The practitioners of the West Coast offense were once dominant in the NFL. Not too long ago it seemed like anyone who had ever assisted someone who had assisted West Coast mastermind Bill Walsh -- or even cleaned the pool of someone who assisted him -- was coaching gold and primed for his own NFL head spot.
But looking to the 2006 NFL season, it's clear there's another coaching tree that's standing a little taller.
There are plenty of successful West Coasters out there, still working the old magic. One of them was in the Super Bowl last season, another in the AFC conference championship.
But in 2006, the West Coasters are being overtaken by what we'll call the West Pointers. The name "West Pointers" is given in honor of the man who stands at the top of the tree, Bill Parcells. He coached at Army for four years and has carried a military bearing with him. Parcells' leading sideline progeny, his former defensive coordinator Bill Belichick, also has a certain martial quality -- not surprising, considering that Belichick's father, Steve, coached for 33 years at the Naval Academy.
In the 2006 NFL, the West Pointers will narrowly outnumber the West Coasters. Granted, some of the "limbs" of the West Point coaching tree are stronger than others, the weakest connection being new Rams coach Scott Linehan, who makes the West Point list on the basis of one year assisting Nick Saban, who assisted Belichick in Cleveland in the early '90s. But on the whole the groups cohere pretty tightly. Here are the rosters:
WEST COAST
1. Mike Holmgren (Seattle)
2. Mike Shanahan (Denver)
3. Jon Gruden (Tampa Bay)
4. Andy Reid (Philadelphia)
5. Jim Mora (Atlanta)
6. Brad Childress (Minnesota)
7. Gary Kubiak (Houston)
WEST POINT
1. Parcells (Dallas)
2. Belichick (New England)
3. Tom Coughlin (New York Giants)
4. Saban (Miami)
5. Romeo Crennel (Cleveland)
6. Eric Mangini (New York Jets)
7. Sean Payton (New Orleans)
8. Linehan (St. Louis)
You could make an argument that the West Coasters are the more accomplished group. The top three coaches on the list have won Super Bowls, and the five non-rookie coaches on that list have taken their teams to at least the conference championship in the last three years. Holmgren's Seahawks represented the NFC in the 2005 Super Bowl and Reid took his Eagles there the year before that.
On the West Point side, the top two guys on the list, Parcells and Belichick, carry the burden of accomplishment. And in the last few years it's really been all Belichick, at least in the NFL. Saban did win a BCS championship at LSU, and another West Pointer, former Belichick offensive coordinator Charlie Weis, has Notre Dame back in contention. What would really set this comparison on fire is an obvious and flagrant contrast in styles between the two groups, but there isn't one. The West Coasters themselves are not as philosophically coherent as they once were -- Shanahan runs the ball a little more comfortably than, say, Reid. And while the West Point coaches tend to have more severe personalities, it's not as if the West Coast coaches are giving their players a week's vacation between training camp and the season opener so they can go to Burning Man.
But if you wanted to say which group is hot right now, it's clearly the West Pointers. And not just because a 34-year-old like Mangini gets a head coaching job after one year of being a coordinator for Belichick. Coming into the 2006 season, the NFL's most intriguing story line is the old master Parcells latching on to Terrell Owens -- who is playing outside the West Coast offense for the first time in his career -- and readying to take what may be his last best shot at another Super Bowl. Then there's Saban coming on strong with a team that finished 2005 on a six-game winning streak and picked up a star quarterback in the offseason. Plus you've got Belichick, who will contend as long as he and Tom Brady are together. And don't forget Coughlin, a Parcells assistant in the 1980s, who could take the Giants deep into the playoffs this year if Eli Manning rounds into form.
The West Coasters as a group are a stand of redwoods. All five of the veterans have proved themselves to be the kind of coaches who will last in the NFL as long as they want to. I would bet that four of those seven West Coach coaches will put teams in the playoffs this year -- the same number I would pick for the West Pointers.
But the thing about the West Coast philosophy is, it doesn't feel like the future anymore. It can't. Not with so many teams going the other way.
