waist, near the line of scrimmage. As we saw in a Washington vs. NY Giants game, a touchdown was called back because a receiver was about a half a yard off the line of scrimmage. Say what you want about that penalty, but Washington received no “sizable advantage” by one of their receivers standing a half yard off the line of scrimmage. That particular play was a run up the middle, and the receiver played no role in it. The referee would then say, “Expedited review has declared no sizeable advantage for Washington on the illegal formation call, no penalty, touchdown Washington.”

In some instances, officials follow the current rulebook regardless the circumstances, and they slow the game down by doing so, in my opinion, because calling innumerable ticky tack rules often diminishes the game. The officials also make subjective errors all the time, and when they make such errors “we” call for more replay reviews. I don’t know why a fan would call for more replay reviews, but I understand that they, officials, and the NFL in general, want to get it right. If there are more replay reviews, they should all be by the new “expedited review” process we’ve witnessed in the playoffs in 2023. Expedited reviews can also be used to determine if the letter of the rules applied in this case, or if the subjective, discretion officials might be called upon to make when it comes to determining sizable advantage. The NFL needs to place three officials in the review room to make expedited reviews of various calls like, hands to the face, illegal contact after five yards, and all of the “ticky tack” holding calls on the offense and defense to determine if they provide a sizable advantage to one team or the other. If the advantage cannot be determined in an obvious and expedited manner, with a very specific and short time limit, the officials should probably, and unfortunately, default to the call on the field, as they do other replay reviewed calls. My standards of operations of NFL referees would be expressly interested in limiting the number of penalties, as such there would be no reviews, and no downgrades, of of referees for non-calls, unless they are deemed egregious missed calls.

We could go through each individual penalty to determine some of the silly, “ticky tack” calls, but we would be here all day arguing about the definition of certain calls vs. sizable advantage. Yet, there is a “we all know it when we see it” principle to on the field calls that can be meted out in an expedited review process.

There is some frustration we feel when an NFL analyst, and former rules official in the booth arguing that a penalty should’ve been called there. Some of us, and I dare say a progressively growing majority, were done with that about ten years ago. “You actually want more penalties?” I scream at these two from the comfort of my home. “Just let them play!” I scream that, even EVEN when the calls benefit my favorite team. For most NFL fans, I realize their complaints are relative to their team and situational, but my bet is if the NFL sent out a survey that asked the question, “Do you want to see fewer penalties called, even if those penalties benefit your team,” the result, I think, would hover somewhere around 100%. If not, the future viewer at home would start citing the sizable advantage asterisk as often as they do the roughing the passer rule now.

The old adage “The best official is the one you don’t remember” is gone, it just is. The typical, modern NFL fan thinks that the NFL official currently wields far too much power in the game, because there are far too many rules that we’ve accepted for so long that we no longer question whether or not they provide a sizable advantage. I suggest the NFLCC steer the NFL in the opposite direction, for the first time in NFL history, and limit the number of penalties called in a game. As long as said penalty doesn’t result in an injury, or the possibility thereof, I say the NFLCC starts to review the number of penalties called and invokes rules like this one to diminish them going forward. The NFLCC needs to make a concerted effort to limit the number of calls in a game by invoking the “sizable advantage” rule that referees will enforce on the field. We understand that this is a subjective review that might make it harder to gauge and grade an NFL referee, but something has to be done here. The number of calls has been arcing upward for generations now to the point that the NFLCC rules are just taking some of the most compelling and fun elements out of the game. Most NFL players know that it’s a privilege and not a right to play in the NFL, and if they want to continue to play there, they have to conduct themselves according to the rules, but the average NFL fan doesn’t view it that way. We want to see the top athletes compete against each other to see who wins the game, and in an ever-progressing manner, the NFL referee is inserting themselves into the battle and helping decide the outcome. That’s not fair, and it’s not right to characterize it that way, but that’s the consensus, and even though the current monster of professional sports organizations, they still need to address the complaints of their customers. The consensus also has it that the current NFL referee is the bad guy, and the referees know it. My guess is that the modern NFL referee would not only see the logic in the new and improved “sizable advantage” asterisk, and they would probably go behind the scenes to encourage members of the NFLCC to approve it.

