All About the Leaders

t’s tough to think about sports with any degree of seriousness on September 11^th. I’m always taken back to my living room, watching a newscast with some morning coffee. They first said it appeared a private plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Then they discovered it wasn’t a private plane at all but a commercial airliner.

And, as I watch, already horrified, another jet crashes into the tower. Three people from my town were killed, including a good friend of my daughter. And there is no World Trade Center.

In the aftermath, our leader vowed to get the people responsible. Then he assigned the responsibility to a country he hated, and, what a coincidence, Cheney was a key figure in the mistaken notion that Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction. So off we went to war for no reason, killing Iraqis and a lot of Americans too.

Seven years later, we have no clue as to the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. We’re assured people are looking though. The economy is horrible, nobody can sell their house, and the dollar is doing its best impression of a peso. Oh, it’s pretty tough to get a job too. Maybe that’ll curtail the flow of illegal immigrants.

We have only two “legitimate” candidates for President. And, once again, the prospective Vice Presidents are far and away more impressive than the Presidential candidates. There’s something wrong with our picture.

Leaders determine a great deal in life, and in the sports world too. We of course have seen the Mets take on new life since Jerry Manuel took the reins. Willie Randolph was a great sportsman and a nice man. Some say our President shares those traits. Wasn’t he reading a story to a class of children during the attack on New York City? Wasn’t he addressing a nice group of Republicans when Katrina slammed into New Orleans?

How does this tie in with the world of sports, you may ask? Well, the only bridge I can construct is leadership. Bad leaders accumulate losses and good ones rack up the wins. And teams tend to take on the character of the leader. Our country seems arrogant and hurtful and even stupid to the world right now. We must hope….. no, pray, that either candidate will be better….. much better.

As much of an influence, though, as a good solid leader can have on a baseball game, and a baseball team, that influence pales in significance compared to that of the head coach in professional football, and major college football too, for that matter.

The days when a quarterback could call his own plays are gone, of course, almost beyond recall. (Not for me but for many of you, I’m sure). The head coach puts together the game plan and usually calls each play. But, beyond that enormous influence, he also determines the type of players a team will acquire and dictates their behavior on the field.

It’s the worst thing that ever happened to football. A team can have a great passing quarterback such as Kurt Warner, for example, and he’ll be forced to run the football until his team is almost hopelessly behind.

Conversely, there are countless stories of the great running quarterbacks, such as Michael Vick and Vince Young, who are shackled to the pocket by coaches more interested in their system than winning, or, too limited mentally to figure out that the system that worked with their previous team won’t necessarily work with the team they have now.

The best coaches adapt their styles to their personnel. That is why Bill Belichick can win with overpowering defense, or win with an overwhelming passing attack, or win with a hard-hitting running attack. He adapts his style to his personnel, unlike Mike Martz and the new genius in Arizona.

Another mark of good leaders is that they can adapt to changing styles of play and new ideas that work. That is why we are seeing a lot more emphasis already this year on rushing the passer. The Giants’ convincing win over the supposed team of the century was accomplished by maintaining a constant stream of pressure on Tom Brady. The better teams with the better coaches will copy that style this year. And already this young season, we’ve seen Tom Brady get hurt and Peyton Manning fail to beat the Bears.

It seems to me that this new philosophy will prove a very dangerous one indeed for the quarterback population. Vince Young is hurt too, and maybe mentally as well as physically, if Coach Fischer can be believed. Fantasy footballers especially will feel the pinch when the better quarterbacks go down. Will Romo be next?

But the better coaches will already have been thinking about adaptations. More screens and draws maybe, more quick releases; the running backs who can catch the ball should see an increase in their usefulness and productivity, as will the Wes Welkers of the world. Especially against teams with the big pass rush, those quick hitters will be the only way to survive.

We might see teams loading up on quarterbacks, or see them feature better backups or perhaps younger backups. We’ve certainly seen already an adaptation to the injury factor with the almost universal switch to dual running backs. We’ve already seen the better teams, and smarter teams, put a more pronounced emphasis on the offensive line, at least if their increasing salaries is any indication.

Whatever changes are incorporated into the game, though, it’ll be the head coaches with smarts and imagination who will carry the day, and the season, as Belichick has, and Parcells, and a few others, if perhaps to a lesser extent. In a way, Parcells’s style or system already incorporates the injury risk factor, calling not only for big linemen but also for big linebackers and even a big secondary.

Sports emulates life and it’ll be a different type of season. Leadership will determine the winners, and the losers too