Superbowls Grow on Trees

Originally posted by Niners99:
Coaching trees are only good for a couple generations. To say John Harbaugh or Mike Tomlin is from the Walsh tree because he was hired by a guy who was hired by a guy who was hired by a guy who worked under Walsh is really stretching it.

That being said, the Walsh/Seifert tree shaped the NFL. Their assistants made up the majority of the successful HC in the league for a long time.

That's a fair point. I think if you are OC/DC for someone on a branch or work many years with them as a position coach the connection is strong. John Harbaugh was pretty well entrenched under Andy Reid and one year with Ray Rhodes for a decade ('98-'07). He was a special teams coordinator so that was unusual. Andy Reid was under the Holmgren branch from 92-98 at Green Bay so that connection is strong. Ray Rhodes was directly under Walsh. Hence John Harbaugh's Walsh influence is strong. Tomlin's branch is weaker. He was under Dungy as DB coach for a few years and was a DC with Childress who was OC under Andy Reid in Philly. I also noted Dungy has a lot of influences even under Chuck Knoll as DC in the 80's so Dungy has a mix of various trees. However Dungy has four years as DC under Dennis Green who was a direct disciple of Walsh. That connection is strong. Overall I do agree that branches thin out over time and the strength of the branches are important. On the other hand tradition and the passing down of knowledge is also important and the coaching tree reflects that. I understand better why coaches revere their mentors and predecessors.....

Originally posted by WINiner:

Originally posted by blizzuntz:
I don't think Jed wants a branch, he is looking for the next tree.

Agreed and hats off to him for having the stones to go after it.

Not mad at all for Jed York wanting this.

Originally posted by sdaddy101269:
While I LOVED the WCO it's time has passed! It like every other offense gets figured out and it's been figured out! People keep clamoring for The Shanahans, Holmgrens and Grudens but their time and that offenses time has PASSED. The things that ALWAYS work in the NFL: a good oline, power running game and a creative pass / play action game and don't turn it over. That's it!

I do not think it's time has passed. At the end of the day, you need a truly great QB to win in this league. If you look at the last decade, most of the biggest proponents haven't had many truly great QBs. With that said, think about Colin Kaepernick's skillset projected into this offense. We have a lot of players that can add new wrinkles to this classic system.

Originally posted by kray28:

Originally posted by Niners99:
Coaching trees are only good for a couple generations. To say John Harbaugh or Mike Tomlin is from the Walsh tree because he was hired by a guy who was hired by a guy who was hired by a guy who worked under Walsh is really stretching it.

That being said, the Walsh/Seifert tree shaped the NFL. Their assistants made up the majority of the successful HC in the league for a long time.

Walsh himself is from the Sid Gilman and Paul Brown trees....although Brown apparently did him no favors.

Absolutely. I think he felt Bill Walsh was too soft or something to be a head coach. I remember a commercial years ago about "What if" where Dwight Clark didn't make the play on The Catch, the Cowboys win the game , but go on to lose Super Bowl 16 to the Bengals and it ends with Jerry Rice's #80 for the Cincinatti Bengals being in the Hall of Fame. What if the Bengals hired Bill Walsh instead of Bill Johnson (I think that's what his name was) in 1975. Maybe Ken Anderson makes the Hall of Fame.

In terms of the next great offensive mind, I like Adam Gase and I also like Chip Kelly's system, however I see some chinks in the armor for Kelly's.

Originally posted by SanDiego49er:
You are overthinking this to a degree. If you come from a successful program you get the opportunity for a head coaching job. Thus you have a chance to win a Championship. If you never get the head coaching job you can't win the Championship right? Getting the opportunity allows you the opportunity to win. If you never get that you can't win. Coaches could come from another tree too if they get the chance they could win. You never know until they get the chance and even then you wuold need enough time to prove it. It doesn't always come right away.

Well when I say Superbowls grow on trees I meant figuratively...