Ain’t Talking About Sports

February 21, 2022 RilalyLeave a comment

Baseball

I used to be a baseball guy, a Major League Baseball fan, until I wasn’t. And it wasn’t the 1994-1995 strike either, as it was for so many of my friends. I was a long-suffering Atlanta Braves fan, and the Braves were in the World Series four out of six years in that era. I was then glued to the McGwire v Sosa v Maris run. I attended the 8/30/1998 game against Atlanta in which McGwire hit #55. I remember feeling torn, because he hit one off my team, but I felt a part of history. If he broke Maris’ record, I rationalized, I could always say I attended #55. No, from about 1985 to about 1998, I was a huge baseball fan.

Something happened shortly after the strike that conspiracy theorists believe helped Major League Baseball regain popularity. Some suggest the steroid era loosely existed between the late eighties to the late 2000’s, but most baseball fans would suggest that it only became an issue requiring attention between 1997 and 2000. Some diehard baseball fans suspected that something was amiss early on. Something intangible and tangible changed about the game. It was no longer a secret, but many in my inner circle of MLB diehards chose to deny it was happening.

I don’t remember ever considering the idea that an MLB player might take performing-enhancement drugs a moral issue in a larger sense, but during the 1997-2000 run, Major League Baseball became Sega, Nintendo, or Playstation baseball. In just about every console’s baseball game of that era, the obsessed gamer found ways to artificially edit a player’s attributes to monstrous proportions, and we believe the upper echelon either encouraged such actions in Major League Baseball, or they turned a blind eye.

Some deniers argued that steroids can’t help a major leaguer see the ball better, and they don’t help a hitter turn his wrists quicker. Those arguments are true, but we argued that they could make an average major leaguer better, a good major leaguer can become great, and a great one can break every record on the books with steroids. The question of the era gradually shifted from why would they take steroids to why doesn’t every Major Leaguer do it? If everyone took steroids, it would level the playing field, right? Yes, until we measure their ability against past performance. The best argument against steroids I heard at the time was most barstool debates about baseball involve its storied history. Was Ty Cobb better than Babe Ruth? Was Ted Williams better than Joe DiMaggio, and has any modern star earned a mention in those debates? Other than some subtle changes involving spit balls and the height of the mound, the game largely remained consistent for over one hundred years, until the steroid era.

The question I always asked, in debates with agnostic and apathetic friends, was are Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Roger Clemens that much better than Roger Maris, Roberto Clemente, and Sandy Koufax? Statistically, it appears as though they were, but to level the playing field Maris, Clemente, Koufax we probably would need to go into a time machine and give them some steroids.

It was an era of “no one’s guilty, so everyone is” that stated “we all know that Greg Maddux and Ken Griffey Jr. are on the juice. Every Major Leaguer was.” I didn’t believe that. I thought some of those big names weren’t, and I held them in high regard for avoiding that temptation. I honored them for playing the game clean, but we were never sure who was clean and who wasn’t. Plus, if everyone else was on the juice, why wouldn’t they join in, to level the playing field? This question of the morality of taking steroids was such a confusing, complicated one that baseball fans debated it ad nauseam, and it led to a level of cynicism that ruined the core of the game for some of us.

FOOTBALL

On a separate but similar note, the NFL passing and receiving records are now an absolute joke. Whatever barstool chatter we once had, regarding the comparisons of one generation’s superstars versus another’s is so ridiculous now that I can’t imagine anyone is still having them. On the current, NFL’s all-time passing yards list, Joe Flacco and Kerry Collins surpassed a man that many, who saw him play, declare the greatest quarterback of all-time Johnny Unitas. Flacco and Collins are also ahead of Joe Montana, a quarterback who many of my generation bestow that crown. Flacco and Collins had fine careers, but those of us who saw them play never thought they would end up in the top 20, and no one imagined that they would boot Joe Cool and Johnny U out.

