An AFC owner walked into his locker room after another devastating playoff loss, angrily confronting one of his chief personnel operatives. “We have to do better,” he said. The personnel man nodded. With the sting of defeat still boiling his blood, he hoped the owner would just go back to his mansion and leave him the hell alone. The owner did not, and the ranting continued. “I want a plan. I want to see a plan. And I don’t want to see it in March. I want to see it next week.”
There is no such thing as a plan. One of the developments in sports over the last few years has been the emergence of this dopey phrase, “trust the process.” It is often accompanied with an even dopier phrase, “process over results.” Do I understand the concept? Yes. If you do the right things, if you prepare the correct way, the results will come. But here’s the problem with that sentiment when it comes to winning championships: it’s poppycock, balderdash, hogwash. What was the flaw in the process for Matt Nagy’s Bears that led to Cody Parkey’s double doink? What was the flaw in the process for that first Bills Super Bowl team that knocked Norwood’s kick wide right and changed the legacies of Marv Levy, Jim Kelly, etc.? Did Bill Belichick suddenly forget how the process works when Tom Brady moved south for tax reasons? Had he not learned it yet in Cleveland? Changing sports, does Aaron Judge employ the right process to dominate the regular season but the wrong process for postseason success?
If you want to be a consistently good franchise, sure, process can be important. The Packers and Steelers have displayed solid process for the last decade. And no rings. If you want to win championships, that process better include employing the kinds of athletes (and coaches) that thrive in the definitive moments of a season’s most important contests. The Chiefs don’t win because of their process, which is evidenced by the fact that no one from that organization has made their process work in a second location. (Just as none of Belichick’s assistants were able to bring his magical “process” to a second location.) They win because they have two superstar coaches, a superstar quarterback and a superstar pass rusher.
The Bears have not failed to win consistently because of an absence of process. They have failed to win consistently because they have been deficient – for too long – as the two most important positions in an NFL franchise: head coach and quarterback. If Ben Johnson is a good head coach, and Caleb Williams is a good quarterback, the Bears will be good moving forward. If Johnson is great, and Williams is great, so will go the Bears. If they’re not, the Bears will return to the process that has defined them in the 21st century: the hiring process.
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@Barry Just my personal opinion, but players know whether their coach has their act together or not. If they lose early on, the coach will still have runway IF he’s earned it. If, on the other hand, players are kind of giving the coach the side eye early, he better win immediately, or he’s cooked and will never recover. Unless a coach is just a complete ass or idiot, they’ll usually get at least the same chance as a kid being convinced to try broccoli by their parents…lol.
In the hellenic tradition: beauty, sweetness, light, rationality, truth, and justice are the human goals leading to perfection (or the winning of Superbowls). Such requires a conscience of spontaneity. (MY HC BEN and I.)
In the hebraic tradition: control, power, domination, routine, and unquestioned loyalty are the godly goals leading to perfection (or the destruction of the opponent to win Superbowls). Such requires a conscience of obedience. (Bad Dufus TeXass.)
@Arnie In your experience, does buy-in from the players best happen immediately or gradually? For example, say the effort, discipline, game-planning, and confidence isn’t there on the offensive side of the ball in week one, like it wasn’t there in week one of last year. Obviously that would not be good. But exactly how bad would it be?
I guess another way to phrase the question is: How long is Coach Johnson’s runway for getting his team to become a disciplined, motivated/confident, well-coached one?
There are a lot of good points in this article, and I agree that a great “process” cannot consistently overcome a disparity in talent. That said, I’d be careful about dismissing process, as well as other factors, including the motivational side of the game, the timing (meaning coaches and players who step up in key moments instead of performing worse in key moments), effective strategy to either take advantage of each opponent’s unique weaknesses or to create confusion that puts the opponent in bad positions, etc. I say all that because football is a very complex game with a ton… Read more »
I am curious to know how firm the author’s conviction in the point is. The maximalist way for an NFL team to reward personnel over process is to make every single deal (with the unfortunate exception of rookie contracts) a one-year contract in terms of the guarantees. You’d do this to give yourself the most maneuverability possible in terms of roster-building and staff-building. If someone — anyone — isn’t performing, then they get replaced with somebody who can. Maybe somebody on here disagrees, but I don’t think coach BJ comes to CHI on a one-year deal (even one that’s layered… Read more »