Ever since Bill Parcells’ famous quote about his desire to control the roster of any NFL team for which he was the head coach, it has been customary for many NFL head coaching candidates to seek control over the player roster of their teams.
The track record of coaches at controlling and managing rosters is at best a mixed one. For some coaches, it is yet another distraction from the high-intensity business of coaching.
Ownership in NFL franchises has become very adept at window-dressing when it comes to who controls roster decisions. This is partly because, ultimately, the person with the check book controls the roster, and that is the owner or the ownership group. No matter how much many franchises attempt to portray their GM and coach as being in total control of the roster, it is an inescapable reality that sometimes owners fall in love with players who are in the NFL draft or free agent pool, and sometimes insist that they be selected or recruited, or even played when they are not ready or a good fit for the team. That seldom gives good results, since the owner is basically disenfranchising their own in-house leadership. However, it happens.
There are also numerous franchises where the head coach is really in control of the roster, and the GM effectively works for the head coach. However, you could not guess this if you looked at the org chart. A good example is the New England Patriots, who do not have a GM, and where Nick Caserio, the Director of Player Personnel, works for Bill Belichick. Belichick has control of the roster, and he may be one of the few coaches in the NFL who does enjoy total control.
The historical rule of thumb has been that the coach works for the GM, so if a franchise fires its head coach and GM (which often happens, as the owners clean house), the normal expectation that the GM is hired before the head coach. If it happens the other way round, the risk is that the GM finds himself with a head coach that he did not select, and ultimately cannot form a constructive working relationship with.
The 49ers are now looking for both a GM and head coach, having fired their previous GM and head coach at the end of the season. They have apparently struck out once already on the GM front, with Nick Caserio declining to interview for the GM position. I am expecting that the 49ers will struggle to fill both open positions, given the bizarre public comments of Jed York, which, frankly, made him look like a petulant child. They appear to have interviewed GM candidates already, and somebody will ultimately take the job. However, whether that person has the skills and freedom to succeed is an open question.
