NFL franchises make mature shift toward patience and proactivity

The NFL’s 32 franchises are cluing in to the fact that patience and proactivity are important ingredients in any successful formula.

The 32 franchises that comprise the NFL are often separated into two tiers. These categories are often labeled as “has a franchise QB/quality head coach” and “does not have [QB/Coach].” It’s the literal haves and have-nots.

There is, however, a different way to view teams beyond a positional or personnel-driven approach. It’s one that encapsulates the culture of a team, the maturity of a front office, the quality of its organizational structure.

Simply put, you can group franchises into those who are mature and those who aren’t.

Mature teams are marked by two primary descriptors: patient and proactive.

These are teams with long-term plans clearly communicated and understood by all levels of the organization and are working hand-in-hand to implement that plan. There is no hurry. There is no deviation. From the owner to the front office to the coaching staff to the marketing staff, a plan is being worked out at and agreed upon. No person or player is above the maturity of the team.

Immediately, some NFL franchises should be springing to mind. The league’s most successful teams. That’s an excellent place to start, but even some of the league’s least-talented rosters are already on board with these principles. The good news for the NFL’s dregs is even some of the most miserable fan bases can begin to believe as maturity is becoming en vogue.

Somehow, the NFL is moving from being known as Not For Long to a more patient, mature approach across the board.

Patience

Patience on its own doesn’t win games. Ask the Cincinnati Bengals who has the league’s most patient owner in Mike Brown. When the team finally fired Marvin Lewis as head coach a year ago, the majority of fans saw it coming a few seasons too late. For 16 years, Lewis was allowed to command the sidelines for a team that never won a preseason game in his tenure.

Yet patience is what allows for long-term plans to actually be implemented. A front office on the hot seat is going to make short-term decisions come draft weekend or in free agency. Watch the desperate spending of the New York Jets or Cleveland Browns in recent years compared to, say, the Green Bay Packers, who typically are frugal. The latter made an uncharacteristically huge splash this last year with Za’Darius Smith, Preston Smith, Adrian Amos and others last spring, but the front office had a vision for it. The Packers are known for building through the draft, but the players were there at the prices they wanted to pay, so they did. The result was the NFC’s second seed.

Teams are realizing this more than ever. Last year, there were eight head-coach openings and this year looked like another carousel where one quarter of all teams would try again. Then came the olive branches extended in Detroit, Atlanta, and New York (Jets). In those instances, owners were faced with the proposition of paying a head coach to not work for them anymore while also hoping to land the next hot hire.

Here’s the thing to remember: each head coach hired was, at one point, the next hot hire himself. Matt Patricia was hired to coach the Detroit Lions after building a strong resume under Bill Belichick as his defensive coordinator. Dan Quinn did the same under Pete Carroll in Seattle before joining the Atlanta Falcons. The Jets hired Adam Gase, well, for some reason.

The NFL is a “what have you done for me lately?” league, but annual variables change the game. Owners are beginning to understand.

Proactivity

This falls in hand-in-hand with being patient, but proactivity is still its own mark.

The NFL is built for reactive teams. The draft system rewards the worst teams and penalizes the best, and the notion of cap space attempts to create further parity. Yet within that, some teams have been able to successfully remain proactive (at least as much as possible). The New England Patriots have been the model franchise at this.

Given the variability of injuries, the Pats have been consistent in their investments at quarterback over the years in order to maintain a consistently high ceiling at the game’s most important position. Despite short-term needs at other positions, the Pats have sunk early-round picks in the likes of Jimmy Garoppolo, Jacoby Brissett and now Jarrett Stidham in order to stay proactive behind Tom Brady on the depth chart.

The Kansas City Chiefs turned a corner when they implemented a long-term plan under head coach Andy Reid in 2013 and brought in Alex Smith. In 2017, they made the well-calculated draft move to get Patrick Mahomes. Everything was clearly organized and communicated and the result was a remarkably drama-free quarterback transition in a league that knows how to manufacture turmoil in any situation. Now the Chiefs look set for the next decade at the game’s most important position.

Let’s go back to those patient Bengals for a second. This looked like a useless season, but imagine the patience and proactivity required to do what they did. They didn’t lose games because they were miserable. Mike Brown gave new head coach Zac Taylor a full season to learn the roster that was already in house.

Compare this to the approach new leaders typically take, which is to flush away most players to whom they have no attachment or investment. That sort of reactive approach can only hurt a franchise who might let real talent go in the name of doing things like they’re always done.

Fortunately an increasing number of teams seem to understand seismic changes don’t necessarily need to be made if slight ones can make all the difference.