Look at this season’s most successful franchises. Bill Belichick has full control of the Patriots. In Dallas, Jason Garrett had been with the Cowboys and knew exactly what he was signing up for. In Kansas City, Andy Reid brought in long-time friend John Dorsey to run personnel. In Atlanta, coach Dan Quinn was given final organizational say and works with GM Thomas Dimitroff on everything. The Steelers have a tried and true organizational philosophy. The Seahawks are Pete Carroll’s show, and GM John Schneider was brought in to get Carroll’s players. In Green Bay, Ted Thompson is a strong GM, but he had previous experience with Mike McCarthy before hiring him. John Elway runs the show in the Denver, and he won biggest with a coach (Gary Kubiak) he had a lot of history with.
Now let’s look at the recently failed regimes, they all have the same theme: all five involved shotgun marriages between coaches and GMs that had no previous working relationships (Les Snead/Jeff Fisher, Rams; Dave Caldwell/Gus Bradley, Jaguars; Doug Whaley/Rex Ryan, Bills; Tom Telesco/Mike McCoy, Chargers; Trent Baalke/Chip Kelly, 49ers).