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01/7 2011

If Jim Harbaugh Becomes NFL’s Richest Coach, Should Current Coaches Hold Out For More?

Posted by Dan Levy.

[If you are a regular to the show, you've certainly heard Nick make reference to "our buddy Mike McKeeman" and the wonderful, if somewhat out-of-left-field ideas he has over email. This is one of those ideas. The words below are his.]

I want to see an NFL coach holdout. I complain all the time about petulant wide receivers who whine that they’ve outplayed the contract extension they signed just two years ago and threaten to sit out training camp and the regular season. But I would love it if an NFL coach decided to take this tact against an owner. I just want to see what would happen.

Could it happen next year? Rumors have Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh signing a deal with the Miami Dolphins, or two or three other teams, that would make him the NFL’s highest paid coach. Harbaugh has been extremely successful at Stanford, taking over a team that went 1-11 the year before his arrival and leading them to an Orange Bowl victory and a Top 5 ranking four years later. Other collegiate coaches have had similar resumes and failed miserably in the NFL, so it only seems natural that current NFL head coaches would bristle at the thought of the latest NCAA flavor-of-the-month becoming the highest paid coach in football.

Yes, Jimmy Johnson won two Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys, but recently we have seen much less stellar NFL records from National Championship-winning coaches Nick Saban, 15-17 in two seasons with the Miami Dolphins, and Steve Spurrier, 12-20 in his two years guiding the Washington Redskins. And let’s not forget Bobby Petrino “leading” the Atlanta Falcons to a 3-10 mark before fleeing back to college during the season.

Bill Belichick is currently the league’s highest paid coach at $7.5 million per year. With a 162-94 career record and three Super Bowl rings, he certainly deserves it. So how would Patriots owner Robert Kraft react if Belichick decided that he wanted to be higher paid than Harbaugh, a man whose only NFL coaching experience came as a Raiders assistant in 2002-2003? (Ed note: he’d probably pay him.)

The Patriots have often taken a very hard line with players when it comes to contract negotiations and holdouts. Just this season guard Logan Mankins held out for the first seven games of the season. Would Kraft be comfortable handing over the reigns to Assistant Head Coach Dante Scarnecchia for training camp and the first two months of the 2012 season? (Ed note 2: if there is a season.) I suspect that Kraft would pony up for Belichick before training camp starts, but a potential holdout from some other coaches would likely cause a massive headache for owners.

Andy Reid is another coach who works for an owner who likes to play hardball with players in contract negotiations, making him an interesting candidate for a holdout. With a 118-73 lifetime record, five NFC Championship game appearances, one Super Bowl appearance, and the Michael Vick reclamation project under his belt, Reid could potentially make some lofty demands if he sees his salary dwarfed by that of a college coach. Currently he makes $5.5 million per year, 45% less than Harbaugh’s rumored salary.

Mike Shanahan ($7 million/yr) has two Super Bowl rings, but his first season in Washington was a disaster. Tom Coughlin ($5.25 million) won a Super Bowl just three years ago, but he was rumored to be in danger of losing his job after an epic in-game collapse handed the NFC East to the Eagles.

Mike Tomlin ($5.75 million) has a Super Bowl ring with the Steelers, but he hasn’t been on the job long enough to take that stance against a franchise, and ownership, like that. All of these coaches could potentially argue that they deserve more money than a rookie head coach — with only a few years of college head coaching experience — but they also all have enough chinks in their armor that would probably cause their respective owners balk in the event of a holdout. Or threaten to fire them.

This is obviously a “what if” type of idea, but it’s fun to think who would blink first in such a scenario. Giving in to coach demands would set a dangerous precedent for owners. But is it any more dangerous than the precedent of giving previously unseen salaries to unproven college coaches and players? Better to splurge on a known commodity like Belichick than to take a chance on an unproven NFL assistant or college coach.

Again, there’s no way a coach would undermine his bosses in such a public way, especially without precedent (or a union backing him up). And one thing we do know about most NFL coaches is that they love to be in control, so even a successful holdout and the extra money it brings might not be worth giving up control of the team for even a portion of training camp, let alone the missed regular season games a protracted holdout would cause.

That said, I will still, ahem, hold out hope that one of these guys has the balls to say that he deserves more than the next hot college coach. I’d give us a more interesting August NFL storyline than the battle for the 53rd roster spot or what’s happening on Brett Favre’s front yard, that’s for sure.

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Posted on January 7, 2011 at 10:50AM

 

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