At one point, we can only guess, The NFL Rules Committee decided that their game is not a tradition-rich game in the vein of baseball, and they eviscerated the comparative-analysis barstool discussions for the now. With NFL ratings constantly topping previous years, it’s obvious The Rules Committee made the right choice, and the collective ‘we’ have determined that we want now too, and the who’s better now is the only discussion we can have, as it’s ridiculous now to debate the statistical merits of current players versus the past.

Writers and broadcasters state that Tom Brady’s highly disciplined regiment and diet are the reasons that he’s been able to have such a long career. That is a huge part of it, but no one asterisks that conversation with modern rules against a defense touching a quarterback outside legally designated areas. Couple that with the updated pass interference penalties, and the defenseless receiver penalties, and you open up the game, and make every passing record nonsense when compared to previous eras. Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Peyton Manning compiled impressive stats throughout their respective careers, but were they that much better than Joe Montana and John Elway, Terry Bradshaw and Roger Staubach, or Jonny Unitas and Sonny Jurgensen? The NFL game is so different now that you just can’t compare different eras in true side-by-side comparisons, without adding five asterisks at the very least.

Thanks to those rule changes, Emmitt Smith and Walter Payton’s records will never be threatened, because very few teams run anymore, except to throw the defense off. Why would you run? I’ve read well-researched articles stating even running to throw the defense off is a waste of time. I disagree with those articles, but I wouldn’t say they’re ridiculous.

Lynn Swann played in an era when cornerbacks, safeties, and linebackers could maul a player at the line and rough them up throughout their route, and no receiver who valued their career went over the middle. Due to the rules at the time, Swann could only play nine years, and his opportunities to catch the ball often occurred only on third down. To catch Shannon Sharpe at #50 on the list of most receiving yards of all time, Swann would’ve had to double his career total. The NFL rules tightened up on that during Rice’s era, but they became ridiculous during Megatron’s and Julio’s current era.

I’m a fan of NFL teams, but for some reason individual players ruin teams for me. I loosely cheered on the Packers for much of my life, but I really enjoyed the Brett Favre era. Favre was confident/brash/arrogant, but I loved it. The same characteristics could be applied to Aaron Rodgers, but I dislike him for his play on the field, and I’ve disliked him for as long as he’s played. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything else he’s done. I loosely cheered on the Matt Hasselbeck-led Seahawks, but I can’t stand Russell Wilson or Pete Carroll. My fickle nature is not based on winning or losing either. I liked Tom Brady and Peyton Manning throughout their careers, but I couldn’t stand Terry Bradshaw or Joe Montana. I also liked Ben Rothlisberger and Steve Young, so my preferences are not team specific either. Every time I think I’m above the soap opera of the NFL, then I go about disliking some players for no clearly defined reasons.

HOCKEY

As hard as I’ve tried to force myself to like hockey, I just can’t. I appreciate how grueling it is, and I respect the idea of how much mastery the game requires. I respect the idea that it might be one of the toughest sports to master, and how those playing it might be some of the toughest athletes in all of sports, but I just can’t force myself to enjoy a match.

Basketball

Magic v Bird was my entry point into the NBA. I followed the NBA loosely before Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were drafted, but I don’t remember ever sitting down and watching a game tip to :00. I knew of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Dr. J before Magic v Bird, but Magic v Bird was the beginning of the NBA as far as I was concerned. I watched their regular season matches with mild amusement, but their Finals’ matches were must-see-TV for me.

Save for some Bad Boy years, a disruptor became the game in the form of Michael Jordan. I watched Magic v Bird from the comfort of my home, but Michael Jordan in the Finals was an event that required get-togethers, on par with crucial Cornhusker games and Super Bowls. The roles reversed and the Bad Boys, the Knicks, and Magic v Bird became the disruptors, or the side show. Every male and female I knew during that era loved or hated Michael or Jordan. Few called him Michael Jordan, and no one, other than a few announcers, called him Mike. He attained the one-name status previously enjoyed only by entertainers like Cher or Madonna. Just about every male I knew wore something with his iconic image on it, or they dribbled a basketball with his name on it, while sticking their tongue out.

After Michael left the game, I gravitated to Chris Webber and the Kings v Lakers, but it just wasn’t the same. I also held on, somewhat, to watch Tim Duncan and the Spurs team game, then Chauncey and his defensive Detroit Pistons, but the epitaph for my love of the NBA was Game 6, 2002.

