OT: toughest coaching job in all of sports

[zls44]

St. John's, apparently

 

[Lefty2one]

The best jobs in every sport have the downside of pressure and expectations so I'll omit that.

The Cowboys.

• Crazy owner.
• The premier franchise in America's premier sport.
• More parity than any other sport/more difficult to win. You rarely have more talent than your opponent and when you do, the gap isn't as big as it is in other sports.
• NFL HCs have the worst quality of life of any major sports coach.
• More strategy and prep-work than any other sport.
• Managing the largest roster and largest set of assistant coaches in any sport.
• Dealing with more off-the-field nonsense from players than any other sport.
• The only advantage compared to other sports is fewer games and less travel.

As for the rest...

• The best college football coaches have a talent advantage over 90% of the teams they face. 7-9 games each year are gimme victories. Jimmys and Joes vs X's and O's.
• Being an MLB manager must boring as hell; a ton of travel and downtime, so many games, these days taking more orders than ever from the front office. It really is akin to babysitting. Strategically, you are making far fewer decisions and less game-planning than other sports. Baseball isn't rocket science.
• The NBA is weird because it's so reliant on talent. You can be a great coach but if the talent isn't there you aren't going far in the postseason; regardless of the team, your time is limited if you don't have elite talent. Also a lot of travel and a long season. It's a player's league so you don't have as much power.

A lot of it comes down to how tough it is to be an NFL coach compared to any other sport. You factor in similar expectations and pressure of the Yankees, Lakers, etc. but the Cowboys get pushed over the top for how difficult it is to be the coach of any NFL team.

 

[intlzncster]

I dunno.

I'm not sure we have anything in the US that comes as close to say... Brazil/Argentina and then Real Madrid/Barcelona/Chelsea in Soccer. Chelsea's had 13 different managers since 2003. Real Madrid has had 16 APPOINTMENTS (they've rehired a few guys.. they are on their 3rd manager so far this year)... Even Barcelona is on its 9th coach. They fire guys for going on losing streaks. Any losing streak. Not sure Manchester United is there yet, but PSG is getting there and even though they're ultra pragmatic - Bayern Munich can be brutal, too... they've hired 13 guys since 2000.

Here in the US? Eh - not too sure i'd want to be the football coach at LSU or Alabama. The Red Sox and Yankees are tough jobs too both with lunatic fan bases to keep happy. I mean w/ the Red Sox they're on what - their sixth manager since 2000? The Yankees are on their third?

I actually think the Sox job is a bit harder than the Yankees. Mainly because the market is a little smaller and much more claustrophobic. And Boston media is such a bunch of miserable bastards. Almost every one has built their careers on negativity. If you are winning, they are still trying to crucify you.

In NY, there are definitely bright lights, but the City offers so much, and has so many distractions, that you can 'hide' a little bit. Boston, you can't even go out to eat without getting killed by the lady behind the counter.

Boston doesn't have as many distractions overall; half the population has only the Sox to think about. And New Englanders tend to be a bit more miserable by nature.

Either way it's splitting hairs. jmo