After the Washington Redskins lost to the Detroit Lions yesterday – the first team to do so in 20 regular-season tries, I heard the statement from multiple sports-talk radio personalities (and at least one television sportscaster) that players were starting to quit on Jim Zorn because of a perceived ineptitude.
I don’t buy it.
Part of me wants to say “it’s too early in the season for players to quit on a coach”, but frankly I don’t believe that most professional athletes “quit on their coach” at any point in any season.
Although a large percentage of the starters in the national football league probably aren’t as mature as most guys their age, I believe that for multiple reasons, a sort of professionalism overcomes any significant philosophical differences between players and coaches in the NFL.
There is a lot of money to be made in the NFL. Even the league minimums players earn based on union agreements are significantly higher than the majority of the men and women of the workforce in the typical age of an NFL player (namely, under 40 years of age). Most players, if asked, probably would state that they don’t want to earn the league minimum. Unless a player is firmly entrenched as a starter, he’s going to want to work to keep his job week to week, especially in a league where at the end of the year, team front offices determine ways to cut expenditures to manage the salary cap. Higher priced veterans who don’t provide a significantly higher level of productivity are often cut from teams in favor of younger players who provide more space under the salary cap to allow for the signing of free agents to fill perceived needs.
Those higher-priced veterans who don’t have competition among those sharing their position in the depth chart typically are either working to prove they deserve to be considered amongst the best at their position in the league by earning statistics which would make the case to get them voted into the pro bowl, or they’re doing it for the love of competition in a sport which they’ve played at various levels for typically a decade or more. In a lot of cases, it’s both of those reasons.
Why would any of the players who fit into those categories stop performing to the best of their abilities just because they disagree with any portion of the coaching staff? Unless you’re Manny Ramirez trying to get out of Boston or Randy Moss with either Minnesota or Oakland, I would predict that “quitting on a coach” would be counter productive and would considerably shorten a player’s career and/or diminish earning potential.
There are cases where a player has been one of the top competitors in a sport, and suddenly the effort given from game to game significantly declines (see: at least half the free agents signed by the Redskins since Daniel Snyder bought the team). In those cases, I don’t believe that the cause has much to do with the coaching staff. At the root of it, I believe that the player is mostly just using the sport as a way to make an extremely obscene amount of money, and now that they got paid, they’re attempting to play as cautiously as possible – as not to injure themselves – or to give only a mild amount of effort while persuing other of life’s interests.
I believe that most athletes enjoy the sport which they make their profession or at least enjoy gaining accolates and attention which comes from making the most of their God given talent.
As for the current Washington Redskins team? I’m sure there are a few players who disagree with Jim Zorn’s play-calling or feel as though The Z Man is destined to be replaced at the helm before the start of next season, but I doubt that any of those players are trying any less hard to win because of it.
Believing in a coaching staff, holding a coach in high regard or wanting to ensure undue blame doesn’t continue to get placed on an individual can make players work harder to try to win, but I don’t believe it goes the other way.
