Who do YOU want to replace Norv and Co?

[The Stig]

Throwing it out there, as I haven't seen it much suggested, but, what about Bruce Arians?

I know his college coaching record stunk (hey, it was Temple), but wouldn't that winning attitude from Steelers years and clearly a winning attitude with the Colts be a damned breath of fresh air around here?

He knew how to get the most out of Wallace, Antonio Brown, and Mendenhall in Pittsburgh too.

I would love the Shaw/Gamble combo from Harbaugh coattails, but, hey, I'd love me some Steeler tradition in So Cal too!

[WootMonkey]

Originally Posted by The Stig

Throwing it out there, as I haven't seen it much suggested, but, what about Bruce Arians?

I know his college coaching record stunk (hey, it was Temple), but wouldn't that winning attitude from Steelers years and clearly a winning attitude with the Colts be a damned breath of fresh air around here?

He knew how to get the most out of Wallace, Antonio Brown, and Mendenhall in Pittsburgh too.

I would love the Shaw/Gamble combo from Harbaugh coattails, but, hey, I'd love me some Steeler tradition in So Cal too!

You beat me. I'd actually really like that pick up.

[The Stig]

Originally Posted by WootMonkey

You beat me. I'd actually really like that pick up.

Cheers, sir

[AFCWeakEST]

Originally Posted by WootMonkey

Good news for those not wanting Miles:

Les Miles staying at LSU
http://espn.go.com/college-football/...xtension-raise

good. maybe one day in the swamp he'll field an offense.

[JammerHammer23]

Originally Posted by AFCWeakEST

good. maybe one day in the swamp he'll field an offense.

When Stephen Rivers takes over, there will be fireworks.

[LongTimeOCBolts]

Originally Posted by abernardojr

Similar to flipping a coin twice, the first coin flip has no effect on the second one (and vice versa).

Of course not. And nobody I know has ever thought so -- or argued herein.

Originally Posted by abernardojr

In other words, explain to me how if ten different coaches in the past failed to do something, that that has *any* influence on what the next different coach will do?

It doesn't. And nobody has argued that one coach's successes or failures caused a different coach's results.

Originally Posted by abernardojr

Try to use your logic of past sports failures affecting the future to validate these claims:

"No coach has ever won a SB with the Chargers in the past, so the next coach's 'odds' are lower in the future because of this."

or even

"San Diego teams has never won any championships in the major sports before, so their odds of winning later on are lower because of this."

Those two claims are the analogies I was using, and those claims are not true.

I would answer this, but you did it for me immediately afterward:

Originally Posted by abernardojr

Why? Because the empirical statistics don't have substance without any causation behind them. Now you can say that "the Chargers have had poor ownership in the past and struggled, and they have the *same* ownership now so they will likely struggle, which is a valid hypothesis because there is the causation of the ownership behind the initial struggles, and the continuity of this causative factor that leads one to believe that the effect will continue.

And then we get to the crux of the disagreement:

Originally Posted by abernardojr

But to apply this to a series of different coaches, for different teams, at different times? The only common thread they share is that they won SBs and went to different teams, and that's only a correlation.

I had said already that your logic was sound, but your assumption was not. Immediately above is the key faulty assumption: that "the only common thread they share is that they won SB's and went to different teams."

Let's start with an analogy I mentioned above. That family-run businesses are known to fail in the third generation:

From: http://hbr.org/2012/01/avoid-the-tra...usinesses/ar/1
"In the United States, a familiar aphorism—“Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations”—describes the propensity of family-owned enterprises to fail by the time the founder’s grandchildren have taken charge. Variations on that phrase appear in other languages, too. The data support the saying. Some 70% of family-owned businesses fail or are sold before the second generation gets a chance to take over. Just 10% remain active, privately held companies for the third generation to lead."

Now your position would seem to lead to the conclusion that this bodes nothing for the family-run business that we are hypothetically analyzing right now. After all, this cuts across all industries, different races, different countries, different cultures. So we would be looking at a company that seemingly has nothing in common with the prior companies.

Now -- will the failures of those prior companies cause the company we are looking at to fail? Of course not. But are there commonalities - patterns, we can look at that influenced the prior companies that most likely will influence ours? Many experts seem to think so. For example:

-- In contrast to publicly owned firms, in which the average CEO tenure is six years, many family businesses have the same leaders for 20 or 25 years, and these extended tenures can increase the difficulties of coping with shifts in technology, business models, and consumer behavior.

-- Family businesses face pressures to hire family members, instead of following careful screening procedures.

-- First time founders are usually extremely "hungry", while their children, who take over the company, were raised in a slightly less desperate need to succeed.

-- The third generation, meanwhile, has perhaps been raised in a very comfortable setting, and shares little of the fire with the founder two generations before.

-- There are more numbers, often, by the third generation - more people to squabble amongst themselves.

-- Many other factors have been considered.

At the end, is any of these factors the proven one? Or any combination? No. But even without absolute proof, the maxim has held true for decades. So it is accepted that some or all of these factors causes family businesses to fail in the third generally, and that being a family-run business is a predictor that a family run business currently is likely to fail in the third generation.

This has nothing to do with the prior failures causing the current one. It is shared causative factors.


Turning to our question, there are lots of things the coaches in question have in common (this is where key assumption is incorrect).

Possible factors:

-- Each coach has already reached the top of the mountain.

-- (Potential) each coach does not have the same insatiable drive, or need to prove himself, having done so already.

-- Each coach is older.

-- (Potential) perhaps each does not have the same energy level as when younger.

-- (Potential) perhaps each has a larger family.

-- (Potential) perhaps each has come to place more importance on his free time for a mixture of the reasons above.

-- Each coach is farther removed from the age of his players.

-- (Potential) perhaps each has more difficulty relating to younger players.

-- Each coach has moved his home (and probably his family).

There are as many other potential commonalities as we can imagine. We could also research all of the stats of the various coaches who have failed, to see if some, all, or none of the above are in common with all, or a majority, of the coaches who failed to win a SB with a second team. (Personally, I could see factors one and two above being important: the having reached the top of the mountaintop, and a lessening of the insatiable need to prove oneself.)

In sum: when a poster said he did not want a "retread" prior SB champion coach, you said (or certainly implied) that this thinking is faulty and illogical because the prior coach's failures will not cause few coach's failures.

But that is not the argument. The correct argument is that the forces at play that have caused every single prior coach to fail, may make it more likely that another attempt, will fail, as well.

You may not agree with this, or think there is a coach who is so good, it is worth a shot. But the wariness itself is not irrational.

[AFCWeakEST]

^ holy novel batman.

[The Moekid]

Originally Posted by JammerHammer23

When Stephen Rivers takes over, there will be fireworks.

Unless things change around here right quick, Papa Rivers is gonna pull an Archie if the Chargers franchise ever comes near another Rivers

[The Stig]

Gentleman, I give you, Coach Arians:

[WootMonkey]

Originally Posted by The Stig

Gentleman, I give you, Coach Arians:

He's shorter than I thought.