An NFL Head Coach’s Guide to Creating a Culture Change

Congrats on your new gig. Here's how to change the culture of your NFL team in one year.

So, you’re a new head coach who has spent a few weeks around your team to mixed results. Some days things seem to be going well. Some days, it just feels like you’re just not connecting to all the players you inherited. This is much harder than it looked on Zoom throughout the early spring months when you could have someone from IT throw the Tiger King background onto your screen for an easy laugh to break the tension.

Fear not, though. We’re here to provide an essential service. Just like our best-selling guide for how new head coaches can avoid an early exit by systematically blaming everyone around them, we also have an answer for redirecting the focus of a new club. We call it our Premium Culture Change Guide and for less than half of a subscription to Pro Football Focus (which you should also start looking at) you can keep your team and the pesky media eating out of your hand for the entire season.

Danielle Parhizkaran/NorthJersey.com via Imagn Content Services, LLC; Handout Photo-USA TODAY Sports

1. Immediately release your most interesting player.

Is there a player on your roster who has any opinion whatsoever on the world at large outside of football? Is he popular with the fanbase? You know what to do. These “thinkers” are only going to get in the way of your master plan, which is a firehose of vague platitudes that you’ll launch at the players on day one—“We want to be a tough, physical team that controls the line of scrimmage and wins football games”—without any direct instruction on how to achieve said goals. The problem with guys who ask questions is that they might end up motivating other players to ask questions, stuff that isn’t germane to progress like: “Why are we doing this?” Or, “Didn’t you tell us this word meant something else yesterday?” Or, “It seems like a lot of the guys are super confused, could you explain it in a different way?” Stuff like this gets in the way of our true goals: To appear sweaty and tired in front of the media so that they write stories about how sweaty and tired we are. This is why you worked hard all these years. Sweaty and tired.

2. Dismantle the existing ping-pong tables and signage. If the ping-pong table has already been dismantled, order a new one.

Remember, you are the stepdad. If the situation calls for George Patton, throw on a green helmet and start banging out pushups. If the situation calls for Neil from The Santa Claus, then throw on a funny sweater and begin listing off all the Malcolm Gladwell books you’ve read. NFL head coaches have kept the furniture moving and printing businesses thriving throughout even the most difficult of times. Teams will spare no (relative) expense when it comes to fulfilling a coach’s wild-eyed vision of what a locker room should look like, even if that means replacing one 30-foot-by-25-foot billboard that says Alignment, Assignment, Technique with a new one that says Fundamentals. Do they mean the same thing? Yes! Could you survive one minute longer with the old one hanging in the hallway near the main entrance bathroom? No chance.

Winning this battle of passive aggression against the previous regime is paramount to your campaign of success. You need to prove you did it your way, which, consequently, is a lot like the previous guy’s way but you just have to make it sound a little different.

3. Completely regress into your past and begin to act like the wild, out-of-date mentors of your childhood.

Think the gym teacher from The Wonder Years. Embrace being one of those insane, pre-scientific athletic coaches who are skeptical of everything from stretching to plant-based protein. Begin running laps after practice, hiking up your shorts and ordering tall glasses of whole milk in front of the other players. Force your men to climb a large rope in the middle of the room. All of this worked for you, right? It made you into the successful coach you are, which means that six dozen millennials from diverse backgrounds are sure to fall in line.

4. Sign a geriatric veteran who you once shared a bagel with during a one-year stop with a previous team to legitimize the operation.

Remember that 38-year-old tight end who you coached at the positional level five years ago? That’s the guy we need right now. Is he fast? No. Can he catch? Not really anymore, no. Will he contribute on special teams? Absolutely not. Does he cost well above the veteran minimum? You bet. This is the key to everything. Bring in the guy everyone knows you’re paying just to tell everyone else in the locker room that you have an idea of what you’re doing. There is no way the other players will see through this. It’s a fool-proof plan.

5. Alienate a high-profile player who you cannot cut and hold him as an example.

Stars make things complicated. Sure, they are “good” players who “make the offense work” but they get in the way of how much credit you’ll eventually get for wins and losses. This can’t happen! That perennial 1,000-yard wide receiver who needs a contract extension? Drag your feet on that. Your ascending star quarterback who had a breakthrough last season? Fire his position coaches and install a completely new system. The cornerback, who is so talented that the entire defensive scheme rests on his shoulders? Dismiss his accomplishments publicly and start complementing the nickel corner with an opposing QB completion percentage of 85%. Remember, Bill Belichick yelled at Tom Brady for 20 years and they had a completely healthy relationship. Completely healthy! No repressed rage or anger there. It’s important for the bad players on your team to see you yelling at the best player, because it shows them that when they follow all your plans and become a great player, they can get screamed at in front of scrubs too! Ah, luxury.

So, that should get you started. Remember, when becoming a head coach, it’s incredibly important to constantly praise America, its democratic ideals and the military while running your team like the dictatorial regimes they fought against for hundreds of years. And, when it all inevitably goes south, remember, you still have plenty of options.