Haha, same. It's a tough debate, but really interesting. I do feel like the best NFL coaches are likely more influential to a game outcome on a game by game basis than MLB. Not to devalue managers in MLB, but when I think of some vague made up mathematical approach, the proportion of influence from the coach compared to the individual player. Way more players are on field and sharing impact on games amongst themselves (sure argument, some positions probably way more disproportionately impact in NFL than MLB). Its more players gaining individual share of impact, so potentially you could argue a single player (averaging all of their shares) is less in NFL than MLB.League Circles wrote:You guys all have me changing my mind on manager and coaching importance with every successive post haha.
Therefore, the NFL coaches impact proportional to his players average impact could be higher than the MLB coaches impact compared to his players average impact (and in basketball even less so).
I will say, one big thing not discussed yet is length of season. 162 games is A LOT. And look at the way we are talking about the Cubs, how great they look at one point and how low they are at another. Sustaining consistency is a challenge for a baseball manager that I think is far more challenging and important in MLB, thereby giving some credence to the importance of MLB coach on season success.
Relative parity across the sports would be interesting too. What is the impact of no cap on the importance of the coach? My gut thoughts are that it makes GREAT coaches all the more rare and hard to find. Yeah, you can get cheap coaches that make miracle runs in a small market one year, maybe sustain it two or even three years (KC a good example) ... but great coaches separate themselves with longevity that is much rarer today it feels like in MLB than NFL (I could be wrong, just my instincts not reach). Would be surprised if we see a Belichek of baseball ... or even a Tomlin. Roberts is having a good run thus far with LA, sorta like Tomlin in sense he landed first gig with some supreme talent and has continued evolving, but his managerial career is still quite young. Add-on and Francona are probably the closest. Perfect example is that Boone or Cora could very well be out of job in two years, ya never really can know in baseball it seems.
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