For me, there was just one memorable line from the otherwise forgettable 1996 presidential race between incumbent Bill Clinton and his opponent, the 73-year-old Sen. Bob Dole. Clinton would say, almost sadly, that it was not Dole’s age that was the problem but the age of his ideas. (Clinton, it must be said, could have used a little age on a few of his ideas.) That line came to mind Wednesday, a historic day in sports. That afternoon, the Seattle Seahawks announced that Super Bowl-winning coach Pete Carroll was out after 14 years. Then, seven-time college football champion Nick Saban of Alabama announced his retirement. And lastly, news leaked that Bill Belichick, the six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach of the New England Patriots, would be leaving his team as well.
As these titanic partings of ways were reported, many throughout the sports media made the case that it was time for the three septuagenarians to find a village and golf cart in South Florida. But it is not the age of the three men that is the problem. It is the age of their ideas.
No one is doddering here. But the sport is changing every season, mostly in ways that make it easier for offenses to score.
The 72-year-old Carroll has been described as the epitome of “youthful energy.” Constantly chomping gum, his fervent freneticism could wear out assistants half his age. Saban, also 72, just coached his team to the SEC title and the semifinals of the College Football Playoff, where it lost in overtime to eventual champions Michigan. After a disastrous early-season loss to Texas, the turnaround he led was among his finest work. And while New England’s offense was awful this year, Belichick actually led a top-flight defense. But week after week of losing 10-6 in the freezing cold made all of New England embittered enough to want a divorce before things got nasty, and all of Belichick’s obnoxious charm just looked obnoxious.
All three have the capacity to coach. No one is doddering here. But the sport is changing every season, mostly in ways that make it easier for offenses to score. The game has been tilted in favor of the quarterback, with less hard-hitting tackling and more TV-friendly passing. What do Carroll, Saban and Belichick have in common? As young coaches, they were all schooled on the defensive side of the line. When they have had great offenses, it has been because of offensive coordinators, all of whom went on to head-coaching jobs at the college or pro ranks. Their mindset that starts with defense is just not as effective in 2024.
Saban has adapted better than his NFL counterparts, moving from a running to passing offense and changing whom he recruits. But while both the professional and the college game have transformed on the field, the latter has also shifted radically off the field in just the last few years. In the age of name, image and likeness (NIL) rights, young athletes are getting seven-figure deals, and relaxed penalties for transferring schools means even more competition — and money — not only for recruiting players, but for retaining them.
For Saban, whose $ 11 million salary makes him the highest paid public employee in Alabama by a mile, this was not a world where he wanted to coach. By all accounts, he has no interest in recruiting high schoolers on the basis of how much money he can raise from boosters to pay them. It is one thing for a 72-year-old man to have to beg 16-year-olds to attend his program. But to have to now suck up to boosters too? For Saban, who will have the TV job of his choosing, there are easier ways to make money.
There are a lot of reasons to doubt whether Belichick could be successful as an NFL coach again. His years coaching without Tom Brady as his quarterback produced eight losing seasons. His gruff, curdled demeanor also does not exactly jibe with today’s athlete. But most of all, he rarely trusts anybody outside of coaches he has already worked with, even though that coaching tree has borne little to no fruit. It is a cycle of retread assistants, often fired as head coaches elsewhere, and as hidebound to old ideas as their boss. Belichick even has two of his sons on his staff (a form of affirmative action that exists on several teams and of which no one speaks).
But if any of the three can prove age is just a number, it’s Carroll. Before going to Seattle, Carroll was a coaching legend at the University of Southern California and still is discussed in hushed tones among Los Angeles sports fans. There is a potentially great fit with Carroll and the coachless Los Angeles Chargers, who have the kind of star quarterback in Justin Herbert that he simply did not have in Seattle. These are three men behind the game’s curve. Carroll is the one with the energy to catch up.