Legendary NFL Coach Cautions Franchises About This Hiring Mistake
By Movieguide® Contributor
Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy joined Sports Illustrated and discussed how NFL franchise owners “don’t know what they’re looking for” when it comes to hiring a new head coach.
Connor Orr with Sports Illustrated asked Dungy: “What are we getting wrong about hiring coaches now? The Patriots flew through their process, having fired Jerod Mayo after just one season, and hired Mike Vrabel in a matter of days. There were some teams that interviewed more than a dozen candidates.”
The Super Bowl winning coach responded: “People are thinking outside the box a little more, but I look at some of these big searches as the wrong way to do it. I grew up in the Pittsburgh system. Dan Rooney had a philosophy. A lot of these owners, they really don’t know what they’re looking for, so they are just searching and trying to turn over every stone.”
Former president of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Dan Rooney once said, “I want a young coach because I don’t want to do this every five or six years, so I want somebody in their 30s that’s going to be here for 20 years. We’re a cold-weather, blue-collar city, so I want defense. That’s what we’re going to hang our hat on. And I want somebody who’s a great teacher and a great communicator.”
“So he could narrow things down right away,” Dungy said of Rooney. “And in 1969, he comes up with unknown Chuck Noll. And then in 1992, he comes up with little-known Bill Cowher, and then in 2007 he comes up with little-known Mike Tomlin. Well, he knew what he was looking for. He didn’t have to interview 500 people.”
“I think that’s what’s missing with some of these people,” Dungy added. “They’re not sure what they’re looking for. So they better talk to everybody that’s hot. They better talk to every candidate that is under the rug.
“Figure out what you want—that’s what I always ask guys when they talk to me, owners, general managers: Do you want young? Do you want experience? Do you want offense? Do you want defense? Tell me what you’re looking for and then I can give you three or four names of who might be good. When you just say, ‘Well, tell me who’s good, tell me who’s dynamic,’ that takes in a lot of territory,” he concluded.
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