New Age Coaching is Not So New

The Coaching Carousel is just about finishing up, and the new Head Coach hires have us diving into Coaching Trees and the Super Bowl coaches amplify our intrigue. Look at the two Head Coaches in the Super Bowl this year, both are young “new era” coaches. Sean McVay of the Los Angeles Rams and Zac Taylor of the Cincinnati Bengals go head to head (or went head to head, depending on when you’re reading this). These two facing off against each other in the big game is nothing short of a BIG deal. They are cut from the same cloth, both coached together in Los Angeles as Zac Taylor was an Offensive Assistant for McVay from 2017 to 2018 where he was the WR and QB coach before landing the Head Coaching gig in Cincinnati in 2019. That alone has this coaching clash as one of the main story lines of the Super Bowl, but these two coaches and their influence on the “new era” have influence that goes farther back than 2018, way farther…

So where did Sean McVay learn football, who taught him to be so successful? Sean McVay started coaching after learning the WR position at the Miami University of Ohio where he played 3 seasons. Directly after his graduation, he went into NFL Coaching as an assistant WR coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers under Jon Gruden. McVay might have picked up a thing or two from Gruden, as this season was not the only time a Gruden would cross paths with McVay, as Jon Gruden’s son Jay coached with McVay for a few years. Skip a year and this is where things get put under a microscope. In 2010 Sean McVay made the best decision of his life and joined the Washington Commanders (then the Washington Redskins) coaching staff under, none other than, coaching legend Mike Shanahan. You might scoff, but Shanahan’s Coaching Tree is nothing short of legendary, and currently contains 4 Head Coaches in the NFL today, with 3 others having held Head Coaching roles recently. While McVay was the Tight Ends coach to start, the focus during his stint in Washington was running the ball in creative ways. He became the Offensive Coordinator in 2014 where he would coach 3 seasons before he was named Head Coach of the Los Angeles Rams and labeled an “Offensive Genius.”

The Meat and Potatoes are coming up, but let’s address Zac Taylor first. Taylor’s Offensive influence started where he played QB at Nebraska under Bill Callahan… And this is where it gets eye opening… Guess where Bill Callahan coached from 2015 to 2019? You guessed it! The Washington Commanders (again, then Redskins) where none other than Sean McVay also coached alongside him from 2014 to 2017. Coincidence? I think not. This is where the Taylor-McVay relationship crosses paths, both influenced by some of Callahan’s zone blocking ways and while Callahan may not have had a successful coaching career, he sure left his mark on McVay and Taylor. After college, Zac Taylor went undrafted, had a cup of coffee in Tampa Bay, then spent a season in the Canadian Football League. Taylor started his coaching career as an offensive assistant at Texas A&M under Mike Sherman before getting the call to the big leagues in 2012, as the assistant QB coach where he spent 4 seasons coaching Ryan Tannehill. Taylor then proceeded to have a short stint as the Cincinnati Bearcats Head Coach in College before he hooked up with his partner in crime Sean McVay coaching the Rams, and the rest is history.

While both aforementioned coaches crossed paths many times before reaching the big game on Sunday, let’s look at the newcomers and where they came from. Newly hired Vikings Head Coach Kevin O’Connell is also coaching in this Super Bowl as the Offensive Coordinator for the Rams. O’Connell was hired by Mike Shanahan’s son Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco during the 2016 season, before O’Connell went into the famous Mike Shanahan coaching tree location in Washington where Jay Gruden was the head coach. All this coach mingling is no coincidence as now we get to New Hire Mike McDaniel. Coach McDaniel just signed his contract to be the next Head Coach of the Miami Dolphins. Hey guess where McDaniel also coached… THE WASHINGTON REDSKINS! Under Mike Shanahan, where he also coached with Shanahan in Denver in 2005 where a big piece of the puzzle will unfold. If this doesn’t make your eyes pop out or make your pants move, I don’t know what does, cause while McDaniel was an offensive assistant with Dad Mike Shanahan in 2011, he joined son Kyle Shanahan as the run game coordinator in 2017. I’m not even able to get into Kyle as he is just an obvious “new era” Head Coach with all his crazy zone run schemes using Deebo all over the place and just an all around understudy to the main man I am highlighting, Dad Shanahan, where yes, Kyle also coached in Washington, duh if you haven’t figured it out. Also to note, Mike McDaniel coached as an offensive assistant with Gary Kubiak during the 2006 season in Houston, and yes Gary Kubiak is a Mike Shanahan disciple. The last coach I need to point out in this cycle is New Denver Head Coach, Nathaniel Hackett, who started his coaching career by crossing paths with Jon Gruden in 2006 as a Quality Control Coach and then later working as an Offensive Coordinator in Buffalo under Doug Marrone. In 2013 Hackett showed off his run game prowess with CJ Spiller (1118 Tot. Yds) and Fred Jackson (1377 Tot. Yds). After his stint in Buffalo he became the OC for the Jaguars where he once again had the league’s best rushing attack, utilizing rookie and top 5 NFL Draft pick Leonard Fournette. In 2019 Hackett was hired as the OC for the Green Bay Packers under Head Coach Matt LaFleur, who is also firmly planted in the Mike Shanahan coaching tree as he was the 2010 QB coach in Washington (now it’s getting laughable) and LaFleur was the 2015 QB coach under Kyle Shanahan in Atlanta.

