by Michael David Smith

If you think there has been a lot of turnover among NFL head coaches this year, take a look at what has happened with defensive coordinators.

Six of the seven teams that fired their head coaches will also have new men leading their defenses, with only the Bills keeping their coordinator, Jerry Gray.

Another two teams lost their coordinators to NFL head coaching jobs when Lovie Smith left the Rams to coach the Bears, and Jim Mora left the 49ers to coach the Falcons. The Vikings lost their defensive coordinator, George O'Leary, who became the head coach at Central Florida.

The Lions, Packers, Jets, Chargers, Steelers and Chiefs all decided their defensive coordinators weren't getting the job done, so that brings us to 15 new defensive coordinators next year. It's still possible that some more defensive coordinators could get fired, and it's also possible that the Raiders could hire away a defensive coordinator from another team for the head job in Oakland. So perhaps half of all NFL teams will change defensive coordinators this offseason.

Offensive coordinator changes won't be quite as common this offseason, but all seven teams that change head coaches will have new offensive coordinators, too. Other changes include Pittsburgh losing Mike Mularkey to Buffalo, San Francisco losing Greg Knapp to Atlanta, and Cleveland firing Bruce Arians.

I'm not asking you to feel sorry for these guys; they do get paid a lot of money to do something they love. But only four coordinators became head coaches, while 20 got fired. Can you name another job where you're five times as likely to get terminated as you are to get promoted?

Setting out to discover just how much difference a new coordinator makes, I've looked at the coordinator changes in the past three offseasons and compared how many points the team scored or allowed and how many yards the team gained or allowed with the new coordinator as opposed to the guy who departed. I also think it's important to make a distinction between the teams that lose their coordinators because he was hired as a head coach by another team (or in the case of the Redskins taking Marvin Lewis from the Ravens, given an assistant's job but more money), as opposed to the teams that choose to fire their coordinators.

I realize that points and yards aren't perfect measures of the relative qualities of an offense or defense. Certainly, when Steve Spurrier became the head coach of the Redskins and Marvin Lewis became the defensive coordinator, I would blame Spurrier's offense for the fact that the Redskins both scored and allowed more points in 2002 than they did under Marty Schottenheimer's ball control style in 2001. But it at least gives us an idea of whether the units with new coordinators improved.

It turns out that teams that change coordinators only do better with a new guy slightly more often than they do worse. So if your favorite team changed its coordinator this off-season, your chances of seeing that unit improve are only somewhere between 50 and 60 percent.

19 of the 32 teams (59 percent) that changed defensive coordinators in the past three offseasons allowed fewer points with the new coordinator; 17 of 32 (53 percent) allowed fewer yards. Four of the seven whose coordinators left by choice improved in points allowed and only one of the seven whose coordinators left by choice improved in yards allowed.

21 of the 37 teams (57 percent) that changed offensive coordinators in the past three offseasons scored more points with the new coordinator; 22 of 37 (59 percent) gained more yards. Only two of the 37 lost their offensive coordinators to head coaching jobs: The Bears, who replaced Gary Crowton with John Shoop when Crowton left to coach BYU, and the 49ers, who replaced Marty Mornhinweg with Greg Knapp when Mornhinweg left to coach the Lions. Both the Bears and 49ers scored more points with their new offensive coordinators, although the 49ers gained fewer yards.

Teams that changed defensive coordinators
*indicates coach chose to leave for greener pastures

Teams that changed offensive coordinators
*indicates coach chose to leave for greener pastures

Some interesting notes:

--Romeo Crennel is starting to garner the genius label working for Bill Belichick in New England, but it was only three years ago that Butch Davis fired Crennel in Cleveland.

--Most of the people who became defensive coordinators had been defensive assistants before they got the job, but when the Ravens hired Mike Nolan from the Jets, they first made him their wide receivers coach before promoting him to defensive coordinator when Marvin Lewis left. That Ravens defense has played quite well for Nolan, so it's surprising that a guy with experience on both sides of the ball is never mentioned as a head-coaching candidate.

--He cries about it now, but when Dick Vermeil first hired Greg Robinson to become his defensive coordinator, he thought he had stolen a brilliant young coach from a division rival.

--I don't understand why some coaches choose not to have a coordinator. Yes, I'm sure Bill Belichick felt when he took over in New England that he was fully capable of running the defense himself, but what does it hurt to have another coach helping you out? Clearly, Crennel has been a big addition to the team. I guess I can forgive Belichick for being so arrogant as to think he doesn't need a coordinator, but the fact that Marty Mornhinweg thought he was such a great offensive mind that he didn't have to have a coordinator would be funny if it weren't so sad.

So when we see that changing coordinators doesn't make a huge difference, why do half the teams do it each year? Because coordinators are important enough that owners, general managers and head coaches think a change will greatly improve their teams. But at the same time, coordinators are expendable enough that general managers and head coaches don't feel that cutting one loose will send their team into upheaval, and inexpensive enough that owners don't mind hiring a new one. No one said the life of an assistant coach is easy.

Posted by: Michael David Smith on 10 Feb 2004

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