You have a point. It's hard to say how much opportunity others are getting. There are 32 teams though and from 2000 to 2013 there have been a total of 137 coaches among 32 teams. The average # of coaches per team over those 14 years was 4.2 coaches and the average tenure was 3.3 years. (Data from: http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/fired-the-life-span-of-an-n-f-l-coach) The total opportunity in years is 448 (14yrs * 32 teams) so there probably has been a decent amount of opportunity for outsiders.

Probably more than a majority of the opportunities come from those in the major coaching trees..However, Belichick is the only coach remaining on the same team since 2000 and the length of tenure should correlate with performance ...shorter tenures would indicate poorer performance in general.... I guess one can do an analysis to see the winning %, playoff %, Superbowl % from each of the trees compared to outsiders.

I think the tradition of passing along knowledge down the coaching trees is still very important. I think one of the reasons Bill Walsh wrote Finding the Winning Edge was to help future coaches and outsiders get the knowledge to be successful because of Walsh's bad experience with Paul Brown and the exclusivity of the football profession.

Anyways, I think the coaching tree is still a very good framework to use as a reference and part of a comprehensive review of potential candidates....in addition I would pop quiz a coach on Walsh's book Finding the Winning Edge : http://smartfootball.blogspot.com/2007/08/belichick-on-finding-winning-edge.html

some of these are such a reach lol

Well, the good news is, Baalke is a Parcells disciple, so whether we go Walsh or Parcells, we got a shot.

Originally posted by monsterzero789:
some of these are such a reach lol

Which ones are a reach?

Maybe Tomlin's connection is not that strong.... but the rest are pretty solid.

Also I think the diagram is off as I mentioned:
1. Fassel should not be on the tree.


2. Jim Harbaugh should not be on the tree. He's primarily been a college coach and two years a Quality Control and one year at QB under Callahan should not really count for much.

3. Ray Rhodes should have a direct branch from Bill Walsh. Gruden should fall under Rhodes, not Hackett.

4. Dungy has a mix of strong trees, but the Bill Walsh tree is significant via Dennis Green.

Originally posted by 16for6:
Well, the good news is, Baalke is a Parcells disciple, so whether we go Walsh or Parcells, we got a shot.

Yeah Baalke has a good mix of influence.

I think Charlie Weiss is a good OC candidate for some team... maybe not the 49ers, but some NFL team. He hasn't been a successful college coach, but he's won three Superbowls as OC with Belichick so his experience should count for something.


Not seeing a whole lot of potential under Parcell's tree....

Originally posted by Jd925:

Originally posted by 16for6:

Well, the good news is, Baalke is a Parcells disciple, so whether we go Walsh or Parcells, we got a shot.

Yeah Baalke has a good mix of influence.

I think Charlie Weiss is a good OC candidate for some team... maybe not the 49ers, but some NFL team. He hasn't been a successful college coach, but he's won three Superbowls as OC with Belichick so his experience should count for something.


Not seeing a whole lot of potential under Parcell's tree....

The lack of potential candidates from the Bill Parcels branch is why I'm weary of Josh McDaniels. None of them in that third tier have done much on their own.

Originally posted by Niners99:
Coaching trees are only good for a couple generations. To say John Harbaugh or Mike Tomlin is from the Walsh tree because he was hired by a guy who was hired by a guy who was hired by a guy who worked under Walsh is really stretching it.

That being said, the Walsh/Seifert tree shaped the NFL. Their assistants made up the majority of the successful HC in the league for a long time.

agreed. I think When you talk about anyone's trees (or limbs if you will) you have to look at what they specialized in per se. To say John Harbaugh came from bill walsh as a defensive coach is just reaching.

A coach who coached under walsh that uses the "WCO" is a limb from Walsh's tree.
A coach who coached under Dick Labeau (*sp* ) and runs the 3-4 and blitzes like Dick is a limb from the his tree.
A coach who coached under Don Corrayell (*sp* ) and runs his type of offense is a limb from his tree.

Because an assistant LB coached under Bill walsh and now won a SB doesnt exactly classify as being a limb.

