Yes, I guess that I am attacking the "traditional structure". It strikes me as a case in which American sports have taken over something from baseball which probably makes sense there, since most of the action lies in the personnel department but is intrinsically dysfunctional.
Not sure why it would make more sense in baseball.
The idea is that one man cannot handle all of the responsibilities.
It makes sense to have the HC dealing with the players, schemes, assistant coaches, strategy, film, scouting of opponents, etc and someone else in charge of developing a draft board and film study of potential FAs along with 'running the football department'.
That's the problem. The GM judges if he did a good job with the resources given by whom? The GM!
And the GM is accountable to the owner. You are implying no 'manager' should have personell authority over direct reports. The owner assesses the GM and the GM assesses the coach. Certainly he is accountable to the owner for that assessment.
Take away the GM and you have Jerry Jones.
Absolutely. But why does it have to be a GM who is also a personnel guy? After all, since BB is both coach and GM, his boss is Mr Kraft.
BB is clearly the exception. As I said, you could have the GM report to the HC as really happens here, but I cannot think of another HC who could really handle that, and I don't believe BB could either unless it was a case of someone likeminded that he could trust to do their job while he is coaching the team.
I think that it makes a lot of sense for the owner to have a "football guy" to advise him, but see no reason why that should be a GM who is also responsible for personnel and hence has a clear conflict of responsibilities.
I don't see the big conflict. His job is the success of the organization. You seem to have a jumping off point that the GM works against the HC rather than with him.
You can't have everyone report to the owner, or again you are the Cowboys.
The HC is only one of many that report to the GM, who is essentially running the entire organization and delegating responsibliities to the HC and all other employees. I'm not sure who you want to be in charge. Someone has to be or you have chaos.
Try looking at it through the eyes of the owner of the Browns, Dolphins, Bills, Redskins etc. Would you really want to bring in the type of coach they are bringing in and give them total unbridled control?
Look at the Ravens, who are a clear example of the coach coaches and the GM runs the show.
[quite](By the way, British soccer has always been very different: everything flows through a manager who reports to a Board of Directors of the club. The Chairman of the Board may or may not be the largest shareholder. Recently, there have been attempts to introduce a "Director of Football" between the board and the manager, but the record hasn't been good -- it's only led to conflicts about who has authority over what, it seems.)[/QUOTE]
I know nothing about soccer but I would assume the duties of an NFL HC and GM are different and more extensive.
