JaegerDice
The mark of my dignity shall scar thy DNA
- Dec 26, 2014
- 25,551
- 10,206
All great coaches invariably fall into the same traps by virtue of being human. Any one or many may apply to Sullivan, I haven't watched the Penguins closely enough to know which:
1) Reading their own press and beginning to believe that their genius, and not the talent on the ice, is responsible for the team's success. This manifests in many ways. One of the most common ways is prioritizing their precious system over the realities actual talent. When coaches are at their peak, they're seen adjusting how the team plays to the strengths and weaknesses of the players they have, to injuries, to opponents. As coaches begin believing their own hype, they determine that their system is the secret, and it is the front office's job to find players to fit the system. When the front office fails to fill the roster top to bottom with players that can play the coaches system and his roles perfectly, square pegs are mashed into round holes and the players are blamed. Players that fill their role well are overvalued relative to the measurable on-ice impact of the role itself. You see grinders become coaches favorites for succeeding at an easier job, but skilled players are punished for making mistakes or playing outside the bounds of their role depite having greater positive impact on the game overall.
Another way this belief in their own hype frequently manifests is when the coach repeatedly ignores the most obvious option or solution to a problem. If the solution is too obvious, then ANYBODY could come up with it, and the coach doesn't get credit. So the coach must find a less obvious, more clever solution, so that if/when it works, he gets the credit for his creativity or innovation. This typically happens gradually, with a middle phase where the coach tries everything but the obvious for the bulk of the season, and only in the playoffs, sometimes pushing it even as far as being down by several games in a series, does the coach do the obvious thing. In the cases where this eventual switch to the obvious solution takes place and the team manages to win, the local press is often quick to praise the coach's genius, while fans that were paying attention facepalmed over the fact that coach should have been doing the obvious the whole damn time.
2) They grow attached to the players they won with. This is pretty understandable, especially if you consider how much more the coach sees of the players during these playoff runs than we do. The ice bags after the games, the limping to their rooms, riding highs and lows of a deep run together. It's understandable to bond with somebody that went to war for you. Unfortunately, this makes it difficult for coaches to accept when the players that were warriors for them in the past, can no longer carry that load. The coach doesn't want to be the one to tell a guy who put his body through the wringer for years following his instructions that he's cooked. He doesn't want embarrass that war buddy by cutting his ice time, reducing his responsibilities, etc. So they keep rolling out the guys they win with and loosening the standard demanded for certain guys. Which leads into...
3) Biases and favoritism. The meritocracy the coach established earlier on crumbles as players see their peers performance slipping without being held to account. Meanwhile, they themselves are still held to a high standard. Coaches darling makes mistakes shift after shift with no accountability, and then a new player slips up once over the course of a game they were otherwise excellent in and gets benched or scratched as an example. This kills morale and hurts the coaches credibility in the eyes of the increasing number of players he never won with, especially as the years since the coach won stack up. Eventually, the coach 'loses the room' and is fired when enough players make it clear in end of season meetings.
1) Reading their own press and beginning to believe that their genius, and not the talent on the ice, is responsible for the team's success. This manifests in many ways. One of the most common ways is prioritizing their precious system over the realities actual talent. When coaches are at their peak, they're seen adjusting how the team plays to the strengths and weaknesses of the players they have, to injuries, to opponents. As coaches begin believing their own hype, they determine that their system is the secret, and it is the front office's job to find players to fit the system. When the front office fails to fill the roster top to bottom with players that can play the coaches system and his roles perfectly, square pegs are mashed into round holes and the players are blamed. Players that fill their role well are overvalued relative to the measurable on-ice impact of the role itself. You see grinders become coaches favorites for succeeding at an easier job, but skilled players are punished for making mistakes or playing outside the bounds of their role depite having greater positive impact on the game overall.
Another way this belief in their own hype frequently manifests is when the coach repeatedly ignores the most obvious option or solution to a problem. If the solution is too obvious, then ANYBODY could come up with it, and the coach doesn't get credit. So the coach must find a less obvious, more clever solution, so that if/when it works, he gets the credit for his creativity or innovation. This typically happens gradually, with a middle phase where the coach tries everything but the obvious for the bulk of the season, and only in the playoffs, sometimes pushing it even as far as being down by several games in a series, does the coach do the obvious thing. In the cases where this eventual switch to the obvious solution takes place and the team manages to win, the local press is often quick to praise the coach's genius, while fans that were paying attention facepalmed over the fact that coach should have been doing the obvious the whole damn time.
2) They grow attached to the players they won with. This is pretty understandable, especially if you consider how much more the coach sees of the players during these playoff runs than we do. The ice bags after the games, the limping to their rooms, riding highs and lows of a deep run together. It's understandable to bond with somebody that went to war for you. Unfortunately, this makes it difficult for coaches to accept when the players that were warriors for them in the past, can no longer carry that load. The coach doesn't want to be the one to tell a guy who put his body through the wringer for years following his instructions that he's cooked. He doesn't want embarrass that war buddy by cutting his ice time, reducing his responsibilities, etc. So they keep rolling out the guys they win with and loosening the standard demanded for certain guys. Which leads into...
3) Biases and favoritism. The meritocracy the coach established earlier on crumbles as players see their peers performance slipping without being held to account. Meanwhile, they themselves are still held to a high standard. Coaches darling makes mistakes shift after shift with no accountability, and then a new player slips up once over the course of a game they were otherwise excellent in and gets benched or scratched as an example. This kills morale and hurts the coaches credibility in the eyes of the increasing number of players he never won with, especially as the years since the coach won stack up. Eventually, the coach 'loses the room' and is fired when enough players make it clear in end of season meetings.
