The coaches that players would most like to play for...

[DJ's left nut]

The NFL Network just announced some of the results of a fairly comprehensive study regarding player/coach relationships.

The coaches that players would most like to play for.

Tony Dungy
Lovie Smith
Bill Belichick
Herm Edwards
Mike Tomlin

Least like to play for

Tom Coughlin
Eric Mangini
Jon Gruden
Bobby Petrino
Bill Belichick

Now the obvious: In a league that is 70% black, 4 of 5 coaches named are African American...including the worst coach in football. Take Herm off that list and I guess you could ignore it, but Herm (and Lovie to a lesser degree) make the race issue fairly obvious. Nobody wanted to address it until the very end when one of the studio guys asked Faulk about it. Faulk said he agrees that as a black player, he trusted black coaches more in that he felt they were more likely to have his back. Sapp just said "I second that" and sat there all smug.

Now you look at the 'hated' list. Petrino is a throwaway name, IMO. Nobody wants to play for a lying, job hunting jackass. Toss out Belichick as well as he's on both lists (but notice he had to win 3 SBs to get there...) So you have 3 other guys that are seen as disciplinarians...2 have a SB ring and the 3rd is very new, but has shown some ability (certainly more than the guy he replaced...on the 'like' list). In the top list, only Dungy has won a SB, though I like Tomlin's prospects.

It appears to me that whether or not a player 'wants' to play for a coach is almost wholly irrelevant to whether or not a team will perform for him. I hope our next coach is of the ball buster variety. I'm tired of players coaches. It seems all players end up finding something to bitch about at some point anyway.