Great NFL Coaches: Belichick and Walsh

October 16, 2020December 13, 2023 RilalyLeave a comment

“The Patriots won, because they cheated,” Patriots’ haters say when asked to explain the unprecedented level of success the Patriots enjoyed between 2001 and 2018. I am not a Pats fan, but I am not a hater. I did not enjoy the long-term level of success they achieved, but I did appreciate it from afar. As much as I’d love to join the chorus of the haters, the cheating charge doesn’t explain the nine Super Bowl appearances made in the Belichick, Brady, and Kraft era. Even if they were 100% guilty of the offenses the NFL found (“And those were the times they got caught!” haters add) it doesn’t taint their six (SIX!) super bowl trophies. Even the most outspoken Pats hater has a tough time explaining how underinflated balls helped the Patriots appear in eight straight AFC Championship games between 2011 and 2018. “Tom Brady could grip the ball better,” they say. So, underinflated balls explains how the Patriots managed to achieve the only undefeated 16-game regular season since 1972, and the fact that they came one miraculous play away from beating the hottest team in football that year? During the Kraft, Brady, and Belichick era, the Patriots completed 19 consecutive winning seasons from 2001 to 2019, and they boast a .784 winning percentage against their division opponents. In Brady’s 18 seasons as a starter, the Patriots played in 50% of those Super Bowls, and they won 33% of them. Charging them with cheating might make those of us who grew tired of seeing them in the Super Bowl feel better, but somewhere deep in our heart (in an area no one will ever be able to see) we know it doesn’t explain that level of success sufficiently.

Hockey fans gave me one explanation about a decade ago. Hockey fans, not hockey insiders or analysts, but fans suggested that they thought their team had a better chance of winning in the coming year based on some of the hierarchical changes their team made in the offseason. I always knew, in the back of my mind, how important everyone from the general manager down to the scouts was, but I didn’t consider how institutional they were to the long-term success of my team.

A professional team in sports might have a few winning seasons here and there if they’re lucky enough to draft some key players and surround them with enough talent. They might even win a championship or two if the ball bounces the right way. If they don’t have the organizational structure of talented people throughout the hierarchy, they’re not going to win long term. As Jeff Benedict’s The Dynasty points out owners, general managers, talent scouts, and everyone in-between build a dynasty. The owner, in the case of the New England Patriots, Robert Kraft, was a businessman who had an obvious eye for talent. He also knew that after he found and hired that talent, his job was to back away and give them enough room to succeed. Some professional sports’ owners display too much micro level management (Jerry Jones), and some are too macro (Arthur Blank). As The Dynasty points out, Coach Bill Belichick made unpopular and jaw-dropping moves throughout the dynasty years, and Kraft didn’t approve of many of them, but he allowed his hire as coach/general manager to make whatever decisions he needed to make to sustain success. Those moves, more often than not, panned out over the long term.

One thing The Dynasty does not cover (because it’s probably of no interest to anyone but the football junkie) is the plethora of talent that Belichick and co., managed to find in the late rounds of the NFL Draft and in the various groups of undrafted free agents (UDFAs) that the Patriots hired. Were they lucky? Luck is involved of course, as even the best NFL scouts have a poor batting average, but the sheer number of successful moves the Patriots made in this regard that eventually paid off is an astounding comment on their long-term success. A number of my Patriot hating friends would love to claim that the Patriots might have been the luckiest team in NFL history in this regard. For twenty years though? I heard that Tom Brady once looked around the huddle of his teammates on offense and said, “How many of us are late round picks and Undrafted Free Agents (UDFAs)?” Look at the Patriots’ rosters throughout those 20 years. How many of their players on their roster were late round picks and UDFAs? Now, take that number and compare it to the rest of the NFL? The Patriots used multiple sources, both inside and outside the organization to inform their moves, but how many of those in-house advisers went off to other teams? How many of them were able to maintain that level of success picking players for other teams? Is it all about Belichick’s final say, or were Belichick and his coaches able to take those players to another level? How many of those same players went onto other teams to achieve the same level of success? How many coaches, from Belichick’s tree, went onto success with other teams?

