Copycat

Many sports commentators have mentioned that the National Football League is a copycat league.  This actuality is not new to the league.  There is what is called, following a coaching tree, how the success of one coach propelled others.  The two main coaching trees are that of Bill Parcells and Bill Walsh.  Holmgren and McCarthy came from the Walsh coaching tree.  Back in 2014 Troy Vincent, an NFL executive, former NFL player and former Badger football player, announced he was proud of the NFL being a copycat league.  This season, eight head coaching positions became available in the NFL.  Of the eight, six positions have been filled as of Friday, January 11, 2018. Three of those six positions have been filled with Xennials with all three being born in 1979.  Sport commentators have said that there is a desire to copy the coaching style of Sean McVay of the LA Rams. Many of the NFL team powers that be see McVay, a true millennial, as having great success in just two seasons with the Rams, and they want the same.  What some teams, during this year's search was to find that copycat of Sean McVay, this is certainly true of the Packers.  There seems to be a desire for a younger, innovative, and offensive minded coach, preferably one with experience coaching quarterbacks.  Yet, I noticed other similarities that at least three of these Xennial head coaches, Shanahan, Kingsbury and LaFleur, present.   

Two years ago besides McVay the other big name was Kyle Shanahan who is now head coach of the San Francisco  49ers. Following this copycat mold, the Packers hired Matt LaFleur and will pay him about $5 million a year.  Kliff Kingsbury, who was fired at the end of this last season as head coach of Texas Tech, was hired by the Arizona Cardinals.  His recent firing was apparently not enough to keep them from engaging his services to be their next head coach.  Adam Gase, recently fired by the Dolphins, but hired by the New York Jets, is also said to fit this mold of coach, but also shows that innovation does not necessarily translate to sufficient W's.  Shanahan, Kingsbury, and LaFleur were all born in 1979, making them late generation X or early part of the Millennial generation, so let me refer to them as Xennials.*  Gase was born in 1978.  McVay is clearly a Millennial.    However, what struck me is not the similarity of being young, or innovative, or even all being offensive minded.  No, what struck me is, well, how alike Shanahan, Kingsbury and LaFleur look.  They share a similar hairstyle, similar beard, similar body build.  I think they call came off the same factory floor. A Japanese robot builder may have more variation in their robots than exists for these three.   Do they all have to follow the same expectations of what Xennials are to look?  Is there no variation allowed?

Xennial NFL Coaches

This struck me as rather interesting, so interesting that I mentioned it to my wife.  As usual, she had a quick comeback, and said that it is probably not unlike men of my age.  Given this comment, I had to set on a search of what NFL coaches are nearest my age, and do we share similarities in appearance. I came up with three of the to-date current head coaches that are closest to me in age.  Vic Fangio, just hired as head coach of the Denver Broncos who clearly did not follow the copycat rule as they hired a 60 years defensive mastermind as coach (previously Defensive coordinator of Da Bears). There is also Mike Zimmer, head coach of the Vikings and then Andy Reid, current head coach of the Chiefs.  Andy Reid would be familiar to Packer fans as he was position coach at varied positions with the Packers, lastly as quarterback coach,  from 1992 to 1998 before being hired as head coach of the Eagles.

Boomer NFL Coaches closest to me in Age

If one were to look at the three Xennial NFL coaches noted above that were born within a few months of each other in 1979 I think you see more similarities than between the three of the  baby boomers closest to my age.  The boomers have variety in hair on the head and only one has facial hair--and that is a mustache.  Clearly, boomer coaches of my age do not follow a prescribed appearance as common and similar as that of the prototype example embedded in the trendy Xennial coaches. 

LA Ram Coach Sean McVay

The NFL head coach closest to me in age is Andy Reid of the Kansas City Chiefs.  We are less than three months apart in age, but perhaps we show the closest commonality of that referred to by my spouse.  Andy Reid, is the only one of the three NFL coaches closest to me in age, and he is the only one to have a walrus type mustache.  I would have to say, his mustache is even more walrus like than mine.  While Andy and I have differences in body size and proportion, we also have similarity in the thinning of hair on our heads.

Andy and I

The Boomer, Xennial, and all the other NFL coaches are all hoping to take their team to, and win, the Super Bowl.  Time will tell if the copycat idea works.  Of the seven NFL coaches hired three years ago only one is still a head coach with the team that had hired him.  With the Xennial coaches, the problem will be telling them apart.  Even if I were a NFL head coach, one would not have to worry about telling me apart from Andy Reid--I think I would be more engaged on the sideline.  Don't believe me?, just ask my wife about me watching a Packer game.  Is the NFL becoming a copycat league in appearance in addition to offensive, defensive philosophies?  I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

* There are different thoughts on when the Millennial generation started, so I used the term Xemmial as between Generation X and the Millennial Generation.  The term seems to, perhaps, begun with those on the older side of Millennial age group who did not wish, for some reason, to be associated with the Millennial age group.

Coach images from Google Images, Tom Hovel (author) image Carly Mac Photography