Do the really great coaches coach players or a scheme

[JR44]

I have found the array of comments about Murray not fitting into KOC's offense puzzling.  Shouldn't a really good coach, which I believe KOC to be one, be able to adapt their offense around the talent they have instead of forcing players into one specific scheme.  I know there are a lot of system coaches who look for players to fit their system and I find that is like drafting for need instead of best player.  I think talent is much harder to come by than Xs and Os. I think the really talented coaches are the ones who adapt to their talent. 

I have always thought of Don Shula as one of the best coaches of all time, because he coached to his players strengths and not a scheme.  When he had Griese, Csonka, Morris and Kick, the offense was varied to their strengths, Griese was not a strong arm QB and played more a game manager in the offense and they pounded the ball with Csonka while having more open plays for Morris.  When they drafted Marino, one of the best passers in the history of the game he didn't force Marino into that offense, but changed it to his strengths.  Conversely, Jimmy Johnson came in and forced Marino to run his offense which was more run first and short passes.  He really wasted the last years of Marino's career and had little success in Miami.  He gets a lot of credit as a great coach, but I think that mostly was because of the Vikings and the abundance of talent they were able to acquire in a short period of time of time.

[medaille]

I think there's a lot of different facets of coaching that all go into being a great coach.

Ultimately, it all comes down to can you get the most out of your players and how you get there is a little bit of a style choice.

I think the amount of coaches that can be scheme agnostic is pretty rare. Almost all coaches are going to have a set of coaching schemes that they work best with and can teach the best and they'll mostly stick with them and fit their players around them.

That said, I wouldn't expect any coach to just be given a random set of BPA players with widely differing skillsets and expect them to build a cohesive plan around them, but I do think you'll struggle to be successful if you have a mismatch between the scheme and the QB.