I am european and I live in Europe following both soccer and football.

One thing that is interesting to me is that in Europe there are so many former star players that became coaches. Some of them have been very successful coaches. Others less so. But the point is a lot become coaches. And Head Coaches nonetheless. I can list like 15-20 people without even thinking too hard.

In football, that seems to not be the case. People like Prime and DeMeco Ryans are the exceptions.

It is a two part issue 1) why are former top players not interested in being coaches 2) why are teams not offering top gigs to former players straight up

Let’s look at two current examples. Bills OC job and the Texas A&M job. Both of these jobs are highly desirable and pay well. A&M likely $10 mil +.

Why are people like Larry Fitzgerald, Rivers, Demarcus Ware, Matt Ryan, Drew Brees, Mannings, Brady, Revis not interested and not being offered these jobs straight up?

I can easily see Messi or Ronaldo coaching down the road. Many players of their status have done it.

And I am not talking about recent developments. Many of the former star players never became coaches over the past 30+ years

But it seems impossible to imagine Mahomes or Mannings becoming coaches down the road. Wondering why such a difference.

Thanks!

  • visulvung@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Coaching a football team is a lot of work. The amount of personnel to manage and the degree of strategy going on at both ends of the field is astounding compared to soccer.

    Soccer is a free-flowing game and it’s a hell of a lot easier on the managers, you’re being more of a psychologist and motivator than an actual coach most of the time anyway.

  • CountJohn12@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Being an NFL head coach is massively stressful, if you’re set up for life from playing there’s no reason to do that to get paid less than what you did for playing. Most coaches are like former backup QB’s for that reason, they didn’t make enough to be set and have to actually work for a living and being a coach is their best career path since their only work experience is playing football.

    Not a soccer expert but I think you’re underestimating how tactically complex football is in comparison and how hard it would be to just jump straight into being a head coach with no coaching experience. I would never in a million years offer an NFL HC job to someone with no coaching experience no matter how great of a player he was. You have to understand EVERYTHING to be a HC, not just your own position. I’d offer a great QB like Peyton a QB coach job on the spot but there’s no reason for him to get paid peanuts for doing that when he can just sit on the stack of money he already got paid and get paid millions more to do a glorified live stream for ESPN.

  • ScruffMixHaha@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Its one thing to know your profession and a completely different thing to know how to teach it to others.

    Its a completely different skill set.

  • NobodyFew9568@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    The vast vast majority of NFL players have the knowledge to coach at the HS level. It is really just time. They know the grind. Some wanna do it some don’t. Quite a few do it on the down low, not on purpose just no one cares really.

  • S0larDeath@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Star football players make $10-$30 million per year and play many years to become stars. If you have $100 million in the bank, why you want to get out of bed at 4:30am every day and get ready for a long day of teaching 20 year olds when you could be living your best life out spending $100 million?

  • RamDEF7@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Coaching in football is very stressful and tiring with the amount of hours they have to put in. It isn’t like coaching basketball where you just come in and collect a check and go home.

  • TheDoomBlade13@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    1. There are way more soccer players than football players, so more will pipeline into coaching.

    2. Being good at a position doesn’t mean you are good at the sport as a whole. There is everything from QBs who couldn’t design, understand, and execute their own offense to linemen who don’t know the difference between Cover 2 and Cover 3 concepts because their job is the same in both.

  • Fuqwon@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Coaching and playing are different skillsets.

    Also the reason you’ll often see backup players become coaches. They might understand everything very well, but just lack the athleticism.

  • Hefty-Association-59@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Probably the fact that coaching hours and stress is insane and generational wealth makes them realize it’s not worth it at the nfl level.

  • DONNIENARC0@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    They already got their legacy. They (usually) already got their money. The added stress, crazy hours, and risk to the reputation probably just isn’t worth it when they could take a booth job for similar money.

  • spammusubi0808@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Peter Principle. Coaching and playing are two different things. Sure, they overlap, but just because you played doesn’t mean you can coach.