If Belichick is such a genius, why didn’t he do it in Cleveland? What author Jeff Benedict points out in Dynasty is that Belichick couldn’t do what owner Robert Kraft did, Robert Kraft couldn’t do what Belichick did, and neither of them could do what Tom Brady did. The dynasty of the last two decades was a matter of stars aligning perfectly. If Robert Kraft didn’t buy the team, Tom Brady probably would’ve left the team after a few years, as he and Belichick didn’t see eye to eye on some matters and Kraft did everything he could to keep them together as long as possible. If Belichick remained a Browns or Jets coach, Robert Kraft’s Patriots might have won a Super Bowl or two, but six? If Brady went to another team, the Patriots might have won a Super Bowl or two, but six? Tom Brady might have won a Super Bowl on his own, but six of them? As The Dynasty points out, the Patriot dynasty was all about the stars aligning from the top down and a number of people played a role, but most of those people came and went, and the three most important players stayed for almost twenty years.

“Bunch of cheaters is what they are,” just about every Patriots hater says anytime the subject of Patriots’ long-term, sustained success over twenty years comes up. “Right on!” is what I’d love to say before giving that feller a mean, emotional high-five. I’d love to say that the reason the Patriots always beat my team is because they cheated in big ways and small ones, but it just seems too easy.

The Patriots were accused of filming the signals of the opposing teams’ defensive coordinators. An important note here is that the general practice of filming opposing coaches wasn’t illegal, but they couldn’t do it from their sidelines.

Another element of what we called Spygate is that the Patriots filmed the Rams’ walkthrough practice before 2002 in Super Bowl XXXVI. If you call filming a team’s walk-through practice, before a game cheating, then the Patriots allegedly cheated, but this opposing team’s walk-through practice occurred on the field, in pre-game warmups. That practice was available for everyone to see, and if the other team suspected the Patriots of being cheaters, why did they reveal secrets about their game plan on the field for all to see? They should suspect the Patriots of cheating. They should suspect every team of cheating and adjust accordingly. If this practice provided the Patriot’s enough information to win a game isn’t it on the opposing team to prevent the Patriots from learning their secret game plan. “It was against NFL rules for the Patriots to film that practice session.” True, but if this action led the Patriots to win even some of the games they did, then I have to wonder why my favorite team didn’t do it.

Another cheating scandal is Deflategate. Deflategate is quite simply a joke that Patriots’ that haters cling to to diminish the Patriots’ incomparable level of success. In both of these cases, the Patriots faced unprecedented scrutiny in the aftermath of the accusations, and in the case of Spygate, they went onto lose the Super Bowl thanks to a play some consider one of the best, most fluky plays in Super Bowl history. In the aftermath of Deflategate, they went onto win the Super Bowl.

The first thing Patriots’ haters and lovers, and all sports’ fans should admit is that we take some of these issues much too serious. Sports is a pastime. The literal definition implies that we are supposed to watch football to pass the time until the more serious things in life come along. The human being has been distracting themselves from the daily drama of their lives for centuries. Romans called it the bread and circus effect. As long as Romans were supplied food and entertainment to their people, the politicians could get away with whatever they want. How many Americans know every single detail of these controversies, versus those who know similar minutiae about local, state and federal politics? With that level of apathy, how far are is America away from the fiddling politicians of Rome that some suggest led to the fall of that civilization? When I witness two grown men argue over politics to the point that they almost come to blows, I can’t help but think of The Simpsons’ kids saying, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” on a car trip.