The whole tree gets overplayed about as much as the term "franchise QB". All you want is a guy who is capable of winning a SB. All of those "franchise" guys arent exactly holding the trophy up every year.

Originally posted by Jd925:

Originally posted by Prospector:
Good thing spoiled rich boy Jed just cut our tree down then. Sell the team to the community, time for Packers style ownership, not going to put up with 40 years of this brat's incompetence.

My take on this situation is different. I think Jed did the right thing forcing Harbaugh out and I hope he finds someone in a stronger branch from the Bill Walsh tree. I think Jim Harbaugh's branch was weak and needed some pruning. We should probably start back with a stronger branch like Holmgren or Shanahan to build on and try to build a few branches from there with some younger coordinators.

Very nice post and perspective! Very well done. You title first had me thinking it was a troll post but not at all...more FO-hate.

Originally posted by Jd925:

Originally posted by 16for6:
Well, the good news is, Baalke is a Parcells disciple, so whether we go Walsh or Parcells, we got a shot.

Yeah Baalke has a good mix of influence.

I think Charlie Weiss is a good OC candidate for some team... maybe not the 49ers, but some NFL team. He hasn't been a successful college coach, but he's won three Superbowls as OC with Belichick so his experience should count for something.


Not seeing a whole lot of potential under Parcell's tree....

They need to update that tree. Bill O'Brien is the head coach of the Texans

Originally posted by Jd925:

Why do these coaching trees look like more like a root system more than a tree?

It just seems that a tree has it branches reaching up to the sky. Walsh would be at the base of the tree; not at the top.

Not a big deal. Just wondering.

Shannahan fuvkin sucks.

Originally posted by krizay:

Originally posted by Niners99:
Coaching trees are only good for a couple generations. To say John Harbaugh or Mike Tomlin is from the Walsh tree because he was hired by a guy who was hired by a guy who was hired by a guy who worked under Walsh is really stretching it.

That being said, the Walsh/Seifert tree shaped the NFL. Their assistants made up the majority of the successful HC in the league for a long time.

agreed. I think When you talk about anyone's trees (or limbs if you will) you have to look at what they specialized in per se. To say John Harbaugh came from bill walsh as a defensive coach is just reaching.

A coach who coached under walsh that uses the "WCO" is a limb from Walsh's tree.
A coach who coached under Dick Labeau (*sp* ) and runs the 3-4 and blitzes like Dick is a limb from the his tree.
A coach who coached under Don Corrayell (*sp* ) and runs his type of offense is a limb from his tree.

Because an assistant LB coached under Bill walsh and now won a SB doesnt exactly classify as being a limb.

The whole tree gets overplayed about as much as the term "franchise QB". All you want is a guy who is capable of winning a SB. All of those "franchise" guys arent exactly holding the trophy up every year.

I would say John Harbaugh's connection to the Walsh tree is very strong as I stated earlier. His entire NFL experience as special teams coordinator is under Ray Rhodes (direct disciple of Walsh) and Andy Reid (direct disciple of Mike Holmgren). That's John Harbaugh's entire NFL experience. The only thing unusual about John Harbaugh is he was a special teams guy for a decade and that was pretty much all of his experience other than his last year at Philly, Reid let him coach DBs.

Jim Harbaugh does not belong in the Walsh tree. Had he won a Superbowl I would have considered him an outside college coach beating the odds like Jimmy Johnson. Jim Harbaugh almost came through. He only had 2 years of NFL experience at the lowest level (Quality Control coach) which is essentially a lot of grunt work.. he did work with backup QBs as well. I think all the other qualities Jim Harbaugh had as a HC that enabled his teams to win was impressive and mainly just innate talent and willpower, not NFL coaching experience or mentorship.

Walsh was just not about offense, but about football and running an entire team. It's broad knowledge. As a defensive guy you need to know offenses and as an offense you need to know defenses. I do agree with you that defensive specialists have a stronger connection to defensive mentors and HCs, but it's all a part of general football knowledge.

Harbs should not be allowed anywhere near any of Walsh's branches

that scrub belongs directly under Schembechler's no title tree