OK, so I'm just going to go off on a pie-in-the-sky wild blue tangent of epic proportions. With maybe a little rant mixed in for good measure.
Like some people here, I'm going to base what I'm about to say on my own experience in the work force.
So, the classic model to "build" a manager or an heir apparent to run a company, is to have that person start at the bottom and work their way up, preferably working in all the different departments of the company so that they know all the different facets of the business. You can see elements of that in the normal process of selection for head coaches. It's normally someone who has come up through the ranks, starting as a player, retiring and becoming a low level assistant somewhere, then moving up in responsibility and working with one or more position groups before becoming a coordinator, and finally graduating to be a head coach. There are some coaches who've skipped the player part, or at least, never played at anything more than a high school or college level.
The problem with this model is that just because someone is good at doing a job doesn't mean that they're good at managing other people doing the same job and/or doing the job of that higher level. It's a peter principle thing. You get people rising up the food chain because they're good at something, but then they hit a point where they suck, and that's where they spend the rest of their careers, doing something they suck at and probably hate doing.
In my business, most of the managers didn't come up through the ranks. My manager could not do my job. It can help to know what someone like me does, but in some cases, it actually hurts because they're out of practice or don't do it as well, and so they start making bad decisions based on faulty info that they think gives them more domain knowledge than they have.
Most managers are trained to be... managers. They know all the stuff about coordinating the projects, about managing the resources to make sure everyone has what they need, coordinating those resources between projects. They know which projects need priority and which ones can go onto the back burner.
You see a lot of coordinators who graduate to being head coaches and then suck at it. Many times a coordinator who is great in their specialty (like the offense) can't really reproduce that greatness on that side of the ball once they become a head coach. Brian Billick came to the Ravens from the Vikings where he was the OC for a great offense, but then at the Ravens, he could never reproduce that offensive firepower and won because he had great defensive coordinators. But also, the coordinators sometimes don't have the skills for management of the clock that a head coach needs to worry about.
Being a head coach isn't just about coaching, it's about scheduling the practices, getting their coordinators things they need, managing the coaches as well as the players, etc. On game day, they have to be aware of the big picture while the coordinators have to just focus on their side of the ball. I'm sure there are a zillion things a head coach does that I'm totally clueless about.
So, for me, I wonder why nothing has been put in place to just train people to be head coaches, to give them the knowledge they need to do their jobs as effectively as possible. I mean, maybe something does exist like that, but if it did, I imagine you wouldn't have guys like Culley and O'Brien screwing up basics like down and distance, whether to accept or decline a penalty, and clock management.
I'm not against someone who's outside the normal path for coaches to come in and coach. I find it hard to believe that McCown would be the right guy or that he would have the right skills and knowledge. But I could be wrong.
I just want the Texans to pick someone and it to end up a good choice even if we all *****, whine, and moan about it initially.
I apologize for the rant.
Now, back to your regular programming.
Boo, Easterby, Boo!
. Such a ridiculously absurd analogy. Ditto for your teenager across the street one as well. Ok i'll bite & use your analogy to boot. A general surgeon in the 1st few years of their general surgery rotation isn't all that much more experienced or even better than say a physician assistant with a specialty in CT surgery & 10+ years of real OR and case experience. You as a patient might feel better b/c your surgeon has respectable degrees, all types of experience removing hemmorhoids and fixing hernias and other actual varied experience, but that may not move the needle for you if you're coming to them for a bypass surgery. Lol.