Bill Walsh

When it comes to professional football, we consider former 49ers coach Bill Walsh a genius among geniuses. Some place him up on the Mount Rushmore of the greatest NFL coaches of all time. Bill Walsh had a long and storied career coaching in the NFL and college, and he earned many of the accolades he achieved in his career. As another coach, Bill Parcells, once said, “You are who your record says you are.” Parcells also said, “Once you win a Super Bowl, no one can ever take that away from you.” No one can take Bill Walsh’s three Super Bowl rings away from him, and no one can deny that the man won 60.9% of his regular season games. He won 10 of his 14 postseason games along with six division titles, three NFC Championship titles, and three Super Bowls. He was NFL Coach of the Year in 1981 and 1984, and in 1993, and the NFL elected him to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Bill Walsh headed a team while coaching the 49ers that selected some great players. A number of those players played in a number of pro bowls, and a number of them ended up in the Hall of Fame. Other than selecting Hall of Fame talent, some experts credit Walsh with developing the West Coast Offense, but he even admitted he based his system it on a system developed by Don Coryell, called “Air Coryell”. Still, Walsh took the influence, matched it to his talent on the field and won three Super Bowls and an overall winning percentage of 60.9%. Did Walsh coach those players up to the point that they were better than they were? Their winning percentage in the regular season and the post season, in a highly competitive National Conference, says yes. Walsh’s coaching tree also suggests he was a great leader. Walsh, like all great coaches, benefitted from talent, great advisers and scouts, and a whole lot of luck.

As for the talent he/they selected, no scout can guarantee that a college player’s talent will translate to the pro game. In that vein, we can say that selecting Joe Montana was something of a gamble. Yet, Joe Montana led Notre Dame’s 1977 team to a national championship. He was hardly a jewel in the rough. Another heralded move by Walsh was the trade for Steve Young. Steve Young’s talent didn’t appear to translate well in the NFL, as he had some poor years in Tampa Bay, and various NFL insiders deemed him a bust. With that in mind, we could say that Walsh’s trade involved something of a gamble, but Young finished his college career at BYU with the most passing yards in BYU history, he finished second in Heisman votes in his senior year at BYU, and he was selected number one in the USFL draft. He was hardly “a find” by Bill Walsh.

When it came time to select what some considered a true jewel in the rough, in the 2000 draft, to succeed the recently retired Steve Young, Walsh advised the 49ers to select Giovanni Carmazzi. Bill Walsh loved Carmazzi. He said he thought, “[Carmazzi] was a lot like Steve Young, only bigger.” Prior to the Carmazzi pick, Bill Walsh rejoined the 49ers front office and encouraged the 49ers to take Carmazzi with the 65^th pick. Who, in the 49ers organization, would go against Bill Walsh? With the difficult transition from college to pro, it’s unfair to put a “miss” on any person’s resume, but imagine if Walsh “spotted” a starting quarterback from a power five conference who made numerous comebacks in his collegiate career versus a quarterback who some considered extremely raw from a Division I-AA school. Imagine what “spotting” Tom Brady would’ve done to Bill Walsh’s otherwise impressive resume.

To be fair to Walsh, many judged Brady almost comically lacking in athletic ability. He was the prototypical definition of a drop back, stay in the pocket quarterback and many believed the game was “now” so fast and the quality of offensive lineman was dropping so precipitously that every NFL now needed a quarterback with Steve Young’s athleticism. Walsh’s thought process probably accounted for that on both players when he encouraged the 49ers to select Giovanni Carmazzi with the 65^th pick. (Giovanni Carmazzi never played a down in a regular season game.) Not that it matters, but the Brady family were 49ers’ season ticket holders for 24 years prior to the 2000 draft, and Tom Brady was a die-hard Montana, then Young fan, and the Bradys were hurt when the 49ers did not select the local boy from San Mateo. Brady was, at the very least, a hometown kid gone good in the California area. We have to imagine that his athletic accomplishments at Michigan put Tom Brady’s name in the 49ers draft room, and we can only guess that Walsh tired of the “Tom Brady conversation”.

Imagine if this genius among geniuses saw something most people missed in Brady, and his recommendations involved the 49ers going from Montana, as the starting quarterback, to Young, and then to Brady. Imagine if Brady accomplished half of what he did in New England for the 49ers organization. Those of us who loathed the 49ers in the 80’s and 90’s wouldn’t be able to tolerate the “genius among geniuses” discussions. This article wouldn’t be possible, because there would be no denying that Walsh was an unqualified genius. Had the Patriots not selected Brady, we can only guess that Brady loved the 49ers organization so much that he may have accepted just about any undrafted free agent contract offer from the 49ers.