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If experience truly is the best teacher, as the saying goes, then the Cowboys have what should be considered far and away the top-rated faculty in the league. ESPN’s Todd Archer has posted a great read on which teams have the most former players now on the coaching staff. Dallas holds the number one ranking, with more Cowboys coaches boasting NFL on-the-field experience on their resume than any other club. And it’s not even close.
Every team in the league currently has at least one coach on staff who played at some point. The Giants and Patriots have only one. The average is between 5 and 6 coaches who are former players. And then there’s the Cowboys, with a whopping 15 of their 26 coaches who used to suit up on Sundays. Only one other team- the Buccaneers- is in double digits, with 10.
Among the Cowboys’ 15 are several who wore the star in Dallas during their playing days: Kellen Moore, Marc Colombo, Jon Kitna, Leon Lett, Carlos Polk, Andre Gurode, Phillip Tanner, and, of course, Jason Garrett. The Cowboys are one of nine teams with a former pro currently in the head coach’s office.
With over 1,218 regular-season games under their collective belts, the ex-players now on the Dallas staff are an invaluable resource for the current squad, squarely in their heyday. They also bring an in-the-trenches perspective that often resonates differently than a whiteboard lesson from a guy who’s never been there.
“Marc [Colombo] brings a lot of intensity, and he brings a little bit of youth,” Cowboys center Travis Frederick was quoted as saying of his offensive line coach. “He can connect well with the guys and I think, not that you ever have to get our group to play hard, but guys want to play for him because you know he’s been through it.”
While with the Cowboys, Colombo played under Tony Sparano (who played in the league himself) and Hudson Houck (who did not).
“What I learned from those guys is how to teach,” Colombo said in the ESPN piece. “That’s the big thing, learning how to teach these guys standing up in front of the room and installing plays, and they’re the best I’ve ever seen do that. That’s where they helped me, being able to learn from those guys, then get on the field with a hands-on approach. It’s huge.”
Quarterback Dak Prescott, Archer’s article points out, went from having Wade Wilson to Kellen Moore to Jon Kitna as his position coach. All took snaps as Cowboys.
“The benefit is they’re guys who have done it,” Prescott said. “They’ve been in the league and have done it. They’ve been in there game by game, have been able to learn from playing experience. You have something like that, it’s much better than the guy that is just speaking off what he thinks or maybe he learned from one guy to another. But they’re speaking from game experience themselves.”
Moore thinks that first-hand knowledge of real-world and recent NFL action gives him a leg up with his players, some of whom are younger than he is.
“For myself, it’s kind of a unique situation because I’m one or two years removed,” Moore offered. “A lot of the things we’re asking Dak to do, I was with him in the room as a player and I experienced those things. I think you can relate and understand sometimes better when you’re talking the fundamentals or the technique.”
Stockpiling former players on the staff wasn’t necessarily the goal in Dallas. As always with Garrett’s crew, it’s about the right kind of guys.
“It’s important to have a balance between young and old, former players and guys who didn’t play, guys who come from different backgrounds, guys who are loud, guys who are quiet, different personalities,” Garrett explained.
“We think long and hard about what that chemistry is and what that collaboration is like,” he continued. “If you look at our defensive line, it’s a great combination. Rod Marinelli, a veteran coach, was not a player in the National Football League. Very demanding of guys, very clear in what he wants his defensive linemen to be all about, the drill work he does. And then you have a guy like Leon Lett, who has a lot of practical experience as a player, a great football player in this league, and he can hopefully connect with the players in a certain way and share some things with both Rod and with the individual players.”
Lett went to three Super Bowls as a player. If even some of what Lett and the other ex-players on the Dallas staff can teach rubs off and helps his current crop of Cowboys students get there, too, that will be a graduation worthy of some pomp and circumstance.
You can follow Todd on Twitter @ToddBrock24f7.
Gallery
Cowboys 2019 Offseason Player Power Rankings
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Every team in the league currently has at least one coach on staff who played at some point. The Giants and Patriots have only one. The average is between 5 and 6 coaches who are former players. And then there’s the Cowboys, with a whopping 15 of their 26 coaches who used to suit up on Sundays. Only one other team- the Buccaneers- is in double digits, with 10.
Among the Cowboys’ 15 are several who wore the star in Dallas during their playing days: Kellen Moore, Marc Colombo, Jon Kitna, Leon Lett, Carlos Polk, Andre Gurode, Phillip Tanner, and, of course, Jason Garrett. The Cowboys are one of nine teams with a former pro currently in the head coach’s office.
With over 1,218 regular-season games under their collective belts, the ex-players now on the Dallas staff are an invaluable resource for the current squad, squarely in their heyday. They also bring an in-the-trenches perspective that often resonates differently than a whiteboard lesson from a guy who’s never been there.
“Marc [Colombo] brings a lot of intensity, and he brings a little bit of youth,” Cowboys center Travis Frederick was quoted as saying of his offensive line coach. “He can connect well with the guys and I think, not that you ever have to get our group to play hard, but guys want to play for him because you know he’s been through it.”
While with the Cowboys, Colombo played under Tony Sparano (who played in the league himself) and Hudson Houck (who did not).
“What I learned from those guys is how to teach,” Colombo said in the ESPN piece. “That’s the big thing, learning how to teach these guys standing up in front of the room and installing plays, and they’re the best I’ve ever seen do that. That’s where they helped me, being able to learn from those guys, then get on the field with a hands-on approach. It’s huge.”
Quarterback Dak Prescott, Archer’s article points out, went from having Wade Wilson to Kellen Moore to Jon Kitna as his position coach. All took snaps as Cowboys.
“The benefit is they’re guys who have done it,” Prescott said. “They’ve been in the league and have done it. They’ve been in there game by game, have been able to learn from playing experience. You have something like that, it’s much better than the guy that is just speaking off what he thinks or maybe he learned from one guy to another. But they’re speaking from game experience themselves.”
Moore thinks that first-hand knowledge of real-world and recent NFL action gives him a leg up with his players, some of whom are younger than he is.
“For myself, it’s kind of a unique situation because I’m one or two years removed,” Moore offered. “A lot of the things we’re asking Dak to do, I was with him in the room as a player and I experienced those things. I think you can relate and understand sometimes better when you’re talking the fundamentals or the technique.”
Stockpiling former players on the staff wasn’t necessarily the goal in Dallas. As always with Garrett’s crew, it’s about the right kind of guys.
“It’s important to have a balance between young and old, former players and guys who didn’t play, guys who come from different backgrounds, guys who are loud, guys who are quiet, different personalities,” Garrett explained.
“We think long and hard about what that chemistry is and what that collaboration is like,” he continued. “If you look at our defensive line, it’s a great combination. Rod Marinelli, a veteran coach, was not a player in the National Football League. Very demanding of guys, very clear in what he wants his defensive linemen to be all about, the drill work he does. And then you have a guy like Leon Lett, who has a lot of practical experience as a player, a great football player in this league, and he can hopefully connect with the players in a certain way and share some things with both Rod and with the individual players.”
Lett went to three Super Bowls as a player. If even some of what Lett and the other ex-players on the Dallas staff can teach rubs off and helps his current crop of Cowboys students get there, too, that will be a graduation worthy of some pomp and circumstance.
You can follow Todd on Twitter @ToddBrock24f7.
Gallery
Cowboys 2019 Offseason Player Power Rankings
Continue reading...