So nearly a 5th of the league’s current Head Coaches have had influence under Mike Shanahan, which is no joke and needs to be talked about. I also need to mention there are also a half dozen to a dozen other coordinators either in the NFL today or previously that can be traced back to Shanahan, such as Anthony Lynn, the aforementioned Gary Kubiak, Bill Callahan, and another maybe older reference but still worthy of mentioning, Art Shell. At this point you have to ask (I know I did) why are so many coaches coming out of his coaching tree now and why has it taken so long. I can only come up with one answer, the NFL is changing again. The NFL has ebbs and flows every now and again, from a running league to a passing league and now it’s starting to move back to a running league. Let me point out the obvious, Mike Shanahan was a west coast, run heavy, zone blocking genius who had more than six 1,000 yard rushers including names like Terrell Davis, Clinton Portis, Mike Anderson, and Tatum Bell to name a few. A man who also helped Mike Shanahan scout the aforementioned running backs is the current 49ers RB coach, Bobby Turner, who worked with Mike Shanahan in Denver from the beginning and he also had a stint with Mike Shanahan in Washington before going with his son to the 49ers. He had his greatest success in Denver from 1995 to 2005, where he went on to win 2 Super Bowls and made 5 other playoff appearances before things fizzled out ending in 2008. I looked back at what influenced today’s great influencer Mike Shanahan and found lineage back to Dan Reeves, who Mike Shanahan coached under in Denver for a time before a falling with Coach Reeves due to a spat on what the offense should look like under John Elway. Reeves was a Defensive mind who found his influence under Coaching Legend Tom Landry (AKA the Great Influencer) back in the 70’s. Coach Reeves also has a stellar coaching tree himself with the likes of Defensive minds Wade Phillips, Chan Gailey, Mike Nolan, and newly appointed Saints Head Coach Dennis Allen. So Reeves was influenced by Landry and Reeves influenced Shanahan, but they were not the influencers of the offense Shanahan ran, as they were defensive guys and they don’t help us fully understand what to expect of the “new era” of coaches today. For this we look back to the beginning of Shanahan’s coaching days, where he first started coaching RBs at Northern Arizona University under Head Coach Joe Salem, but I believe Shanahan’s main offensive influence was an old timey legend named Darrell “Dr. Victory” Mudra.

“HIS NAME IS DR. VICTORY, WHICH IS A REALLY GOOD NAME FOR A COACH. HE WAS ACTUALLY THE FOOTBALL COACH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA WHERE I WAS GOING TO SCHOOL. HE TAUGHT A SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY CLASS THERE AT THE UNIVERSITY. HE COACHED FROM THE PRESS BOX, AND THAT WAS HIS WAY OF GIVING HIS COACHES AND PLAYERS THE CHANCE TO, YOU KNOW, KIND OF DO THEIR THING, LET THE PLAYERS PLAY, LET THE COACHES COACH, AND THAT INTRIGUED ME. AND THAT’S WHAT HE TAUGHT. HE WAS YEARS AND YEARS AHEAD OF HIS TIME AND HE WAS VERY SUCCESSFUL AND A VERY INTERESTING MAN.”

Nick Nurse, Toronto Raptors Basketball Coach on Darrell Mudra’s philosophy of coaching.

After playing high school in a wishbone offense, Mike Shanahan played in college for Eastern Illinois University where he would later team up coaching with the little known legend of Darrell “Dr. Victory” Mudra. Coach Mudra came out of retirement in 1978 and led Eastern Illinois to a D-II title after finishing 1-10 the year before Dr. Victory got there. Alongside Coach Mudra, our guy Mike Shanahan (at 25 years old) helped coach the offense, which was led by the league leading rushing attack utilizing the Wing T offense. I don’t know what exactly went on that season, we may never know, but it catapulted Mike Shanahan’s career and made him into the run heavy guru who has passed the torch to all the new comers of today. A little more background on Darrell Mudra, he is a Hall of Fame College Coach who finished with a 200-81-4 all time record, started coaching in 1959, and had his most success in the 1960’s at North Dakota State, where he won his first National Championship. He was nicknamed Dr. Victory because no matter the level of coaching, he won and didn’t take credit, he gave it to his assistants and players. He only had one hiccup in his career, where he was the Head Coach of FSU from 1974-1975 where, unfortunately, the Athletic Director was quick on the trigger to fire him and hire one of the all time winningest coaches in all of college football, Bobby Bowden.

The New Era of Coaching is Not So New, the 70’s are coming back thanks to Football Men like Mike Shanahan and Darrell “Dr. Victory” Mudra.