Are Mangini and Holmgren really opposites?

Well, I’m sure this probably isn’t the answer you’re looking for but I never felt like X’s and O’s were going to be the determining factor at all in Holmgren’s decision.

I also feel they could coexist just fine. Let the coach coach…or…get rid of him. Take over all other personnel decisions, give him input but make the final decision yourselves. If Holmgren starts deciding what the coach can or can’t implement well, he might as well just be coach himself because well, that’s not going to work unless he installs his own ‘yes man,’ which is a distinct possibility, but still…

The only real dilemma, and where I’m kind of contradicting myself…is OC. I would like Holmgren to tell Mangini ‘Look, you have to lose Daboll…we’ve come up with a list of OC’s you can choose from and have the final say on because we already approve of all of them.

But then, well, I guess that would be dictating X’s and O’s so we’re back to square one.

Here’s my take:

the Xs and Os in the NFL—on offense at least—are really not vastly different. In college, you almost have to commit to one offensive philosophy because you have an incredibly limited amount of practice time. Keeping the same style means you can focus on that one thing and get all of the wrinkles and nuances down.

Texas Tech’s passing game is/was incredible because that is all they did. You can be really good at passing as well as the counters like draws and screens when that’s all you have to practice. Same with Georgia Tech or Navy and the running game.

Plus, there are so many teams in college that running different things than everyone else helps you. If you are Navy and you know your offense inside and out and you know every wrinkle and every counter possible within your offense, you can play at a level above your talent if you are one of three teams in the FBS running the Veer. Every other team has to spend all week preparing specifically for you, and if they look ahead, you blast them.

In the NFL, there is a lot of coach inbreeding. There are less teams, teams run more similar things, and there is more familiarity in general. Players stick around longer and are relatively done developing compared to college. You also have unlimited practice/meeting time, so if you are Miami and you try the Wildcat and it sucks, not a big loss, you didn’t use all your weekly practices putting it in. Coaches and players watch a lot more tape, so if you face Miami the week after they pulled out the Wildcat, you are probably already ready for it.

There are not as many benefits of trying the whacky thing that no one else does, especially not selling out for it. They had nothing to lose, tried it, and it paid off. But even then it didn’t get them the super bowl like Urban Meyer’s offense probably got Florida a NC. The risks of being the innovator in the NFL are enormous: if you were a HC and you exclusively ran WVU or Florida’s offenses and you failed, you’d be laughed at, fired, and probably out of a job in the league forever. The reward is smaller: even if you bring in the “next big thing” like Miami, it is a copycat league, as the saying goes, so you won’t be the only one for long.

Your beginning premise is somewhat of a straw-man. I’ve said I thought the respective schemes that the two men favor are different but that is not the only nor the primary reason I think Mangini will not be retained. I think a bigger factor is that the two men have not worked together before and don’t really know each other. Would you stake your first year with a new team on someone you don’t really know? Note the statement that Holmgren made about the stack of messages in his office from people he has worked with in the past and the statement about lists he keeps of potential coaches and front office people. I can’t imagine that coach Mangini is on any of his lists. These kind of guys have prodigies and known quantities that they try and incorporate wherever they are. I will be very surprised if Mangini is retained.